Live at the witching hour

It's long been called the witching hour--that space of time between afternoon naps and a meal on the table. I threw all caution to the wind a couple weeks ago and decided to broadcast live from my kitchen on Periscope for just a few minutes of the witching hour. Nearly every day.

Last summer was a tough one. And when I contemplated all the things I wanted to change or do or hope or pray (because I'm off the chart INFJ), I mostly just wanted to reclaim dinner. I wanted wholesome, thoughtful meals. I wanted everyone in his seat at the table. (They always sit in the same place and it matters to me.) I wanted conversation and laughter and us. Really, I mostly wanted us. 

So I read Dinner: A Love Story and Dinner: The Playbook: A 30-Day plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal for inspiration. And I was inspired. I was inspired by the enthusiasm the author has for family meals. I was inspired by her candor when she acknowledges how evasive those dinnertimes can be. And, really, I was inspired by her recipes, even though I consider myself a pretty accomplished family cook. 

I promised my family we'd eat a home cooked meal every night in September. then, I went all crazy and promised an unknown number of people that I'd pop into Periscope while cooking said dinner every day and let you know what we were up to. Further, I'd do with my kids on camera, since they were critical to dinner prep. I'm totally shy. I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea.

But it's been fun. We've had dinner at the table every night that we've been in town. And i've been on periscope several of those nights. I haven't even tried to 'scope with weekend nights and a couple of weeknights, it was either cook dinner and eat or periscope about it. But I couldn't swing both. Usually people Periscope selfie-style. But since I'm cooking on mine, I need a video guy. And he has a life, too, so, sometimes it just didn't happen. 

But mostly it did. And we'll continue at least through Setpember. You can find me on Periscope @elizabethfoss. I'll try to get better about tweeting and posting to Facebook when I know what time we'll be live. I've learned it is ridiculous to commit to a set time every day, because life just happens. But I will try harder to give some advance notice. I'm also going to work on a way to be more interactive. With Nick behind the camera, I'm not responding to questions and comments as much as I'd like. We're working on that. 

If you missed some of the earlier ones, you can catch all but the first few at Katch.me/elizabethfoss . Live ones stay live on Periscope for 24 hours.

As promised, here are notes for the ones that are archived. If you haven't watched any of them yet, I'd actually start with this one.

Watch: Marinara Sauce and Memories

Marinara recipe is in Dinner: The Playbook: A 30-Day plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal. (page 64)

My Aunt Lisette's recipe is:

Saute 7-10 cloves of fresh garlic in Extra Virgin Olive Oil until not quite golden. (It's important never to brown the garlic.) Add two cans of imported whole tomatoes or preferably fresh peeled tomatoes (a must in the summer when they are abundant). Just mash them slightly with a fork as this sauce should be chunky. Add seasoning: salt, pepper, and of course lots of fresh chopped basil. Simmer uncovered for only 25 minutes. 

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Watch Little Ones at the Table

Baked Potato Bar Dinner: The Playbook: A 30-Day plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal. (page 92)

Minestrone Soup is here on the Dinner: A Love Story blog.

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Watch Grace in the Kitchen

Chicken with Artichokes in Creamy Mustard Sauce Dinner: The Playbook: A 30-Day plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal. (pg 90)

Brussels Sprouts in Maple Mustard Sauce (essentially, pour melted butter, maple syrup, and Dijon mustard over trimmed Brussels sprouts and roast them in the oven. My kids seriously eat these like candy.)

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Grace at the Stove

Kale, Sausage, and White Bean Stew from   Dinner: A Love Story (page 250)

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Watch: Dinner Flexibility

Fish Nuggets and Kale here on the Dinner: A Love Story blog

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Watch: Chatting up Dinner

Sweet and Spicy Tofu from Dinner: The Playbook: A 30-Day plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal. (pg 198)

Spicy Green Beans: Finely chop 4 cloves of garlic. Trim your fresh green beans (about a pound for 4 cloves garlic). Put some oil in your wok. Turn on the vent. Cook the green beans until some of them are blackened. Add a little sprinkle of chili pepper flakes and the garlic and just heat the garlic until it's soft. Sprinkle with salt to taste. 

On Loneliness and Milkshakes

There is the faintest hint of crispness in the dawn these days, just a little teaser that alludes to autumn’s approach. The seasons are shifting. A previously quick early-morning grocery run took 45 minutes transit time one way yesterday. Back-to-school traffic is a real thing, friends. 

September is a season of gathering. Everywhere we go, it seems we are gathering in groups: in classrooms, on sidelines, in newly formed committees, on crowded planes and subway cars, on Braddock Road at 7:40 a.m. We are always together. And we are increasingly alone. 

Last night, I read the text from a sweet teenaged girl barely into her first week of school: I just feel left out and lonely. My daughter — several years older than the message sender — got up, grabbed her keys and told me she was off to deliver a milkshake. On her way out, she paused a moment and glanced back at me over her shoulder.

“I don’t know why we all think we are the only ones who are lonely,” she said. “Actually, I think we’re all lonely.” 

She’s right. We are.

The go-to cure for loneliness in 2015 is to log-on. Flip open a laptop. Click open a smartphone app. There you go; you’re now surrounded by oh-so-many people. And many, many times they will make you lonelier still. As we scroll through everyone’s edited versions of themselves, it seems like all those faces are close to other faces. They have to be. They huddle together to fit in the frame and freeze the moment for publication, thereby ensuring a perfectly preserved testimony to togetherness. 

Social media can make it seem like everyone has lots of friends and they are all doing spectacularly fabulous things together all the time. The illusion is achingly close to being real, and then it’s not real at all. Those events are happening and there are connections in those moments, but all is not as it seems. 

Away from the moment — away from the filters and the framing — people are lonely. Even in the midst of the crowds of people drinking lattes on stadium seats on Saturday afternoons and gathering on bus stop corners on Monday mornings, we are each in our own bubbles, yearning for connection. Increasingly, studies show that the more time we spend online, the more likely we are to use social media to displace sleep, exercise and face-to-face exchanges, leaving us vulnerable to loneliness, a sense of isolation and true depression. 

If we are going to cure the loneliness epidemic, we have to reach into the personal spaces of the people we care about and offer something better that what the screen holds. Together, we have to engage in authentic opportunities for relationship. Together, we have to commit to face-to-face (or at least voiced and heard) conversations.

Relationships require risk. They ask us to put down the mask and to step out, unfiltered, into the presence of another person. More than hashtags, we are a people who yearn for authentic, honest conversation.

To move beyond loneliness, we need to be the person who sees the need for the real, genuine presence of warmth in the lives of people around us and decides to be that friend. We need to be the girl who shows up with a milkshake in real life at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night and says, “You feel that way? Me, too.”

A letter to myself on my wedding day...

Dear Elizabeth,

You are so excited this morning! It’s all a bit like a dream come true. Ever the morning person, you’re about to jump right out of bed and into your very big day. Your plan is to meet your friend Lori at the hair salon. Lori went to high school with you. She watched this tumultuous relationship when you and Mike first started dating/breaking up/doing-something-that-wasn’t-dating-but-wasn’t-breaking-up.  She’s excited for you and she’s glad she gets you first today, to make sure she gets those curls just right and to talk you into a little bit of makeup. Let her do it. You’ll be glad you did.

When you get home, you’ll eat strawberries and cream for breakfast and then head downstairs to get dressed. You mother will want to help you. She’ll also want to mess with your hair, the hair Lori just finished. It’s ok. She just needs something to do with her hands in order to dispel nervous energy. And, by the way, she’s right; there’s a little piece out of place. If you let her fix it, you won’t notice it in pictures 28 years later.

After pictures at home, your dad is going to get into the car with you. You’ve saved money on a limo by having your friend Sean drives his father’s Cadillac. That was a good move. Sean is dear and familiar and a bit of comic relief. Your dad is going to want to tell you every single wise thing he’s ever heard. Let him. Many, many years from now, when you see that saying the right thing at the right time has become a bit of a struggle, you are going to appreciate how many nuggets he’s tucked away over time and you are going to respect and bless him for over-thinking everything. You are also going to recognize that you do the same thing. Grant grace.

At the church, surrounded by your girlfriends, you are so ready! Still, when you peek through side windows and see Mike walk out to the altar, you audibly catch your breath and you struggle not to cry. Don’t cry. Lori and the mascara and all.  Walk down that aisle and into your future. But know it’s not going to be exactly as you think it will.

People will tell you later that they have never seen a bride and groom so relaxed and so completely at ease with each other and with the Mass. You are going to pray the whole thing together, two hearts wholly united. It definitely will be a living, breathing sacrament—in the moment and in the decades to come. And you will laugh. You will look at each other throughout and smile at each other the smiles of just knowing what the other was thinking.  That twinkling laughter, that knowing, that’s a huge blessing. Don’t ever take it for granted.

You think that this is a fairytale. You think you’ve just walked into your perfect happily ever after. You think that this young man can make you perfectly happy. He can’t. Very soon, your life will be clouded by cancer. There will be a fight for hope and a future. There will be a challenge to faith (though it will be nothing like the challenge that will come many, many years later at the hands of the church). He’s not Prince Charming.

You're both about to learn that love is work. For a lifetime. And when in doubt, always remember that our best example of love on earth is the cross. If ever you wonder what the next move is, ask yourself how you can die to self for the person you love. It's going to be Mike's turn first. He'll teach you how.

He’s the guy who will drive you to every single chemotherapy appointment.  He will hold your hair while you throw up afterwards, until one day you have no more hair to hold. Then he will tell you that he really thinks that you are beautiful when you’re bald. And you will believe him. He will also tell you that you are beautiful when the Prednisone makes you gain 20 pounds. You will not believe him, then. It's too bad, really, because those pounds are going to come and going with babies over the next two decades and then, late in the third decade, they will return again. He'll still think you're beautiful. I have no idea what it will take for you to finally believe that about yourself. As you fight cancer, the doctors will tell you will never have another baby beyond the one you had the first year you were married. You will not believe them. Good for you!

His bedside manner so honed before you were 25, Mike will be at his best in labor and delivery rooms. He will tenderly coach those babies into the world. He will look at you in your moments of doubt and fear and he will speak with all the love and respect in the world. The rare gift of this man? He values your motherhood more than words can speak. That means that every time you are tired, every time you feel like a hamster on a wheel in a household of chaos and noise, every time you toss the alumni magazine in disgust and wonder if you’ve missed the mark on this whole vocation thing, you can rest in his abiding assurance: this is your calling and it becomes you. The vision he has for the wife you will be and the life the two of you will create is what will animate that that prayerful smile before the altar on your wedding day.

That vision will animate you for a lifetime. You think it’s all going to be a cross between The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie. You have absolutely no idea what it is to raise a large family; you just know you hear God calling you to do it. You know there will be struggles, but you figure they can be solved in about an hour every time. You think that now—now that you are a 21-year-old grown up --- there will be no dysfunction; everything should function perfectly.

Here’s the thing, sweet, idealistic girl: you bring a lot of baggage to this fairytale. The greatest lesson of your life thus far has been that you are responsible for everything that goes wrong. It’s going to take a long time to unlearn that. Your husband-to-be? The most patient teacher of that unlearning. He will blow a fuse on that count occasionally, though. And when he blows a fuse, no matter what the cause, there’s one very important thing to remember. Just stop talking. Quit. Just quit trying to explain and repair. It really makes him nuts. If you’re quiet, it’s much better. If only you would learn this today…

Even if you don’t know it, because you honestly do think that there’s no doubt you’re marrying Mike forever, your greatest fear today is the fear of being left. It’s a well-founded fear. You have a good reason to believe that people who love you can walk out on you and leave you in the midst of crisis. You learned it well in your growing years. Sometimes, especially early on, this fear will overwhelm you. But after cancer, you’ll know that you don’t need to fear abandonment any more. You’ll spend many, many years living free from that fear. After cancer you'll know; he's in it for better or worse, bald or fat. Warning: The fear, though, is not dead. It’s just sleeping. There will come a time when life is really hard and people you love will hurt you. Every memory and every chilling sorrow related to abandonment will come rushing back. Stay steady. Lean in to your good man. You’ll survive. This living a life of faith is not for the faint of heart. But you are a good mom, a really, really good mom. Try so hard not to forget that. Try not to get caught up in the inevitable mistakes and failures and so to overgeneralize and think that you are a mistake and a failure.  And your husband will never leave you. He will not forsake you. He will be both Father and Son to you as much as it is humanly possible for a man to be to his wife.

Put your feet on the floor, girl. Rush headlong into this glorious late summer day. Make all the promises. Dream all the dreams. Tonight, curl up together and know that this is where you will find true peace and rest for years and years to come. Gather the grace of this day. Take strength from it. And know it’s not going to be a fairytale. It’s going to be better.

It’s going to be a faith tale.

Dinner: The Love Story Begins

We got started on Periscope yesterday, chatting a little before dinner time. I learned a thing or two, most notably that it's probably not a great idea to let my 8-year-old man the camera and thereby read the live comments, unless I know for sure that the comments will be suitable for an 8-year-old. Working on that angle today...

Notes from yesterday: The recipe for pulled pork is here. I rubbed the entire thing with whole seed mustard after I browned it and before I put it in the crockpot. Other than that, I followed the recipe as given and it was delish. Highly recommended is the recipe for homemade barbecue sauce in the book, Dinner: A Love Story

We'll be back again today, right around 4:00, with Chicken Lettuce Wraps and some kitchen chatter. Here's the recipe, based on my friend Nicole's recipe and my own improvisation, depending on what's in the fridge.

• 1 1/2 lbs chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons wok oil
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tablespoon gingerroot, peeled and finely chopped
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 scallions, chopped
• can of water chestnuts, chopped
• anything that needs cooking and works here: green beans, mushrooms, carrots, peas
• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
•  iceberg lettuce or Boston lettuce leaves

Directions

1. Chop chicken into small pieces or pulse in the food processor if necessary.

2. Preheat large skillet to high.

3. Add oil to hot pan. Add chicken and stir fry until done. Season with salt and pepper, then add garlic and ginger. Cook for a minute more.

4. Add vegetables according to necessary cooking time. That is, add the carrots before the mushrooms. Just think about what cooks quickest and add the ingredients accordingly.  Cook until desired tenderness.

5. Add hoisin sauce and toss to coat. Transfer to serving platter and pile the iceberg wedges along the edge.

Join us on Periscope! I'm @elizabethfoss. 

Carried on the Crest of the Waves

n a recent vacation to the beach, my youngest child did her very best to gather up every seashell on the shore. One after another, she’d bring them to me, marveling over their intricate beauty. Sitting on a quilt on a small piece of the edge of the continent, looking over the vast expanse of the sea, I inhaled the wonder of it all. There is a God, above and beyond my imagination, who has created a universe so vast and so intricate that His design genius is staggering. This God, the one who has attended to every detail of the smallest seashell while also filling the land with oceans deeper and wider than we can see, asks me to cast my cares upon Him. 

And I don’t. 

I mean, I do, but not really. I arrived on that seashore more tired than I’ve ever been. Life had thrown me one challenge after another, and, because I am just a child in the surf, every time I stood up, another wave sent me tumbling. I struggled under my own power to wade to shore when really He was waiting and wanting to lift me on a wave and carry me there. 

As I fought the current and worked hard under my own power to fix all the things I saw awry, I grew exhausted and very, very anxious. My mind filled with a myriad of “what-ifs.” Increasingly, I began to focus on the possible problems instead of fixing my eyes on the One who calms the seas. Anxiety took a stronghold as I scanned the horizon, and I was overcome with the potential storms that might blow in. Like Peter, who strode across the water until he took His eyes off Jesus, I felt myself sinking into despair. 

Life just doesn’t work without God. All the “what-if” questions, all the fear over the next phone call, all the struggle over the next bill are, at their roots, a blatant lack of humility. Anxiety is when I think that the God who created the universe cannot calm the storms in my small life. Further, anxiety is fueled by the pride that tells me that I have to rush in and make everything better instead of waiting patiently for the blessings of the God who parted the Red Sea. He has a plan. 

I have to trust.

There on the edge of the ocean, surrounded by His vast and wondrous creation, I am reminded that I am very small, indeed. I am limited in my knowledge of God, and honestly, I am limited in my ability to fully submit to Him. I am small. He is great. The waves can crash around me, and I can stumble in fear while I try to control them or I can be knocked over by His glory. 

It is pride that compels us to try to control, and it is pride that fuels anxiety. Both St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine called pride the essence of all sin. Pride keeps us from knowing God, and it keeps earnest but anxious seekers from resting in the peace of Christ. We are people desperate for humility. C.S. Lewis wrote, “If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited, indeed.”

Every day presents a choice. I can choose to muddle through on my own power, pridefully believing that all good things depend on my ability to make them so, or I can choose God. I can awaken and submit the day to the master and creator of the universe. I can call out over the roar of the surf. In all humility I can beg for His help and also acknowledge that His plans are better than mine, that He is present in both the pleasure and the pain, that He works all things together for the good (Rom 8:28) if only I surrender to His majesty and let Him carry me on the crest of the wave safely to shore.