"He will see the light of life and be satisfied"

Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,

he will see his offspring and prolong his days,

and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

After he has suffered,

he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many,

and he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great,

and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

--Isaiah 53:10-12, NIV

Tonight I went to a Good Friday service at The Falls Church Anglican. Of course, the Old Testament reading was from Isaiah 52-53, the famous "suffering servant" passage. I've heard and read this passage many times before, but this time the phrase, "he will...be satisfied" stood out. I've really never given much thought to Jesus' own assessment of his death and resurrection, and I'd like to explore that here.

Of course, on the most basic level, we could say confidently that Jesus might be satisfied because he had obeyed his Father, and because he had finished the work he had set out to do. But any one of us could say that about any task set before us that we complete; there's nothing particularly striking about that idea. So let's think more about just what Jesus' task was, and what he endured to accomplish it.

What Jesus accomplished was the reclamation of the created order and of fallen humanity from the curse of sin, death, and corruption. It was a re-creation event. In the words "he will be satisfied," I hear an echo of God's assessment of the world he made, recorded in Genesis 1:31: "And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Genesis 2 goes on to tell us that "God had finished the work that he had been doing, so on the seventh day he rested from all his work." Jesus' resurrection was the testimony to the breaking of the power of death. After his resurrection, Jesus ascended back to heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. His work, too, was very good and was complete. Surely, we can say that "He [saw] the light of life and [was] satisfied."

But there's another angle from which we can look at this passage, and childbirth and parenting have brought it into focus for me. I had 15 hours of very painful, unmedicated back labor to bring my daughter into the world. After her birth came the excruciating challenge of nursing a baby with severe reflux, and even now we are still struggling to get her to eat enough and gain weight appropriately, and dealing with other complications related to her intrauterine growth restriction. I have had many days when I just wanted to pack it all in. And yet, when I look at her and see how much she has grown and the kind of person she is turning out to be, I can say that it has all been worth it. And we have many more years to go yet.

The suffering that Jesus endured in order to redeem his wayward people was even more intense. Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus laid aside his right to stay in heaven at the Father's side--as his equal--and became a man. He endured temptation, the rejection of the people he came to win back, the agony of bearing the sins of the world, and the torment of crucifixion. No one in history has ever suffered as he did.

Jesus endured all this in order to redeem a people who had rejected his kingship. Like the religious leaders who hoped to achieve their goal by telling Pilate "We have no king but Caesar (John 19:15)," like the Israelites who asked God to give them a king "like the other nations," like Adam and Eve, who decided that they wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil, we have looked to the world and to ourselves for our welfare and salvation. There is nothing worthy in us that Jesus should have endured all that he did, and yet, our redemption was worth the price he paid to gain it. The passage above says that "he will see his offspring and prolong his days." That's a reference to us, the people of God, once covered in sin and shame, now, a pure, spotless bride. Let that sink in. There is beauty and hope and rest in the balance of these two truths: we are both altogether unworthy, and absolutely worth it. 

Have a blessed Easter. 

"Wasted Votes"

I first posted the following reflection on Facebook, but it occurs to me that it's basically a short blog post, so I'm reposting it here.

This will be a very rare political post from me.

I find myself increasingly frustrated by post after post imploring folks like me not to "waste my vote" by voting for [candidate of choice]. It happens at least once a day now. Two of my top three candidates have already suspended their campaigns, so I already feel that my options are limited, and the person I plan on voting for is not my ideal candidate. And of course, you have the same right to try and sway my opinion as I have to try and sway yours. I am now going to exercise that right.

If everyone votes only for the "electable" candidates and not for the person they truly most wish to see in office, if everyone votes against the candidate they hate most, rather than the candidate they like best, all we are doing is playing into a broken system. The American people will not end up with the leader they really want by voting this way. Party leaders will look at the percentage of votes that their candidates receive, and they will see a distorted picture if too many voters choose Candidate A when they really wanted Candidate B or C or D.

Voting this way does not bring about the reform that the system so desperately needs. My vote for the candidate of my choice is not a wasted vote. Rather, it sends a message about the type of person I wish to see in office. If everyone votes for their true first choice, that message will be clearer. Like any other worthy endeavor, reforming American politics requires courage and a long view. I believe that God is ultimately in control, and that no one party or candidate holds the key to bringing about either heaven or hell on earth. In fact, it seems to me that putting one's trust for the welfare of our nation solely in the hands of one person or political party might just be idolatrous. So this election cycle, I refuse to vote from a place of fear. I will be voting for the candidate I like best (out of those who remain). And in November, I will do the same, probably with even less appealing options. I hope you will join me.

Never Say Never

For my birthday this year, I did something I said I would never do. I bought a bread machine.

I've known many people who owned bread machines, and I have eaten and enjoyed their creations. But using a machine takes all the tactile fun out of the baking process: the kneading, the punching down (a terrific stress reliever), the shaping of the loaves. I still believe that, but the last time I made a loaf of yeast bread was at least five years ago when I made some hot cross buns for Easter breakfast. I just don't have the time or the work space to spare anymore.

There were several factors that led me to change my initial judgment about owning a bread machine. First, while Johanna was still dairy and soy intolerant, I started really reading bread labels and discovered that most store-bought bread contains both milk and soy. And after almost a full year of avoiding foods with these ingredients, I no longer felt good about eating breads with ingredient lists that took up an entire side of the wrapper. Sure, all of the ingredients have been approved by the FDA (or USDA; I'm never sure which agency regulates what), but do I really want to subject my family to all these additives when the only requirements for bread are flour, sugar, salt, yeast and liquid? I found one brand of bread that is made from no more than half a dozen ingredients, but it costs almost $5 a loaf.

The cost was another factor. Has anyone else noticed that bread prices have gone up recently? I used to watch the sales and pick up what I thought was good bread on a 2-for-$4 sale, but I can't remember the last time I saw prices that low. Additive-free fresh bread from the farmer's market tastes much better than store-bought bread, but can only be bought once a week and goes stale before we eat it all. And it's between $6-8 per loaf, so it's not very economical.

I think the final factor may have been the St. Patrick's Day potluck at church. I found enough time to throw together a couple of loaves of whole wheat soda bread (NO RAISINS, butter, sugar, eggs or baking powder in the real deal, thank you!) and, as we were eating up the last few slices at home, Steve remarked that he could eat this bread every day. That got me thinking, and I realized that even though the loaves are quick to mix and shape (no kneading or rising), I still can't always count on having an hour at home to bake them.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the obvious solution to our bread quandry was to purchase a bread machine. So I did a lot of research online and finally ordered the small model that had gotten the best reviews. We were hooked from the very first loaf. I love that I control the ingredients. I love that I can take 5 minutes to add all the ingredients to pan and then come home to a fresh loaf three hours later. And I especially love the fact that instead of having to clean up two mixing bowls, a spoon with caked on dough, a rolling pin, a pastry cloth and two loaf tins, all I have to do now is rinse out the baking pan and kneading blade.

I'm looking forward to the beginning of this year's CSA season in a few weeks, and I think homemade bread will complement the fresh local produce nicely. I just wish I'd reconsidered my opinion about bread machines a long time ago. I still miss working with the dough with my own hands, but my enjoyment of a fresh loaf of bread every few days more than makes up for the loss.

Never say never...

An Update and a Prayer Request

Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote a post in which I described the many health challenges of my nephew. Tonight I write to ask you to pray for him tomorrow, as he undergoes major surgery to stabilize and manage his condition.

The shortest update I can give is this: all the tissue biopsies that Taavi underwent last year came back inconclusive for mitochondrial disease. His mother says that this is apparently not unusual (so little is known about mito that tests often miss it), and that the doctors feel that his symptoms are consistent with mitochondrial complex 1. Further specialized testing and imagery of his digestive tract a month ago revealed that his stomach and small intestine are functioning normally, but that a portion of his large intestine is not. It is stretched out and does not contract as it should to move food through. This is the result of an autonomic dysfunction (caused by the mito), and it is one of the main causes of his feeding intolerance, abdominal pain and distention, and even bladder symptoms.

So tomorrow, doctors will be performing a diverting ileostomy--a procedure that disconnects the small and large intestines and routes the end of the small intestine out through the abdominal wall and into an exterior collection pouch. At this point, the hope is that the procedure may be reversed years down the road, so the surgeon will not be removing the dysfunctional portion of colon. Taavi will also have a central line inserted for IV nutrition as he recovers. We don't know how long he will have the IV for, but the surgeon is hopeful that bypassing the colon will enable food to pass unimpeded through the digestive tract once more, and that, with time, Taavi may finally be able to take in the nutrients and calories he needs, either orally through a combination of oral and tube feeding. Currently he is only able to tolerate about half of the amount that he needs. Rebuilding digestive function will be a slow process, and only God knows at this point whether Taavi will eventually be able to have the surgery reversed and how dependent he will be on feeding tubes in the long run. And the surgery won't--and can't--repair the nerve dysfunction caused by the mito. But we are all hopeful that tomorrow's procedures will greatly improve his health and quality of life. Thank you for your prayers.

The Great CSA Experiment: Serendipity

The story of weeks 13 and 14 really needs to be fully narrated to be appreciated.

The finalized contents list for week 13 informed us that several crops had yielded lower-than-expected harvests. Each share, therefore, would contain one of four possible items: beets, an Italian eggplant (the large kind), a bag of mixed (smaller) eggplants, or a specialty herb (or green, I'm still not sure) called agretti. Individual boxes aren't labelled, and we were urged not to dig through boxes looking for a particular item. Pick one, and use the swap box if you get something you won't use.

I'm sure I've mentioned before how much we both hate beets. I actually have an aversion to them, thanks to a bad experience with some borscht I made for Lent one year. Maybe there's a good borscht recipe out there, but this definitely wasn't it. Eating it was, appropriately, a penitential experience. All season long, I've used the swap box to trade beets for something else that I know we will enjoy. So when I saw the contents list--and did a little research to find out just what agretti was--I decided that, on the 25% chance that our box contained beets, I would try and swap them. Anything else, I would keep.

On Saturday morning, I selected a box at random and hoped for eggplant. There, in plain view, was a beautiful Italian eggplant. Success!  After putting the rest of the items into my cooler, I was left with an extra item: a bag containing some oblong purple shapes, just the right size to be baby eggplants. What a bonus, I thought, we actually got two of the items and both of mine were eggplant--the best possible outcome. I headed home happily, to share the news of our windfall and to plan menus for the next week. I decided to curry the small eggplants, cook up the remaining potatoes in the pantry, and serve them with some take-away tandoori chicken. The sweet corn would be eaten on the cob with burgers from the freezer, some of the slicing tomatoes, the lemon basil, and the Italian eggplant would go into an Eggplant Provencal casserole for the freezer, the remainder of the slicing tomatoes and the entire bag of Romas would go into the slow cooker to become spaghetti sauce for the freezer, and the heirloom tomatoes would go for sandwiches. Easy.

Or so I thought. On Sunday night I pulled the bag of "mixed eggplant" out of the refrigerator to prepare it for cooking later in the week...and discovered that the bag did not, in fact, contain eggplants. It contained beets. Cylindra beets (hence the confusion), to be exact. Joy gave way to panic. I now had two dilemmas: 1) how do I salvage this week's menu plans? and 2) what am I going to do with these beets?

The first question came down to deciding whether I wanted to give up the freezer casserole and use the big eggplant for the curry. I decided not to take this path, as it would have left me with extra tomatoes and basil, and not enough room in the slow cooker for a larger batch of sauce. I ended up replacing the curry plans with some easy Thai-style oven steamed fish and an eggplant stir fry, for which I purchased two Japanese eggplants at the supermarket. They were no where near as fresh as the share vegetables, but at least they were local and in season. Everything else stayed the same.

That left me with the bag of beets. As I saw it, I had two options: contact the beet-loving friend with whom I split last year's share and see if she would take them, or find some way of preparing them that I might be able to choke down. I considered the first option for several days before deciding that since we'd paid for them, we may as well see what we could do. I googled "beet recipes for beet haters" and found many suggestions, mostly for salads, which I didn't think I'd be up for trying. Several people, though, suggested a radically different use: a chocolate cake made with beets. They unanimously praised the ability of the beets to lend a sweet and sort of earthy flavor to the chocolate, and they raved about how moist the end product was. I was skeptical at first but was finally persuaded to try it when I read comments about beets doing for chocolate cake what carrots do to spice cake. And unlike in the salads, the beets should be well-concealed in a cake. I decided to give it a try, and read through several recipes before selecting one that called for both cocoa and dark chocolate.

We'll return to the cake later, as I didn't get around to making it that first week. Everything else cooked up as planned. In our week 14 box, we got:

• 6 ears of sweet corn, which were only half-developed--probably the last of that particular farmer's harvest for the season--were eaten with chicken enchiladas. Johanna now stops eating when she sees the corn come out of the cooking dish at the table and points insistently until I carve off some for her.
• a bag of baby sweet "stuffing" peppers: I had originally planned on stuffing these and cooking them in the crock pot, but the operative word in the description turned out to be "baby." I guess the "stuffing" was intended to convey the idea of stuffing them with cheese for hors d'oeuvres. I chopped them up and made a Thai beef and bell pepper stir fry that was very tasty.
• an Italian eggplant was stir-fried to accompany the beef and peppers
• a bag of yellow wax beans was sauteed with lemon and garlic to accompany some French-style chicken cutlets. We also ate up most of the (now weeks old) red potatoes with this dinner.
• two red bell peppers also weren't quite big enough to stuff, but they were the sweetest and most flavorful I've ever had, and we ate them raw. Or at least, Johanna and I did. 
• Steve ate the almost-weekly pint of cherry tomatoes raw.
• two "slicing" tomatoes were cut up to go into a corn (frozen, alas), zucchini, and tomato dish that Johanna also liked.

At the end of the week, I finally found some time to make the chocolate beetroot cake. It was quite an undertaking. The recipe said to cook the whole beets "until soft, about 30 minutes." After said 30 minutes, I could pierce the beets with a sharp knife, but that was about it. I let them cook for another half hour. Softer, but not soft enough to mash as called for. By this time it was time to put Johanna to bed, so I turned off the burner and let the beets sit in the hot water for another two hours. When I came back downstairs, I was dismayed to find them no softer than before. In desperation, I drained and peeled them, cut them into chunks, and microwaved them for six minutes. Still no change. After another six minutes, I decided they were as cooked as they were going to get and I lugged out the food processor. They pureed OK, so I decided to proceed with the recipe. We were both skeptical. My first impression was that the cake was just "OK." I could tell that there was something else in the cake besides chocolate but if I hadn't known that there were beets in the recipe, I would never have guessed, so that was good. But it was denser and, while moist, drier than I was expecting (I was thinking carrot cake) and reminded me of a moist brownie more than a cake. A brownie with no nuts, chocolate chips, or bits of anything in it. So I decided that instead of the cream cheese frosting suggested in the recipe, the cake really needed hot fudge sauce and a clean vanilla ice cream. Sure enough, turning the cake into a hot fudge brownie sundae knocked it out of the park. Steve, who hates beets as much as I do, and who also doesn't care for chocolate cake, was instantly converted. He hopes I'll make it again, and if I get stuck with more  beets, I probably will. My first choice would still be to swap them, since the process of cooking them just to make the cake was so lengthy. But at least now I know that there is something to make with beets that we won't have to summon extra willpower to eat!

The Great CSA Experiment, Weeks 10-12

Week 10:

• a pint of cherry tomatoes went in Steve's lunches
• a bunch of rainbow carrots were eaten raw by both of us. I'd seen purple carrots before, but never white (or maybe very pale yellow) carrots. 
• a bag of "mixed specialty squash"--I recognized pipian and yellow straightneck--was julienned and sauteed in olive oil with salt, black pepper, and lemon juice. Johanna ate these too; once she got over her initial texture aversions, she really is interested in trying new things, for which I am grateful.
• 4 more zucchini were shredded and frozen
• 4 of crispest, freshest green bell peppers I've ever seen were stuffed with my "Greek hash" (ground turkey, onion, cooked rice, pine nuts, cinnamon, black pepper, salt, and a dash of nutmeg) and a can of diced tomatoes and cooked in the slow cooker. Yum!
• a bag of green beans was steamed and then tossed with sauteed garlic slices, toasted almonds, and a little lemon juice as a side to a crock pot-cooked rosemary cornish game hen
• more red potatoes were roasted and accompanied the cornish hen. I still have some left.
• three sweet onions went in various dishes throughout the week. I can always use more onions.

Week 11:

• a bag of green beans became a batch of creamy green bean soup, minus the cream because it was destined for the freezer. Dairy products don't survive the thawing process very well. with the exception of some cheeses in casseroles, so we'll add it when we eat it. I've never made this soup before, and am having some difficulty imagining green beans as the main ingredient of a pureed soup, but I didn't have enough space to blanch and freeze the beans on trays before bagging, so soup it was. The recipe has three whole shallots, so it will probably be good. 
• a bag of yellow patty pan squash. I had big ideas for this: I originally planned on making squash a la grecque, a marinated dish served cold, but realized that in order to use all the squash in the bag, I would need to quadruple the recipe. I didn't feel like pouring four cups of good wine into this effort, so instead I sauteed them and served them with parmesan cheese and oregano from the garden.
• 6 ears of sweet corn were eaten on the cob. We like them as an accompaniment to SLTs: smoked salmon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches with onion and chive cream cheese instead of mayo.
• a bag of big orange carrots was eaten raw with lunches
• I swapped the lima beans--the only vegetable we both dislike more than beets--for a bag of hot Hungarian wax peppers that I chopped in my food processor and then froze in single tablespoon portions for use as needed. Yield was 13 tablespoons, so we should be good for a while.
• this week's challenge item was globe artichokes. I've had artichoke hearts in things, but I've never cooked or eaten a whole one before. I went the "simple" route and cooked them for half an hour, pulled off the leaves, and served them and the hearts with some balsamic mayonnaise. They were tasty, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort.

Week 12:

• more cherry tomatoes were eaten raw for lunch
• a bag of Roma tomatoes: one was chopped for Hungarian paprika gravy, two more were quartered for the okra curry (see below), and the rest were chopped to be combined with the next week's (3-bag) haul for freezer spaghetti sauce
• one bunch of malabar spinach was substituted for regular spinach in our favorite Japanese-style wilted spinach salad (from Jack Bishop's fantastic "A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen" cookbook), but sadly, this didn't work very well because malabar spinach has a very strong taste. We preferred the tatsoi from earlier weeks.
• a bag of okra was curried with onions and tomatoes to minimize slime. I have decided that okra just isn't growing on me, slime or no slime. If there's a next time, I'll try roasting them.
• 2 beautiful Japanese eggplant got the Mark Bittman treatment and were stir-fried with basil and some of last week's hot chiles. Probably our new favorite eggplant recipe--and we love eggplant!
• 5 Cubanelle (sweet, light green) peppers. One went into the paprika gravy, and the rest were cut into strips and frozen. Some will go into the spaghetti sauce, and some may go into a Basque chicken dish later on. Johanna liked them raw!
• 3 huge zucchini made 11 more freezer portions

We ate some of the freezer pickles from week 9 on burgers today, and they were really good--this coming from a person who doesn't normally like sweet pickles. The freezer is filling up nicely with soups, sauces, and side dishes. Now, if we can just get through the summer without a multi-day power outage, we'll be well set for the winter. And we still have another 13 weeks of produce to go!

The Great CSA Experiment: Weeks 7-9

Week 7

• 3 zucchini: shredded for pancakes as last week with the yellow squash
• a pint of cherry tomatoes and a bag of (green) romano beans made a delicious variant on a french bean salad recipe from a British cookbook. The tomatoes were halved, sprinkled with sugar, salt and pepper, and roasted for 10 minutes. After cooling, they were tossed with the cooked beans and some cubed feta cheese with a garlic and dijon vinaigrette.
• one head of brocolli was simply steamed with butter and garlic salt as a side dish
• one HUGE head of cabbage: shredded some and tossed with a store-bought poppyseed dressing for the world's fastest coleslaw, but the cabbage weighed over 2 pounds and we still have some left
• one head of red leaf lettuce was used for salads and sandwiches over the course of a couple weeks
• one bunch of beets (we both dislike them; I have an aversion to them after making a particularly muddy tasting borscht a couple of years ago during Lent) was swapped for tatsoi, to wilt down as in previous weeks

Week 8

• one pint of yellow cherry tomatoes and a bunch of purple carrots: eaten raw for lunches
• one bag of mixed (burgundy, green and yellow wax) and a second bag of yellow wax (swapped for beets): steamed with butter and garlic for a simple side
• one bunch of yellow onions: used in fried rice and zucchini pancakes
• 4 zucchini: still more pancakes. This week I learned that zucchini can be shredded, measured and frozen in individual portions, so we can have pancakes well after the growing season is over!
• one bag of sugar snap peas: stir-fried with garlic and soy sauce (so far, so good)
• one bunch of red kale: another batch of sausage and kale soup for the freezer

Week 9 isn't over yet, but I've already used most of the produce thanks to a visit from my parents!

• 6 ears of bicolor sweet corn were eaten within two days of receipt!
• a small head of cabbage is still untouched but slated to become Indian-style cabbage with mustard and coconut along with some take-out tandoori later this week
• a bunch of orange carrots and a very small head of broccoli (swapped for still more beets) were eaten raw with lunches
• a bunch of kale hearts were (gasp!) eaten raw in a Mexican-style salad with pumpkin seeds, avocado, and a honey-lime vinaigrette. I was at the wrong store to buy cojita cheese, so I used up some feta instead. Both non-kale enthusiasts in this house pronounced the salad "not bad," though I don't think it would be as good with larger kale leaves
• a bag of red potatoes is still entirely untouched. I will probably make a corn, crab, and red potato chowder for the freezer
• 3 more zucchini have been shredded and frozen for later
• 2 cucumbers--another vegetable we're not fond of raw--will be sliced and made into freezer pickles this weekend