Philadelphia Food III

There is one more meal I want to share from my eating my way through Philadelphia experience. 

Son-in-law David cooks! Yes, the helicopter pilot comes home from fire-fighting season and relaxes in the kitchen. When he asked what he might prepare for me, one of the options he gave me was prime rib with Yorkshire pudding. I didn't need to look at the other options!

Perfectly done ~ and much to my joy, served on my mother's china platter.

Makes me hungry again just looking at the picture!! 

I understand they had it again on Christmas day.

Christmas Day

It is Christmas! The Christ candle is lit. The waiting is over.

The Babe has arrived!

This nativity lives on the mantle in my house as a reminder.

I bought it in South Africa. I loved it immediately because everyone, 

including the Baby, is smiling with eye brows raised at this miraculous 

birth. Joy to the World!

Earlier this season, I was doing a puzzle on line and chose a nativity. 

I didn't think much about it until it was complete. There they were, 

even the animals, wide-eyed and smiling and So Happy over this 

miraculous birth. Most nativities picture Mary in what I would call

"solemn wonder". I like it when she and everyone else is just plain happy. 

Merry Christmas, friends ~ and a happy and blessed holiday

whatever you celebrate. The Light is back! 

The Fourth Sunday in Advent

Please forgive my missing last Sunday. I was traveling and wifi was sporadic and unavailable. On those long flights, I read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry”. Once again I discovered words that having nothing to do with Christmas had everything to do with Christmas. 

“When I track the orbits of asteroids comets, and planets, each one a pirouetting dancer in a cosmic ballet, choreographed by the forces of gravity, sometimes I forget that too many people act in wanton disregard for the delicate interplay of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and land, with consequences that our children and our children’s children will witness and pay for the their health and well-being.

And sometimes I forget that powerful people rarely do all they can to help those who cannot help themselves.” 

Here is the Christmas story in the words of a 21st century wise man. Wise Men looked to the stars. Shepherds looked to the sky and saw angels and heard words of hope and anticipation. And they all gathered at a very down to earth event: the birth of baby. Too many people ignored that event. Powerful people, Herod for instance, did nothing to help but rather ordered the killing of children for no other reason than he felt threatened. Today is a day for sky gazing and earthly awareness. A day to feel ourselves pulled toward a higher, brighter power while at the same time finding the courage, the strength and the grace within ourselves to live out the down to earth work of the planet. ~ Blessings to you in this season of Hope

Philadelphia Food II

The second day of Food in Philadelphia started with lunch at The Dandelion. When Meredith first told me about the place, she indicated they loved it but we would go there for dessert having eaten lunch somewhere else because this was 'just a British pub'. As she said later, "The things you learn about your parents!" I love pub food and having had a look on line at this menu, I was ready to go. 

 We started with deviled eggs. So good. Not sure exactly what was in them

besides the good dry mustard but something to kick up the flavor just a bit. 

I also think the paprika was fresh ground.

David had a burger and their signature fries (sorry, chips ~ although 

the woman next to me had a sandwich with what we call chips and

they looked homemade too!)

Meredith and I had butternut squash and cheese soup and a side of chips.

Although full from his burger, David was glad to order Sticky Toffee Pudding 

a classic British dessert that I have never had. We all decided the ice cream

was superfluous. It was rich and full of cloves. The pudding was moist and spicy.

I liked my taste of Sticky Toffee Pudding.

My speciality was Mrs. Beeton's Snow Egg. 

If you don't know her, let me introduce you to Mrs. Beeton. 

She wrote her cookbooks in the mid-1800s for the housewives and

housekeepers of a new culture. First she wrote for Housekeepers who 

were managing staff that had no history of keeping a big house. They had

not started as a tweeny and grown to be a cook or Housekeeper. So Mrs. Beeton

wrote a house management and cookbook for them. 

By her later editions, the housewife had become the housekeeper and manager

of the household. Her cookbooks covered everything from laying the table 

to the food placed on it.

The Snow Egg is a poached meringue covered in custard. With a bow to the

season the custard was an egg nog. Light, airy, not too sweet and Delicious!

Philadelphia Food

It was a very short trip to Philadelphia to visit Meredith and David. Short as it was, it seemed as though I ate my way through the visit. 

We started the first day with High Tea at the Rittenhouse Hotel.

This is our sandwich and scone course. The sandwiches were traditional

except for the large slice of radish with humus on top. Had not had that before.

The scones were small and there were 9 of them, three each of savory, sweet,

and plain. There was Clotted Cream, Strawberry Jam, and Lemon Curd to

accompany them. 

Each of us had our own pot of tea. I chose a mixture of Earl Grey and Roiboos. 

It tasted more like a softened Roiboos. Delicious. 

Thinking we would never eat again, later in the evening David decided to make biscuits.

He was just in the mood for biscuits.

Of course Meredith and I had one! 

I have will power and I am not going to refuse a homemade biscuit. Oh yum!!

I think I will leave you there for now. More meals to come!

The Second Sunday in Advent

The lectionary this week deals with preparing the way of God and receiving comfort from that good news. As David Edwards points out in his commentary, “in Hebrew the word ‘comfort’ as used here means both consolation and bringing real help.”

This week in this country we have debated, railed for and against tax cut that some are applauding, others are decrying. Is this “real help”? One of the questions raised is how children will fare under the new laws and cuts of other provisions. Marian Wright Edelman in her book Guide My Feet, published in 1995, writes from the point of view of children. I would include LGTBQ children in the last line, otherwise, her words are very applicable today as we await real help at this Advent. 

God, is America’s dream big enough for me?

For the little Black boy born the wrong color in the wrong place

to the wrong parents in some folks’ sight/

God, is America’s justice fair enough for me?

For the little Brown or White girl labelled from birth as second best?

God, is America’s economy open to us?

For the many children who have to stay poor on the bottom so too few

can stay rich on the top/

God, does America have enough for me in the a land plenty for some,

but famine for others?

God, is America’s dream large enough for me?

I who am poor, average, disabled, girl, Black, Brown, Native American, White?

Is America for me?

The First Sunday of Advent

The Prophet Isaiah (64: 1 - 9) cries out for God to tear open the heavens and come to earth because we have all become unrighteous and there needs to be a return to justice and compassion lived out in our personal and national lives. We may be feeling as discouraged as Isaiah at this time in our history. If so, take hope from these words of Madeleine L’Engle as we await the coming of Love into the world. 

“God did not wait till the world was ready,

till. . . nations were at peace.

God came when the Heavens were unsteady, 

and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time.

God came when the need was deep and great.

God dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine.

God did not wait till hearts were pure.

In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.

To a world like ours, of anguished shame

God came,

and God’s Light would not go out.

God came to a world which did not mesh

to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.

In the mystery of the Word made Flesh

the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice! 

"Dreamers of the Day"

Once again I have discovered in a book I am reading, a passage that fits our American situation today. The book is Dreamers of the Day: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell. Her protagonist through whom the story is told is an American school teacher who, in 1921, inherits a little money and decides to travel to Egypt for a well-earned vacation. She arrives in Cairo just as Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Gertrude Bell arrive there for the Cairo Conference of 1921 which divided (or united?) the Middle East into the countries we know today. 

The book is well researched and although fiction, Russell allows the real people to speak for themselves as she has them saying things that they wrote in later books or diaries. 

The story also sheds light on the condition of women following WWI, the beginnings of liberation and their struggle following the Great Depression. During her long and interesting telling of her life, Agnes Shanklin, our heroine, learns three things that she advises her readers which are very appropriate for today: 

“Read to children.

Vote.

And never by anything from a man who’s selling fear.” (Pg. 249)