If you have a sewing machine and minimal sewing skills, you can make functional masks to help mitigate the danger of COVID-19 to you, your family, and the rest of the community. Some medical professionals are even using donated homemade cloth masks over their N95 respirators to prolong their lifespan. So let’s get sewing! It’s so easy.
First, cut out two 9×6-inch rectangles of 100% cotton fabric and place them together with the right side facing in. Add a few pins to hold them in place.
Starting in the middle of one of the long sides, begin sewing, leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance. No, starting in the middle. That’s okay, just keep going until you get to the edgeSTOPSTOPSTOP! That’s okay.
Next, take one of your elastic strips and place it inside the two layers at an angle in the corner, and continue sewing over it to affix it to the fabric, then continue sewing down the short end, stopping before you get to the next
It’s okay, sewing machines do that sometimes. Just open the bobbin case and see if you can . . . okay, wow, that’s really interesting. We’ve never seen that before. Do you, do you have any other bobbins? That’s great! So just dig out that sort of tassel effect you have going on there. And those . . . tufts. Now load in the new bobbin, and
Dude, it literally has instructions printed directly on the machine. Yes, call your kid over to help.
A tension problem, ha ha, you don’t say! That happens. Now rethread your machine and let’s continue. It’s so easy. If your two rectangles have come out of alignment, don’t worry. It definitely shouldn’t make you think about your responsibility in the fabric of society coming apart. Just add a few more pins. We’re in too deep to stop now.
Now you’re going to reach in and grasp the other end of the elastic and angle it in to the next corner, forming a loop. No, the other end. Well, it has to be in there somewhere.
All right, so you’ve somehow sewed the elastic to your . . . pants? That’s all right. Normal people do this all the time. They usually notice before they go back and reinforce it twice, but you were just being thorough, so kudos. It probably wasn’t necessary to use the buttonhole stitch setting, but hey, let’s see a virus get through that! Kudos to you. It’s so good to know that people like you own sewing machines.
The beauty of this project is that it’s so adaptable. It’s really so easy. So what we’re going to do is change gears a little bit. We’ll just forget about the elastic thing and instead make a mask with ties. It’s so easy! Well, many people find it so easy.
Reach in and turn your mask right side out. Reach in through the little hole you left. You did leave– never mind, it looks fine the way it is. It’s not a beauty contest. Is your kid still there? See if she can get those pins out before you sew anything else. No, we really are going to insist you need to get those pins out. Do what you need to do; we won’t watch.
Now for the ties. If you don’t have a large stash of bias tape or twill ribbon, you can easily make ties by using extra fabric from your large fabric stash using a serger. That’s okay, lots of people don’t have sergers. You can cut a 36-inch strip and iron it down the edge . . . That’s okay, lots of people don’t have irons. Simply cut your fabric
I’m sorry, how can you not have scissors?
Wait, if you don’t have scissors, how did you cut the original fabric?
You scored it with a beer cap and then pulled it apart with your teeth.
Okay.
So, at this point we are currently experiencing some shortness of breath. No, we already tested negative. The shortness of breath may be related to . . . other things. We strongly feel the need to isolate ourselves from you indefinitely. We applaud your efforts and would like to remind you that it would be a sad world indeed if we all had the exact same set of skills. Your particular skill might be just sitting there with your thumb up your ass until other people fix things. And look, you already opened a beer. Bottoms up, Miss Domesticity! It’s so easy.
I knew next to nothing about Lilies of the Field (1963), and had never seen Sidney Poitier act. I was unexpectedly delighted on both counts. You more or less know the whole plot from the first moments, but how it plays out is a pleasure to see. It’s a sort of “stone soup” story, but it’s populated with real people, all more or less decent, but each with their individual character kinks to work out.
The plot: A cheerful, unattached fellow (Poitier) is driving through the Arizona desert and stops at a tiny, austere convent to fill up his radiator. The overbearing mother superior (Lilia Skala) persuades him to do a little work, and he quickly becomes unable to extricate himself from her grand plan to build a chapel despite having no money or materials. The five German nuns and the rest of ragged congregation need some place better than the back of a truck to celebrate Mass, and Mother Maria thinks Homer Smith, a black baptist, was sent by God to make it happen.
Mother Maria has a rock solid faith in God, but her life of struggle (only fleetingly alluded to) has made her hard as a rock, as well, and she doesn’t bend even when she should. When Homer, slowly resigning himself to see the project through, kindly turns up with cartons of groceries to feed the near-starving sisters, she goes through some kind of brief emotional difficulty and then shouts at him to wash his hands and face. As he leaves the room, she thanks God for the food.
“How about thanking me, too, eh?” asks Homer. She answers, “No. I thank Him. You, you couldn’t help yourself.”
Which is apparently true! And we’ve all met women like this, who somehow make people do things, good things, almost entirely against their will. I so appreciated seeing on screen that people who get things done are not always people you enjoy hanging around with. But she, too, gets a small but powerful moment of comeuppance before the end, and it comes about so slyly and so naturally, it made us laugh out loud.
Homer himself clearly has some things to work out with God, mixed up with his ambitions and his pride. In the end, he writes his name where only God can see it, and you can see that some interior need has been satisfied.
The trailer makes the movie look slapstick-y and even minstrel-y, which is misleading. It is a comedy, but in context, Poitier is a very subtle actor, and you can see his character deliberately sliding in and out of different personas depending on what’s called for. And there is a lot of complexity to manage, for a guy who tries to keep things simple and above-board. He’s a black baptist trying to hold his own with a German mother superior, a condescending white boss, and a crew of Mexican laborers. It’s a comedy, as I say, but I was surprised at how many real notes it struck along the way as it showed the interactions between people who don’t share a race, a religion, a social class, or even a language. In this way, it fully earned the hijinks and broadly joyful tone.
I also loved the character of the faithful but disenchanted traveling priest in his sloppy RV, standing before the altar in his vestments and sunglasses. Very real.
My tiny quibbles: they should have picked someone else to dub Poitier’s singing. The voice (Jester Hairston, who wrote the song) doesn’t really match his speaking voice. But Poitier (who apparently was totally tone deaf) does a pretty good job of making it look like it’s coming out of his mouth. A counterpoint is that the sisters singing (which was apparently also overdubbed, but in this case to make them sound worse, not better) sound like normal women singing, not like an etherial choir, which I appreciated.
I also giggled to myself as the Mexican lapsed Catholic diner cook speaks (Stanley Adams). Most of the time, his Mexican accent won the day, but his undeniable Brooklyn accent got the upper hand a few times.
At one point, Poitier, in a sort of cultural exchange, teaches the sisters the song “Amen” and they instantly begin singing back to him in harmony, which injects a tiny false note; but the scene is still completely charming and effective. They use the device of Smith singing out the entire life of Jesus to the backdrop of the sisters repeating, “Amen, amen” to great effect throughout the movie (and now I’m hearing my kids singing it to themselves, which is great!).
All in all, highly recommended for the whole family, and genuinely funny. I plan to seek out more Poitier movies, too.
Next up: Probably we’ll do a double header, and have the little guys watch The Miracle Maker and then send them to bed so the older kids and adults can watch something rougher. I’d like to watch Silence or Calvary, but we shall see.
Let’s talk about food! Hope you have plenty at your house. Here’s what we ate this week:
SATURDAY Brats, chips, strawberries
Damien boils the brats in beer and onions, then browns them up with more onions. Some of the kids eat theirs with still further, raw onions, but I feel that is too many onions.
Someone mentioned this recipe on Twitter, and I happened to have two hunks of panic pork picnic in the fridge, aging rapidly. So I hacked it up and cooked it, and MAN IT WAS GOOD.
You brown the hunks of pork with salt and pepper, then cook up some onions, tomato paste, garlic, red pepper flakes, red wine, and diced tomatoes on the stovetop, then put it all in the oven for a few hours until the pork is tender.
This is one of those recipes where you could really subsist on the smell alone. Fabulous. Nice and easy, too, and cheap if you can get pork cheap. The red pepper gives it a little dazzle up front, but it’s not super spicy, just very rich and warming. Of course you could adjust it to make it hotter.
I went with parmesan garlic mashed potatoes, which I somehow have never made before. They were a big hit. I put smashed garlic cloves right in with the water to boil the potatoes, and then mashed them along.
Check it out: I says to myself, I say, HOW WOULD IT BE if we were to put a layer of pork all’arrabbiata in a casserole dish, sprrrrread some garlic parmesan mashed potatoes on that, sprinkle it with a bit more cheese, and slide the whole thing into a medium oven to think about what’s it’s done until the top is nicely browned? I think it would be wonderful.
I know people use pork arrabbiata as a sauce for pasta, but that just doesn’t appeal to me. I think it would be great with egg noodles, though. Or on toast!
MONDAY Asian meatballs, rice, steamed broccoli
I just love these tasty little meatballs. I had plenty of scallions and fresh garlic, which I chopped pretty coarsely, and I added some extra soy sauce. The only other ingredients are crushed Ritz crackers, kosher salt, and pepper. And ground beef, yes.
An easy, quick meal that just about everyone likes. I make a nice little dipping sauce, half soy sauce and half mirin, to give it a little extra zing. Damien prefers his with sriracha. These are flavorful enough that you could use ground turkey, if you really needed to, what with the war on and all, and they would still be good.
We had it with white rice and some broccoli which I’ll call “steamed,” but it was really drowned. I am not used to cooking frozen veg!
TUESDAY Chicken quesadillas
I actually skipped the chicken for mine and just had cheddar and jalapeños. Not my finest frying effort; whatcha gonna do.
I made the chicken by sprinkling it lavishly with chili lime powder and cooking it very slowly in oil, then slicing it up. I know I bought tortilla chips at some point, but they had disappeared off the face of the earth. I said I would slice up some sweet peppers, but I did not.
WEDNESDAY Omelettes and challah
I offered the choice of sausage, pepper jack cheese, or both. Then someone leaked the news that we also had cheddar, and there was a panic. I guess there has to be a panic about something.
I made a double recipe, enough for two huge loaves, and my poor old mixer is getting so old and wobbly, I was afraid I would break it, so I pulled the dough out to knead by hand. Man, I am weak. That was exhausting. I eventually gave up long before it reached the required “feels like a boob” stage, cut the dough in half, and threw it back into the mixer a batch at a time, but I still rushed it a bit, and set the dough to rise when it was still pretty knobbly.
But like I said, it turned out great! I was most pleased.
It looks flat in this picture, but in real life, it was most pneumatic.
Look at the sheen on that crust.
I made exactly two nice, tidy omelettes, and the next ten looked like they were the best I could offer with my broken arm (I do not have a broken arm).
THURSDAY Pizza
Two pepperoni, two olive, one plain. And them’s the facts. I used the leftover sauce Damien made last week.
FRIDAY
Pasta again, I believe. This pandemic is taking on a distinct canned tomato flavor.
Salt and pepper the pork chunks. In a heavy pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil and brown the pork on all sides. Do it in shifts if necessary, to make sure all the pork gets browned.
Remove the pork from the oil and set it aside. Add the diced onions to the oil and cook a few minutes until soft.
Add the minced garlic, tomato paste, and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring, a few minutes more.
Add the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce becomes thick.
Add the diced tomatoes with juice and combine with the sauce. Put the pork back in and stir so it's all coated with sauce.
Put a lid on, or cover tightly with tinfoil, and put the pot in the oven for at least two hours, until the pork is very tender and stew-like.
When the pork is done, the sauce should be thick, not liquidy. If necessary, simmer on the stovetop to cook off the excess liquid.
If the pork is very fatty, shove the pork to one side of the pot, let the fat collect on one end, and drain it out with a spoon.
Very simple meatballs with a vaguely Korean flavor. These are mild enough that kids will eat them happily, but if you want to kick up the Korean taste, you can serve them with dipping sauces and pickled vegetables. Serve with rice.
Servings30large meatballs
Ingredients
2.5lbsground beef
1sleeveRitz crackers, crushed finely
1/3cupsoy sauce
1/2 headgarlic, minced
1bunchscallions, chopped (save out a bit for a garnish)
1 tspkosher salt
1Tbspground white pepper
For dipping sauce:
mirin or rice vinegar
soy sauce
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425.
Mix together the meat and all the meatball ingredients with your hands until they are well combined. Form large balls and lay them on a baking pan with a rim.
Bake for about 15 minutes.
Serve over rice with dipping sauce and a sprinkle of scallions.
poppy seeds or "everything bagel" topping(optional)
corn meal (or flour) for pan, to keep loaf from sticking
Instructions
In a small bowl, dissolve a bit of the sugar into the water, and sprinkle the yeast over it. Stir gently, and let sit for five minutes or more, until it foams.
In the bowl of standing mixer, put the flour (starting with six cups), salt, remaining sugar, oil, and eggs, mix slightly, then add the yeast liquid. Mix with dough hook until the dough doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl, adding flour as needed. It's good if it has a slightly scaly appearance on the outside.
(If you're kneading by hand, knead until it feels soft and giving. It will take quite a lot of kneading!)
Put the dough in a greased bowl and lightly cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place for at least an hour, until it's double in size.
Grease a large baking sheet and sprinkle it with flour or corn meal. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Roll three into "snakes" and make a large braid, pinching the ends to keep them together. Divide the fourth piece into three and make a smaller braid, and lay this over the larger braid. Lay the braided loaf on the pan.
Cover again and let rise again for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 350.
Before baking, make an egg wash out of egg yolks and a little water. Brush the egg wash all over the loaf, and sprinkle with poppy seeds or "everything" topping.
Bake 25 minutes or more until the loaf is a deep golden color.
Last week’s Lent film party pick was a change of pace from . . . pretty much everything else we ever watch, especially the kids. It’s the 1987 Danish film Babette’s Feast.
Heres the trailer:
Here’s a synopsis, which I lifted from Google:
Beautiful but pious sisters Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer) grow to spinsterhood under the wrathful eye of their strict pastor father on the forbidding and desolate coast of Jutland, until one day, Philippa’s former suitor sends a Parisian refugee named Babette (Stéphane Audran) to serve as the family cook. Babette’s lavish celebratory banquet tempts the family’s dwindling congregation, who abjure such fleshly pleasures as fine foods and wines.
One would-be suitor would have made one sister a diva; the other would have abandoned his own wealth and status and lived a simple life. Both end up wondering if their chosen path was right. But the sisters’ pious lives are also lacking, it turns out. Simply abjuring their tiny, puritan congregation to love one another isn’t working, and even in their old age, the people are full of spite, wrath, jealousy, and regret. But they think the real danger is exterior, in the wine, rich sauces, and strange meats offered to them by Babette in the feast she insists on cooking to celebrate their father’s anniversary. Despite their misgivings, they accept it out of an unwillingness to hurt Babette, who, she points out, has never asked anything of them in all the years she’s lived among them.
The food and especially the wine opens their hearts in spite of them, and there’s a wonderfully sweet scene where the white-haired flock, newly reconciled, join hands and dance and sing around the well under the light of the stars. Notably, the song they sing is the same song they have always sung, longing for Jerusalem.
Many reviewers have compared Babette’s transformative and sacrificial feast to a Eucharistic meal, with Babette as a sort of servant-God who gives everything she has, trading her wealth and near-divine culinary genius for voluntary exile among sinners, and saving them from their error and woe. But it’s a mistake to see the story as a condemnation of asceticism and praise of Catholic sensuous excess, and it’s definitely a mistake to see it as some kind of allegory or lesson. It is a very Catholic story, but it’s a story about the bewilderment of free will, and the forthright, uncomplicated graciousness of love.
“We get back even what we have rejected,” says the aging general. He is the only one who has tasted these fine foods and wines before and recognizes what they are, but even though Babette remembers that she used to make people happy for a short time when she fed them back in Paris, it’s hard to imagine her brilliance would have had the transcendent, transformative effect on the Parisian elite as it did on the stolid, fearful Danes. Even the fearsome patriarch, who imposed the congregation’s austerity and selfishly kept his daughters from blossoming, is clearly not simply a villain, but actually walked across the water to bring the word of God to his people, at least as he saw it. Everyone in the movie has rejected something, even Babette — some for good reasons, some for bad reasons, some for only a faint ghost of a reason. Everyone has erred; and God is good to everyone, according to their need.
The general stands up and makes a speech with the final glass of wine:
“Man in his weakness and short-sightedness believes he must make choices in this life. He trembles at the risks he takes. We do know fear. But no, our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when your eyes are opened and we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions. And lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us and everything we have rejected has also been granted. Yes, we get back even what we have rejected. For mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.”
It stands out as an oddly specific and articulate monologue in a story that’s told mostly through long shots of people walking, working with their hands, singing, spooning out soup. It’s hard to resist pouncing on this passage and analyzing it to pieces; but really all he’s saying is that goodness is real, and we’ll receive it when we’re ready. (I love the fact that many of the people at the feast don’t even know the wine is wine, but it works its magic anyway.) That’s the best way to watch the movie: Just sit and receive it.
The whole family watched it, and the only one who didn’t enjoy it to some degree was the five-year-old, who couldn’t read the subtitles. It’s quiet and slow, but not dull. It’s absolutely gorgeous to look at, strange, gentle, and very funny, too, and the individual characters are drawn so deftly. So many wonderful faces. Just a joy to receive.
I’m reprinting this old article today because, even with all the stress and anxiety that come with the pandemic, I’m enjoying myself. My kids are all home, spring is on its way, I don’t have to spend hours every day driving, we’re drawing and reading together daily, and the family is spending more time in prayer. I’m getting a chance to teach again, and we get to set the alarm a full two hours later than normal. A lot of things are pleasant for me right now. And I feel bad about it!
This morning went poorly. I was afraid I’d sleep through the alarm, so I kept waking up; but then when the alarm did go off, I went right back to sleep, and so we were running late.
The kids’ hair was unbrushed, I forgot to pay the aftercare check again, my stomach was being weird, and the world was just generally grim, gritty, and disappointing. The last thing I wanted to do was head to my therapy appointment after the school commute, but it was on the schedule, so I dragged myself in.
It turned out to be a really good, fruitful session, and I left smiling. I checked in at home, then took myself over to the adoration chapel and made a short visit; and that was lovely, too.
The radiators hissed, the kneelers creaked, and Jesus sat quietly and watched me watching Him. I thought, a few times, that I ought to be praying better and using my time more wisely, but then I wisely just sat quietly and watched Him.
Feeling better and better, I remembered that I had set aside some extra cash to replace my torn and stained winter jacket, so I headed over to my favorite thrift stores, where I scored not only a new jacket, but a stained glass window (well, glass with a giant sticker stuck to it) of the Madonna and Child, which is possibly on the tacky side, but it’s also guaranteed to thrill my seven-year-old to the core. AND, I got a sweater, and a shirt! And a pair of earrings! And, um, some silicone cupcake holders with feet! Which we definitely need!
The cashier gave me my receipt and wished me a good day, which I was ALREADY HAVING! I felt almost guilty as I swung my loaded shopping bags into the car and headed for home, where, to my amazement, one of my teenage kids was giving the toddler a bath and patiently unsnarling her curly hair, and another was moving forward with her plans to make enchiladas for supper. Better and better and better.
Even the mail was great: A check and a wonderful book I forgot I had ordered for the kids. I couldn’t wait to read it to them when they got home.
It wasn’t until I was halfway through my lunch, which was an absolutely heavenly dish of black beans, fresh lime juice, salt, and chili powder, that I felt a shadow of unease that didn’t flit away. “Well, well, look who’s having such a nice, nice day,” said a little voice. And so I began to chide myself for how much I was enjoying this randomly wonderful Thursday.
Who was I to be sitting there in a shaft of sunlight, eating one of my favorite meals, basking in the good will of my family, not producing anything, and just reaping the fruits of all this care and attention that are showered on me?
Why did I deserve to be so happy, when other, much more virtuous and deserving people in the world are cold and unloved and running headlong into one bit of bad luck after the other?
Must be nice!” the voice sneered. “Must be nice to have such a great life, but what makes you think you deserve it? And how long do you think it’s going to last? Beans, wow. A used shirt, gosh. You really know how to live. And you know very well that as soon as the kids come home and the bickering and rushing begins, it will all fall apart, like it always does. But sure, have another forkful of happiness. Must be nice.”
I looked down at my plate. It was just beans. It was just a shirt. Just a jacket. Just a cheap sticker on a piece of glass from the thrift store. Just a . . .
Wait. I had heard that phrase before, “must be nice.” My friend Leticia Adams, who has had ten times her share of troubles in life, said this on social media the other day:
“Today a co-worker said it must be nice to be able to take a week off work for Christmas break and instead of doing the usual thing where I act like it sucked somehow or I apologize, instead I said “yep, it is nice.” And walked away. I don’t owe anyone an explanation or an apology for my life. Welcome to 2019!”
And there it is. It is nice. My life, as of that moment, was nice, lovely, happy, joyful, full. My happiness doesn’t detract from anyone else’s. The fact that it would pass didn’t make the moment any less real.
There’s not some finite bin of pleasure in the world, and there’s no reason to feel guilty for enjoying whatever measure of it comes our way for as long as it lasts. On the contrary, when I’m happy, I’m much more apt to be generous and patient; and one cheerful person can lift the mood of an entire household. And even if my happiness didn’t do anyone else any good: I matter, too! It’s a good thing to be happy. Why wouldn’t it be?
What an insidious thought it is — a true temptation to sin — to believe that we should tamp down, moderate, or even reject our enjoyment of gifts that come into our lives. That it’s somehow holier, more mature, more responsible to try and keep a lid on joy. It isn’t. Happiness comes from God, period.
Like any other good thing, happiness can be misused. We shouldn’t cling to transient enjoyments, and we shouldn’t give ourselves permission to act badly once they’ve passed us by (as they eventually will).
We shouldn’t let our good cheer blind us to the suffering and struggles of other people; and we absolutely shouldn’t smugly believe we’re feeling good because God loves us more than He loves people who are feeling bad. All of that is dangerous nonsense.
But when things are going well for us, that is a gift from God. When God gives you something good, it would be rude to talk yourself out of receiving it with happiness, and that’s the case whether it’s a plate of beans or a quiet 20 minutes with the Lord. It IS nice. So smile, thank Him, and enjoy.
As Catholics, we have a duty to seek out ways to help, if we can; and as mere humans, we will benefit emotionally if we find ways to act. Here are some concrete things you can do to help others, and yourself, while the crisis lasts:
Set up a schedule among your family, friends, or neighbors to call vulnerable people every single day, to make sure they’re still healthy and not languishing from loneliness. Don’t just try to remember to check in, and don’t assume someone else is doing it. Make it a true part of your routine (and maybe assign one person the role of ‘daily call reminder’) so no one falls through the cracks.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, consider offering one-on-one virtual story time to parents who could use a break from entertaining their kids. It will take some organization, but it could be fun for kids, helpful to parents, and gratifying for people who miss the days of reading aloud to little ones.
Just kidding, we’re not actually sick. Damien and I are used to working from home. We’re used to having ten kids crawling all over each other in a small space. I’m even kinda sorta used to teaching kids how to do basic math (a three digit number is like a big meal, like a Passover seder. You can’t eat it all at once; you have to have it in separate courses, in order. The first course is chicken soup with matzoh balls. But you can only fit nine matzoh balls in a bowl, so you have to carry . . . ). We’re fine. This is fine. How are you?
Here’s what we had to eat this week, with a menu somewhat based on what was left on the shelves after the locusts passed through:
SATURDAY Buffalo chicken on salad
I know I often say on Friday that Saturday seems far away, but this time it feels like about forty-three years. Good heavens. I was actually thinking about what was going to be the defining “Look how innocent we were back then, just before the big bad thing happened” moment. I think it has to be this, from March 11, 2020:
So anyway, if you were wondering what America did to deserve COVID-19, wonder no more.
SO ANYWAY, on Saturday we had mixed greens with sliced buffalo chicken (from frozen) with blue cheese, crunchy fried onions from a can, and blue cheese dressing.
It’s as close as you can get to fast food while still being a salad. I know that sentence didn’t work out and I don’t care.
SUNDAY English muffin pizzas
Benny asked for this dinner. Benny was happy.
MONDAY Hamburgers, chips
The Fishers begin to feel the privations of the pandemic. They didn’t have regular ground beef, only “chubs” packed up in opaque three-pound tubes with a photo of meat printed on the wrapper. We planned hamburgers, so I thought it would be easiest to slice the meat into burgers while it was still in chub form.
It worked, but I deemed it unnecessarily squalid. Next time I’ll take the wrapper off first.
TUESDAY Boiled Dinner, cookies
Speaking of squalid, it’s our annual boiled dinner for St. Patrick’s whatever. I’ve tried various, more authentic Irish food over the years, and, you know, there’s a reason the phrase “Irish cuisine” sounds so off. So we just had our same oil Irish American boiled dinner: Corned beef, cabbage, red potatoes, and carrots, with plenty of mustard.
We also made cookies, I forget why. I guess because we were nervous. I couldn’t find the chocolate chips, mostly because somebody ate them, but we did inexplicably have butterscotch and white chocolate chips in the house. We also ran out of brown sugar, so I used mostly white. The combination of these three things made for some blindingly sweet cookies. I could have mitigated the screamingness of the sugar by adding some walnuts, but I thought to myself, “If they wanted walnuts, they should have left the chocolate chips alone!” This is virus thinking and I know it; but nevertheless, I didn’t put any nuts in.
Also, I forgot to combine the dry ingredients before I added the flour, so I put the rest in the mixer and mixed the hell out of it so it would be well blended. Of course this meant the dough was quite warm when it went into the oven, resulting in these unfortunate puddleform cookies:
But I just bulked up the rest of the dough with more flour and put it in the fridge for a bit before baking, and the rest of the cookies improved considerably
People have also advised me that using half shortening and half butter, rather than all butter, will result in puffier cookies. Noted!
I just used a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe you can find anywhere, so I won’t bother making up a card.
WEDNESDAY Reubens
We had tons of corned beef left over, so I sliced it as thin as I could.
I forgot you are supposed to grill Reubens, though. I toasted my bread and then laid the meat and cheese on and slid it in the oven, then added sauerkraut and dressing. They were fine, not amazing. There’s still quite a pile of meat, much to the kids’ chagrin, so I may throw it in the freezer and take it out again next week if they make me angry. WHO’S EATING WALNUTS NOW, EH, KIDS????
THURSDAY Tacos
I mean, I made tacos in the sense that there was meat in the house, and Damien went to the convirus store, I mean convenience store, for tortillas and cheese. Listen. I taught four kids math, and it was STRANGE DIFFERENT math, too. I don’t know what a module is. I don’t know what a place value disk is. All I know is matzoh balls.
because it was St. Joseph’s day, but I zero percent felt like making puff pastries. Which aren’t even really that hard; I just didn’t want to. I had been promising the kids I’d recreate the fried dough we had at the ocean last August, though, so it was finally the day for that. Super easy recipe, just flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and water, let it rest, flatten and fry, then dust with powdered sugar.
Some of them got exciting bubbles in them when they fried.
My mother used to make fried dough, long before I ever ate it at a fair or on a boardwalk. She called it “rubber bread” and we loved it. Today I found out she called it that because if you don’t roll it out thin enough, and you don’t let the oil heat up enough before cooking, it sure does taste like rubber. I love my mother very much, but she only had about two dishes that weren’t completely terrible. This was because she didn’t care what she ate. She liked good food, but she also liked terrible food. For lunch, she would take literally any leftover dinner food, heat it up in a double boiler, and douse with with salsa from one of those comically huge salsa jugs. I mean, at least it’s an ethos. And she never had to share her lunch.
FRIDAY Pasta with Marcella Hazan’s sauce
There wasn’t much sauce left in the stores last time I shopped, but there were plenty of canned tomatoes. I bought . . .many canned tomatoes. This sauce is stupid easy, and it tastes miraculously savory.
Just three ingredients! Tomatoes, onions, butter! Maybe a little salt! I know everyone is always calling recipes “amazing,” but this will truly fully ignite all your buttons of amazement!
And that’s about it. I guess we have to watch Bill Nye now or something.
Oh, don’t forget about the withDraw2020 daily art challenge! We’re getting more and more people joining in every day. Very simple rules here, with the daily prompts. Today’s prompt is “patient.” Be sure to tag your work #withDraw2020 when you share it.
Some people are using the prompts to write poetry or take photos, too, and some people are doing whatever they want each day. I love it. It’s just something to keep us creative and in touch with each other.
Makes about 15 slabs of fried dough the size of a small plate
Ingredients
4cupsflour
4tspbaking powder
1-1/2tspsalt
4 Tbsp (half a stick)cold butter
1-1/2cupslurkworm water
2cupsoil for frying
confectioner's sugar for sprinkling
cinnamon for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Cut the cold butter into bits and work it gently into the dough.
Add the water and stir until the dough is all combined.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it rest for 15 minutes
Separate the dough into pieces and flatten each piece into a thin disk with your fingers. If it's sticky, put a little confectioner's sugar on your work surface.
Heat the oil in a pan. You can deep fry it or use less oil and fry it in a small amount of oil; your choice. The oil is ready when you put a wooden spoon in and little bubbles form around it.
Carefully lay the disc of dough in the hot oil. Let it cook a few minutes, just barely getting brown, and then turn it and cook the other side.
Remove the dough, let the excess oil drain off, and sprinkle it immediately with sugar and cinnamon if you like.
You can keep these hot in the oven for a bit, but they're best when they're very hot.
Our Lady on March 18, 2020 in Medjugorje, announced to the visionary Mirjana that the apparition of the 2nd of each month has ended.
The news began to circulate after 14:30 today, at the end of the extraordinary apparition to Mirjana,which took place exceptionally in her home, given the absence of pilgrims due to the blockade of the borders due to the Coronavirus.
According to some estimates, 30 million pilgrims have come to Medjugorje since the alleged apparitions began in 1981, and the once-sleepy town has been transformed into a bustling and profitable mecca. But the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Bosnia on March 5, and travel is now tightly restricted. The news that the visions will cease came a day after the state of emergency was called on March 17.
Near the middle of the basketball court a dais was set up; on the right side was a crucifix, on the left side was a podium, and in the middle was a large statue of Our Lady. To the left side of the dais was a piano which someone played in order to lead the people in singing hymns. In front of the dais, in the center, was a prie-dieu set up for Marija to kneel during her vision.
The organizer of the event greeted us by letting us know that we would pray a rosary, and then Marija would talk a bit, lead us in a few prayers, and then go into her vision. He also noted that there was going to be another event in the Joyce Center around 8 or so, and that they had promised the Joyce Center people that the crowd would depart by 7:45.
The eyewitness also notes that, after the Gospa apparently departed,
“organizers were wondering if people would be willing to ‘donate’ money to Marija to cover the costs of her flight out. Not for any of the churches over in Medjugorje, not for some charitable organization, but to cover her flight. A couple hundred check books came out.”
Mirjana, who claims to have seen the Mother of God on the second of every month as well as on her birthday since 1987, divides her time between Italy and Medjugorje, where she owns several hotels. One, a four-star hotel named “Magnificat,” has 54 rooms. According to the hotel’s website, “It was born as the home of the Queen of Peace, so that every guest can feel His maternal benevolence both spiritually and materially.” A travel brochure for the hotel promises, “Marija Pavlovic … will be often present in the center to give her testimony.”
Marjana and her husband live on an island in a seaside villa with a pool, which the couple rents to tourists. Vicka and Ivan, two of the other seers, have also invested heavily in real estate and hotels. Vicka still gets daily visions; Ivanka, the fourth, had daily visions for several years, but now only sees the Mother of God once a year. In total, the alleged seers have logged close to 50,000 visits.
“Assemble about twenty young people who are ready to follow Jesus without reservation. Bring them together within a month’s notice. I will initiate them into the spiritual life. There can even be more than twenty.”
But in 2020, a crowd of merely twenty may not be large enough to make it worthwhile for the Mother of God to appear.
She will, however, continue to visit Marijana on her birthday every year. It’s not yet clear whether, as with past apparitions, pilgrims will be allowed to live stream Marijana receiving her scheduled vision.
This morning, we had a blizzard. I lay blissfully in bed and heard my little girls clomp past the bedroom door in their heavy boots. “Don’t forget to cover your ears,” said one to the other.
“Why?” the second one asked.
“Mama always says to,” the first one replied. “So our ears don’t get cold.”
I was thrilled to the core — not only because my daughters’ nice little ears would be protected from the swirling winds, but because they used those nice little ears to listen to me. They had listened to me, and spontaneously decided to obey! If you’re a parent, you know how sweet and rare an event this is. “Cover your ears” is advice they could get from anyone; but there is no replacement for the loving, trusting relationship between a mother and child, and I was so grateful for even this small evidence that our relationship was secure.
Now, imagine that same scene, except instead of hearing, “Mama always says to,” I heard my daughter say, “Oh, Mama told us to. Or, maybe it’s not really Mama, but she said to call us Mama, so — [shrug] — we do. She’s the one who said to wear a hat. She’s in the kitchen right now; the boys are still talking to her.”
Okay.
Even if she told them to wear a hat. Hell, no.I would be up and out of bed faster than you can say “Bosnia and Herzegovina,” blazing with rage and terror while demanding to know who the hell was in my kitchen pretending to me be. Someone who looks like me and acts like me is telling my kids what to do, and telling them to call her ‘Mama?’” Hell, no. Hell hell hell no no no.
Friends, this describes the situation we have in Medjugorje today. For almost forty years years, someone calling herself our mother has been turning up over and over and over and over again, passing along mundane and useful information to three folks who call themselves “seers.” A typical message from “The Gospa” goes like this:
Dear children, Let all the prayers you say in your homes in the evening be for the conversion of sinners because the world is in great sin. Every evening pray the Rosary.
Nothing wrong with that, right? It’s a perfectly good message. We all should pray for the conversion of sinners. It would be a good thing if more people followed this advice. Good fruits can come from visiting Medjugorje. The conversions, the deepening of faith, even the possible healings — all are due to God’s mercy, His willingness to send the fresh breath of the Holy Spirit in through any crooked little crack. He will show up wherever He is welcome, even when He’s welcomed by pilgrims who’ve been deceived.
So yes, there are good fruits. But nobody gets to pretend to be my mother. There aren’t enough good fruits in the world to justify sitting back and letting that happen.
If you care to see it, there’s mountain upon mountain of evidence that the apparitions are false — either a hoax perpetrated by the seers, or something diabolical.
Bishop and exorcist Mons Andrea Gemma on Medjugorje says:
It is an absolutely diabolical event, around which numerous underworld interests revolve …
I’m referring to ‘the Devil’s dung’, to money, what else? At Medjugorje everything happens for the sake of money: pilgrimages, overnight stays, the sales of trinkets. In this way, abusing the good faith of the poor people who go there with the idea of meeting the Madonna, the false seers have set themselves up financially, they have married and live a wealthy life, to say the least.
When Our Lady first allegedly appeared to the six youths in 1981, she reportedly told them she would only appear three more times.
She has since appeared, according to the alleged visionaries, 47,000 more times.
Local religious authorities who have studied the alleged apparitions and their effect on its devotees have uniformly said what Bishop Peric of the Mostar diocese again said recently:
Considering everything that this diocesan chancery has so far researched and studied, including the first seven days of alleged apparitions, we can say: There have been no apparitions of Our Lady of Medjugorje.
the “apparitions” have been studied by several commissions: in 1982-1984 and 1984-1986 at a diocesan level, and in 1987-1990 by the Croatian bishops’ conference. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith studied the phenomena from 2010-2014 and again from 2014-2016.
The local and national commissions arrived to the conclusion that there’s nothing supernatural to the apparitions.
Devotees of the alleged apparitions are quick to point out that the Church has never formally pronounced the visions to be false; that Bishop Peric’s words are only his opinion. True, but the Church generally does not issue a formal position on apparitions until after they have ceased; and three of the alleged visionaries claim Our Lady keeps turning up like clockwork every day for decades.
The local bishop, Pavao Zanic, judges the apparitions false and has deplored the disobedience encouraged by the seers and their adherents:
[T]he Ordinary had come to the firm conclusion that the apparitions of the Madonna in Medjugorje are not a reality . . . [T]he Bishop’s Office expressed its desire, and even demanded, that the propaganda stop because of the disobedience of the pastoral personnel and the “visionaries.” This was a futile attempt.”
And whenever she’s faced with the choice of encouraging her children to respect and obey their bishops, or appearing in the air as paid ticket holders look on, this Mother of God always goes for more ticket sales.
In the Gospels, she says, “Do whatever He tells you.” In Medjugorje, she snickers and says, “You do you.”
When Pope Francis visited the region in 2015, he came within twenty minutes of the Medjugorje shrine but did not make a stop, presumably not wanting to lend it credibility by his presence, especially after the apostolic nuncio said “clerics and the faithful are not permitted to participate in meetings, conferences or public celebrations during which the credibility of such ‘apparitions’ would be taken for granted.”
The Pope is now sending a Bishop to Medjugorje purely to assess the pastoral needs of Catholics who travel there on pilgrimage. He will not be making any pronouncement on the validity of the alleged apparitions. In other words, he’s going to make sure that, no matter who’s appearing and telling the Church’s children what to do, at least everyone should have a hat on so their ears don’t get too cold.
This is the true work of a loving papa: To care for the children. It does not mean that we children can just shrug and decide to call just anyone our mother, just because she also gives common-sense advice about keeping our ears covered. Cover your ears, by all means; but keep your wits about you. Use your brain; remember Our Lady’s example of humble obedience.
The Lady of Medjugorje is not Our Lady. She is not our mother.
Some people are hoarding hand sanitizer in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some people are making wills, and some people are slowly retreating into nail-gnawing panic. My husband went and found a handbell.
This is because the new coronavirus, along with all its deprivations and terrors, has given my family something rare and wonderful: Everyone is home together at noon every day. That means we can say the Angelus. And if you are going to say the Angelus, you need a nice, loud bell to ring—especially when you have college kids home who think of noon as early morning.
I am not trying to make light of the pandemic. I spent part of my morning tumbling into a spiral of fear, telling myself a bleak story about my family’s wonky immune systems and the shortage of hospital beds. I have two elderly parents with underlying health conditions and friends whose livelihoods and mental health are in serious peril. Maybe worst of all, I see people saying you are only afraid if you lack faith in God. As if Jesus himself never felt fear when there was reason to fear.
God bless my husband, he went and found a bell to ring. Sometimes we have to halt what we are doing and forcibly remind ourselves that isolation does not have to mean we are forsaken. When we say the Angelus, we remember that God did not abandon mankind. He sent an angel to Mary, and Mary gave a savior to us. So we are making an intentional effort to keep sight of that, when it is so easy to slide into terror and distress. We are not abandoned.
