What’s for supper? Vol. 32: Sandwich of the week!

This was spring vacation week, so I put up a little effort. In retrospect, I can see that my effort did not extend to vegetable preparation. Oh well.

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SATURDAY

Corn dogs, chips, and Hobbit bread for the kids;
amazing sandwiches and exhilarating fries for me and Damien.

I gave a talk in Hanover on Saturday, and we stopped at Everything But Anchovies for dinner. The sandwiches were so good, I thought it would be fun to do a sandwich of the week, now that it’s getting warmer.

Meanwhile, back at home, honorable daughter #3 made her amazing stuffed Hobbit bread. She used pre-made pizza dough, and baked two large woven loaves stuffed with a savory filling of mushrooms, onions, and cheese. A fine time for me to leave town.

I’ve mentioned Hobbit Bread a few times, so I figured I might as well finally share the recipe. As you can see, it’s long, complicated, and adorable. You can easily adapt it to make it simpler and quicker, and it’s still ridiculously delicious.

Here is the recipe from An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery (link is to Kindle version of the book – thanks to my friend Stasa for getting a digital version of the recipe for me!):

Braided Bread Stuffed with Mushrooms, Onions, and Cheese

This hearty bread is practically a meal unto itself. In celebration of Hobbits well known love of mushrooms, this is stuffed with mushrooms, onions, cheese, and English country herbs. It’s best fresh from the oven while the cheese is still runny, but the leftovers are almost as good served alongside supper to help soak up a hearty plate of mutton or venison gravy.

Dough:
1 ½ c / 300 g water
1 tbsp active dry yeast
4 tbsp / 85 g honey
4 eggs
½ c oil
6 ½ -7 c / 825 – 850 g bread flour
1 tbsp coarse salt
8 cloves minced garlic
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
1 tsp fresh basil leaves, minced

Filling:
2 tbsp butter
2 c / 200 g sliced mushrooms
2 onions, diced
2 c / 250 g shredded mozzarella
2 cloves garlic in filling
1 tbsp rosemary in each
1 tsp basil
1 tbsp coarse saltTo make a loaf , start by dissolving your yeast in the warm water. Feel free to add an extra tsp of honey at this stage to help kick start your yeast. Walk away for ten minutes. When you come back, the yeast should have bloomed so it looks like a mushroom cap rising up out of your bowl. It knows its fate.

Mix in the eggs, oil, salt, and the rest of the honey. When you achieve a soupy mass, add the minced garlic , fresh rosemary leaves, and fresh basil. It should smell delicious.

Now mix in the bread flour. Modern cooks with a stand mixer can attach the dough hook and let it knead away for 6-8 minutes. If you want to get a real feel for the period, knead it by hand for 8-10 minutes. The dough should be soft, pliant, and not too tacky.

Form it into a ball, cover it with a clean dishtowel, and let it rise for an hour, or until double in size.

Meanwhile, make your filling. Melt your butter in a large skillet over a medium-high heat. Add your onions and cook until they start to brown . You want them to lose a lot of moisture while gaining some flavor.

Once the onions start to brown, add your garlic, rosemary, and basil. Keep cooking for another 3-4 minutes, or until the garlic barely starts to brown . Finally add the mushrooms. You don’t want to overcook them. Mix them in and cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Take the pan off the heat and finish it with the coarse salt. Set it aside to cool while the dough continues rising.

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down. Flour a clean surface and roll the dough into a rectangle . Put that rectangle on a sheet of parchment paper so you can easily move the finished loaf to a pan. Trim away any rough edges.

Now that you have a trimmed rectangle of dough, mentally divide the rectangle into thirds. The center third is where you place your filling. The outer two thirds will be cut into braid strips. To give it an attractive , braided top, make neat, even, 1 inch 2.5 cm wide cuts along each side. Make a bed of cheese in the middle ⅓ of your bread. Pile the mushroom filling on top of that. Cover the filling with any remaining cheese. Fold both end pieces inwards so they cover some of the filling.

To create the braided top, pull the cut edges of dough over the center, alternating sides and tugging tight, so the dough completely covers the filling. This makes a single, massive rectangular loaf . Slide it onto your largest cooking pan. If you don’t have any oversized baking sheets, just slide it into a heavily buttered 9×13 glass baking pan. Either way, let it rise for another hour. You put this much work into it, so you might as well make the bread pretty. Whisk together an egg and 1 tbsp of water to make an egg wash.

Use a pastry brush to paint the surface of the bread. If you’d like, sprinkle another 1 tsp of coarse salt on top. Bake the bread at 350F / 180C for 35-40 minutes. If the top starts to get too brown, cover it with foil.

Due to the moist interior, the bottom of this bread has a tendency to get soggy if you leave it out overnight. That means it’s your duty to consume the entire loaf before bedtime. If you don’t have a party of dwarves or a couple teenagers on hand to help you finish it, you can always use the leftovers to make savory mushroom bread pudding for tomorrow’s dinner.

Whew.

***

SUNDAY

Reubens and onion rings

I’ve never had a reuben sandwich before! SO GOOD. I boiled a hunk of corned beef that was on sale from St. Patrick’s day (the age made me hesitate, but then I remembered that even brand new corned beef is only just barely food, so it probably hadn’t spoiled), sliced it thin, and made grilled sandwiches on rye. Corned beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing. I followed these directions, and weighed the sammiches down with cans of tomatoes.

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FABULOUS. I had two, which made me feel like this:

[img attachment=”100047″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”IMG_8001″ /]

***

MONDAY 

Pancakes and sausages, chocolate covered bananas

Boy, those bananas were not great. We had made these once before, for a jungle-themed birthday party, and they were really delicious. This time, they tasted fine — frozen bananas have a pleasant custardy taste — but they were a mess. I don’t know what went wrong, but the chocolate never melted properly, and it wouldn’t stick to the bananas. I tried adding some shortening in to smooth it out, but it didn’t help. It sounds crazy, but I think maybe Aldi brand chocolate chips aren’t good for melting. Anyway, the kids had fun.

[img attachment=”100048″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”FullSizeRender-9″ /]

***

TUESDAY

Chicken enchiladas, guacamole and chips, corn, waffle iron churros

Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I used chicken thighs instead of white meat. I always run out of onions before I run out of chicken and cheese, so this time I made triple the amount. Then I forgot the stove was on and burned the hell out of them, so they got compacted right down to a third of their size. They weren’t so much caramelized as carbonized.

[img attachment=”100044″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”FullSizeRender-5″ /]

I guess in terms of atomic value, we ingested the same amount of onionness, but in practice, there weren’t enough onions. Still a very tasty meal.

[img attachment=”100045″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”FullSizeRender-6″ /]

Kids made the guac. Husband made the waffle iron churros while I hid in my room neglecting my domestic duties.

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WEDNESDAY

Beef stew and dumplings

Most of my kids didn’t even know what dumplings are, that’s how long it’s been. Dumpling suspicion:

[img attachment=”100042″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”FullSizeRender-7″ /]

I grabbed this basic recipe off allrecipes.com.

(I made double this recipe.) Mix together dry ingredients, cut in the shortening, then add the milk and stir until just blended.
Drop clumps of dough into the simmering stew, cover tightly, and simmer 20 minutes.

They turned out great!

[img attachment=”100043″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”FullSizeRender-8″ /]

Light and fluffy, couldn’t be easier. Hooray, a new thing!

***

THURSDAY

Pulled pork, cole slaw, baked potatoes

Holy hell, this was some fatty pork. By the time I was done trimming it, half of it was gone. It got all et up, though. Oh, also we were out of beer (!) to cook it in, so I used Coke.

Cole slaw was made with cabbage and carrots, and a dressing of mayo, sour cream, vinegar, sugar, and pepper. Tasted exactly like cole slaw.

***

I am now collecting exciting sandwich ideas for sandwich of the week. Next week, we’ll be recreating the yummy ones we had at that restaurant. Tell me all about your favorite sandwiches, hot or cold!

If Andrew Jackson is out, why is Margaret Sanger in?

Andrew Jackson, racist and jerk, is off the twenty dollar bill. Harriet Tubman, hero, will replace him. Excellent!  She deserves honor and accolades. She was one of the America’s greatest, totally worthy of admiration.

Americans have been doing a lot of self-examination lately. In the case of the twenty dollar bill, we’ve identified an ugly growth that deserves to be excised. The Jacksonectomy makes perfect sense. We’re not going to pretend he never existed, but we’re going to say, “This is someone we’re not especially proud of.” A great and healthy thing to do.

The mania for self-examination, though, can be a sickness in itself. They erect boxes around statues of Christopher Columbus. They teach kids that Thomas Jefferson was, above all else, a racist (not that racism was one of his traits or part of his legacy, but his main trait, the essential character of his legacy). They teach kids that Abraham Lincoln was a racist.

Now some deep thinkers are refusing to watch the new movie The Jungle Book because it’s based on a book written in 1894 by a British man born in India, a man who had ideas very closely aligned with all British men born in India in the 1800’s.

He was also an incredible story teller, and the movie, which is a movie about animals, looks wonderful.

My friends, I put “was a racist” into my search bar, and the third suggestion was “Jesus was a racist.”

So let’s slow this train down for a minute and figure a few things out.

First of all, no one gets any points for believing the thing that almost everyone believes. So, you were born in 1991 and are not in favor of enslaving your black friends? You get exactly zero hosannas for that. You didn’t figure out on your own that racism is wrong. You’re just going along with the crowd, and if the crowd got something right, then the crowd gets credit for that, not you.

Second of all, if you believe exactly what you’ve been taught to believe, then surely you can see that the same was true for people who lived 100 or 200 years ago. It doesn’t make them hideous people, it just makes them products of their time, just like you. They were just going along with the crowd, and if the crowd got something wrong, then the crowd should get blamed for that, not them.

Third of all, we can legitimately laud and applaud the good ideas, courageous achievements, and tireless work of people who accomplished amazing things, even if some of their ideas are bad, offensive ideas. In fact, this is what makes life possible. Go ahead an interview your five best friends. If you spend long enough with them, you’ll find out something offensive. That’s what people are like: complicated, inconsistent, a mixture of good and bad ideas.

BUT HAVE IT YOUR WAY. Let’s say that we have to strike from the books anyone who retains any taint of noxious ideas, especially racist ideas. Even if it was the same as what everyone else believed in those days; even if this person accomplished wonderful things despite being a racist. Let’s say that we’re so intensely offended by any whiff of racism that we refuse to honor anyone who’s associated with racist ideas, no matter how tangentially.

Explain to me Margaret Freaking Sanger. Because when we wanted a replacement for racist ol’ Andrew Jackson, lots of people thought Margaret Sanger was the perfect choice.

Some of the things they say about Sanger aren’t true. That photo of her speaking at a KKK rally is photoshopped. But she did speak to KKK members as an honored guest, because

if Sanger could convince the ladies of the KKK of the benefits of birth control, then it was worth it to her . . . there was no one whom Sanger wouldn’t talk to about birth control.

She did say

The mass of Negroes particularly in the South still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear children possibly.

And she did say:

[I]f we can train the Negro doctor at the Clinic he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results among the colored people. His work in my opinion should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County’s white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us.

The minister’s work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

I wanted to make sure I wasn’t buying into an urban legends that unfairly vilified Margaret Sanger, or made her seem worse than she actually was, so I sought out a source that admired and honored Sanger. So I got all of these quotes from an essay called “How False Narratives of Margaret Sanger Are Being Used to Shame Black Women.”

The essay makes all the usual arguments: everyone said stuff like that back then; she was no worse than anyone else; she was just so passionate, she was being pragmatic; she did so much else that was good. It makes the argument that . . . okay, yes, she was pretty damn racist, and her racism absolutely motivated her to behave the way she behaved, but abortionandbirthcontrol, so we’ll work with her on this.

So, according to an essay that sets out to defend her, this is an incontrovertible part of Margaret Sanger’s legacy:

–Working with people who enjoy torturing and murdering black people: check.
–Classifying black people as careless breeders who are likely to be unfit parents: check.
–Condescendingly plotting to lull childishly suspicious black people into a sense of security by recruiting black doctors: check.

My friends, we have a racist. By the standards set forth by every progressive American institution, we have a flagrant, unapologetic, dyed-in-the-wool racist. By current standards, we should be chiseling her name off walls, tearing her page out of biographies, throwing shoes at her statues. But we’re not.

Tell me why this is okay. Tell me why this is tolerable. Tell me why the enlightened, ultra sensitive, finely tuned society we live in — a society which cannot bear to read Huckleberry Finn or Little House on the Prairie — allows all of this:

Government authorities and other institutions have memorialized Sanger by dedicating several landmarks in her name, including a residential building on the Stony Brook University campus, a room in Wellesley College’s library,[75] and Margaret Sanger Square in New York City’s Noho area.[76] In 1993, the Margaret Sanger Clinic—where she provided birth control services in New York in the mid twentieth century—was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.[77] In 1966, Planned Parenthood began issuing its Margaret Sanger Awards annually to honor “individuals of distinction in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights.”[78] The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Sanger.[79] Her speech “Children’s Era”, given in 1925, is listed as #81 in American Rhetoric’s Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).[80][81]

 

It’s outrageous. Outrageous. If she wasn’t a racist down to her bones, than no one is. Margaret Sanger was thoroughly racist. Her condescending, paternalistic, genocidal, imperialist ideology was baked into every move she made, every word she wrote, every thing she achieved. Margaret Sanger has to go.

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Photo by Steve Strummer – Own work, Public Domain

Francis: Pope of the immediate

There are benefits and drawbacks to being this kind of pope. We’re already pretty familiar with the drawbacks. I think the CDC is ready to acknowledge a new public health risk: Franscogenic Panic Disorder. It afflicts conservatives and progressives equally, and is marked by hair pulling, teeth grinding, hypertension, and a general feeling of confusion, disorientation, and an uncontrollable urge to leap to conclusions.

On the other hand, he is setting an example of immediacy which we would all do well to follow. He responds directly to the person and the need in front of him, putting other concerns on the back burner, and he seems to expect us to do the same when we’re confronted with his words and his behavior: responding to what is immediately in front of us.

Read the rest at the Register.

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Image: Canonization 2014-The Canonization of Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II by Jeffrey Bruno via Flickr (CC)

Off the top of my etiquette head

If there were any justice in the world, I’d be pulling down a massive salary as an etiquette expert. Check out this guy, who thinks he’s so smart.

Big deal! I know lots of things about what should and shouldn’t be, and I will tell them to you! With pictures, even. Here’s just a few off the top of my etiquette head:

1. Nobody likes to see an attractive rug unravel. It’s unsightly and a safety hazard. There is an effective response to this problem: stop buying cheapass rugs that smell like formaldehyde. The solution is not, as you may think, to slap some duct tape on it.

[img attachment=”99686″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”rug tape” /]

2. Kindness to animals will always have a place in gracious society; but many members of haute monde will frown on taking a buddy-system approach to lollipops and the hellbeast family pet.

[img attachment=”99687″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”corrie boomer lollipop resize” /]

3. It’s considered tasteful to allow oneself a small display of souvenirs collected during one’s travels, as long as they are of the best quality, in good condition, and arranged in a visually coherent way. So, not like this:

[img attachment=”99689″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”pope shelf” /]

4. It’s acceptable to incorporate words into your décor, as long as they convey uplifting sentiments. “Joy” is popular; “FAMILY” is widely used. It is not, however, considered de rigueur to write “DOOM ON YOU” in the mildew on the bathroom ceiling.

[img attachment=”99690″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”doom on you” /]

5. Stop saying, “But I just cleaned it! I don’t understand how it got this way so quickly, when I just cleaned it!” You didn’t, and you know it.

[img attachment=”99691″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”heap” /]

 

***
I hope that these tips are helpful to you as you go about, birdlike, building the cozy nest of your home in a manner that is as pleasing to the eye as it is something something something.

What? I just wrote a post! I don’t know how it got this way so quickly!

 

Why newlyweds need a wedding night

In First Things, bride-to-be Leah Libresco notices that all the wedding planning guides have something rather dreary in common: They don’t leave room for the wedding night.  One book, she says, reminds the happy pair:

“There’s not just the one (huge) celebration to think about—kick off your engagement with a cocktail party; throw a rehearsal dinner to remember; extend the wedding-night celebrations with an after-party; and send your guests off with a post-wedding brunch.”

She says:

It can’t be that the book’s authors didn’t notice that they’d squeezed the wedding night down to nothing (this is a book that reminds you that if you’re only booking one hairstylist for you and your bridesmaids, someone will need to volunteer for the early morning slot).

It’s simply that this is a plan that assumes there will be nothing particularly special about the first night that a couple spends together. It’s a to-do list for engaged couples who have already been sexually intimate before marriage and don’t need to reserve any time or energy for consummation. In all the hustle and bustle of a wedding weekend, there’s no time for non-essentials, and one more night together doesn’t manage make the schedule.

Libresco gives the kindest possible interpretation to this arrangement, saying that, likely, couples who are already used to living together want to be generous toward their friends, whom they may not see very often, or who may not get the chance to live it up. So it makes sense to host an event so lavish and long that there just isn’t any room on the schedule for sex.

She proposes:

Instead of recommending wedding schedules that erase the bride and groom’s obligation to (and delight in) each other, the Knot and other wedding guides might do well to carve more time out of the reception for the couple to spend together. They could borrow the tradition of the Yichud Roomfrom Jewish weddings. After they are wed, a Jewish bride and groom head into a separate, locked room for a private interlude. It may be brief (eight minutes is the minimum required) but it allows them to not be hosts, but simply to be two people, a little awed by what they’ve offered to each other.

Eight minute minimum, eh? I can just hear the scoffers scoffing. Eight minutes is more than enough, if it’s your first time! Har har. 

If the idea of abstaining before marriage is foreign to you, you might enjoy bursting the bubbles of your straight-laced friends’ wedding night fantasies, informing them that two virgins having their first sex is going to be awkward and disappointing. There is some truth to this: the best sex happens between two people who not only love each other but who know each other very well; and virginal young newlyweds, by definition, do not know each other very well.

 

But the wedding night isn’t a big deal because of the fabulouso sex you’re guaranteed to have. It’s a big deal because it marks a turning point. It’s not supposed to be a pinnacle or culmination of anything; it’s supposed to be a beginning. It’s okay if the sex is not great, because the whole point is that now you can begin to learn how to do this amazing thing. The point is that you’re not only eager to have sex with each other, but you’re eager to start something new together. It’s not about leaving virginity behind; it’s about marking the beginning of a union, which includes but is not limited to married sex.

It’s sad that sex is no longer considered something special that husband and wife share together, something reserved for a special state in life. In a way, it’s equally sad that all the other aspects of married life are no longer considered something special that husband and wife share together, something reserved for a special state in life.

At least in Putative Trend Land, some couples are so busy, burdened, and stressed out by wedding planning that they are taking a “minimoon,” a short “honeymoon” vacation together before the wedding.

The Huffington Post breezily explains:

What are honeymoons made of? It’s really all about just being with each other, away from the daily grind. It’s about embarking on an unknown adventure, eating good food, sightseeing, and exploring any number of fun, new experiences. In short, it’s a vacation, one that just happens to be in celebration of a marriage. But there’s no law that says such celebratory vacations can’t happen before the “I Dos.”

But then what are they celebrating? If their life together is already a “daily grind” that makes them feel like escaping, what could a marriage ceremony possibly signify? What could marriage possibly be for?

Listen to me now. I’m an old married broad. I know all about the daily grind, and I know a lot about the joy of marriage, too; and I can tell you that what couples need is not white sand beaches or mai tais.  Happy couples are couples who know how to find their happiness in being together, wherever and whenever that happens to be. Happy couples are couples who understand that the marriage they’re in is something real, something that sets them apart from everyone and everything else in their lives, something which may demand things from them, something which may pour out blessings on them, in a way that nothing else besides marriage can do.

This is why that time locked alone in a room together is indispensable.This is why that first married sexual union matters, and why time should be set apart for it — yes, even if you’ve had sex with each other before, and yes, even if it’s not going to be the bestest sex ever. You ought to be looking forward to beginning something you cannot do with anyone else, would not do with anyone else: Sex, and all the rest of it, too.

A wedding night is the starting point of something new, something different. Marriage is supposed to make you different. If your married life isn’t changing you, then what’s it for?

***

Image: Sir Samuel Luke “The Village Wedding” 1887; via Flickr

 

I take an SSRI for anxiety. Here’s what it’s like.

Several months ago, I talked about what it’s like seeing a therapist. Today, I want to talk a little about taking an SSRI for anxiety.

Americans, especially American Catholics, sometimes feel that taking drugs for mental health is cheating, taking the easy way out. I felt this way, too. I wanted to get better, to get control of my emotional life, and to learn better habits by the sweat of my brow, with discipline and hard work. It was bad enough to admit that I needed the help of a therapist. The idea of taking a drug to help the therapist help me? Unthinkable.

One of my goals in therapy has been to suss out the difference between mood swings I can control, and mood swings that are out of my control because of hormonal shifts. After a few months, I was able to pinpoint which distressing times were purely due to my cycle. It felt legitimate to try drugs to help myself through PMS, possibly PMDD, because I could see that this was a true, obvious chemical problem. So I decided to try taking Sertraline (generic Zoloft) for the second half of my cycle.

Without the drug, I find myself a huddled, paralyzed clot of paranoia, panic, and despair for two or three days every month. With the drug, I’m more sensitive and irritable toward the end of my cycle. In other words, it made life possible.

It worked so well, and the things I feared were simply not happening, so I thought, “There’s really no reason not to take this drug every day.” So, with trepidation, I started off at the lowest dose, and then increased to the next lowest dose after several months.

Here is what it’s like taking an anti-anxiety drug:

What I was afraid of:

I thought it would turn me into someone else. I was afraid it would make me some kind of blissed-out zombie who didn’t care about anything, and that taking away anxiety would mean changing who I was. I wanted to still care about the things I care about, and I wanted to be able to get upset, even to get mean, when the situation called for it.

I didn’t want to have part of my personality removed, and I didn’t want to lose control of the way I respond to the world. I am melancholic, and I see good things coming out of melancholy. I didn’t want to turn into a chirpy twerp who doesn’t understand suffering or darkness.

What actually happened:

The main effect I feel is an unstickiness. It’s as if, before the drug, I was trying to go about my day with this giant, hairy, tarball following me around. Any time something unpleasant came about — a fear, a worry, a conflict, an insult — the tarball would roll up to it and stick to it. Wherever I tried to go and whatever I tried to do, or think, or say, I’d have to deal with this revolting, sticky gob first — and everything else that happened in my day got stuck to it, whether it was truly related or not, until the whole day was sticky and tarry and awful.

The drug helps me to identify the things I wanted to get rid of — the uncontrollable anger, the panic, the paranoia, the obsessiveness — as foreign things, parasites, rather than important, functional aspects of my psyche. It’s had an untangling effect on how I perceive myself.

I don’t think this drug would be helping me at all if I weren’t also in therapy. It made it possible to put into practice the things my therapist has been telling me to do, which I wanted desperately to do. What it does is give me a little bit of space, a little bit of time, so I can stop and consider, “All right, how do I want to behave now?” And then I can choose. It doesn’t take my choice away, at all. It’s still me, all the way, for better or worse. I’m not a different person. I’m just myself with a little bit more freedom.

My therapist says that another of his clients is a teacher who had a hard time keeping his temper when the kids annoyed or defied him. This fellow described the drug’s effect as a force field that protected him from incoming missiles. He said he still felt them, but they didn’t hit home in the same way. I include this information because it’s different from what I experience, and it goes to show that the drug affects different people in all sorts of ways.

It also helps me sleep at night. Before the drug, I might suddenly pop awake and then lie there for three hours or more, literally quivering and shaking with guilt, fear, and worry over something like, “We’ve gotten out of the habit of taking vitamins every day.” None of the self-calming measures or mental exercises I tried had any effect on this torment. Now, I still have insomnia, and I still wake up and think about things that worry me, but I can say, “Yes, that is a real problem, but I will put it aside until morning.”

How it works with my spiritual life:

There are lingering fears, in many Catholic circles, that if we turn to secular sources for healing from emotional problems, we are supplanting prayer and hoping to find peace and meaning apart from Christ.

This could happen; but I’ve made a deliberate effort to make sure that whatever I learn in therapy gets put into service to my spiritual life, and my therapist respects how important that is to me. The drug has given me the opportunity to set aside or step around many of the lies, temptations, and bad habits that were blocking my prayer life. These obstacles are still there — I still accuse myself, complain to myself, look for distractions, protest that it’s pointless, see that I’m not 100% sincere, and so on — but I’m finding that space or time to pause, and then to say, “Yes, and so what? Let’s do this thing anyway. In the name of the Father . . . ”

Having a consistent prayer life is at the heart of any kind of spiritual growth, so this is an immense step forward.

Unpleasant side effects:

For the first couple of weeks, I got very sleepy — like, first trimester, drooling-with-my-head-on-my-chest-on-the-couch sleepy. This happened mainly in the evening, so I was still able to get my work done during the day; but I did feel dopey and disconnected during the day, too, at first. This wore off.

Nausea. This wore off faster than the sleepiness did.

Dampening of libido. This takes longer to wear off, but it does gradually subside as my body adjusts to the drug. This was probably the most distressing side effect, and the one which made me question whether the good effects were worth it.

These side effects happened when I first started taking the drug, and then they wore off; and then they cropped up again when I increased the dose. The second time, I knew they were temporary, so they wasn’t as worrisome.

Am I saying that Zoloft is the answer for everything?

Of course not. It doesn’t work well for some people. It makes some people worse. Some people don’t need it, and some people need something else — a different drug, a different dose, or a different plan of action altogether. My midwife prescribed the drug to me because she knew I was checking in regularly with my therapist, and that together, we would make changes if necessary.

I’m just telling you my experience. I’ll be glad if this helps you make up your mind, if you’re trying to make a decision. Some caution is warranted, but other fears turned out to be pure prejudice, and I was glad to be proven wrong.

What’s for supper? Vol. 31: Trouble? I’ve Got Polenta

If you’ve come to the blog today to find great recipes, inspiration, and motivation, then here is my advice to you:

[img attachment=”99022″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”12932588_10153574818022029_4212511536381449974_n” /]

You’ll see.

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SATURDAY
Grilled chicken; Salad; Brownies

[img attachment=”99034″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”chicken and salad” /]

My husband made this, and the kids made dessert, while I holed up in my room writing a speech. Nice meal which I wasn’t involved in making.

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SUNDAY
Fish tacos; corn chips; ice cream cones

[img attachment=”99035″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”fish tacs” /]

My husband and kids made this while I holed up in my room writing a speech. Nice meal which I wasn’t involved in making.

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MONDAY
English muffin pizzas; carrots and hummus

The kids made this while I holed up in my room on the radio. Perfectly decent meal which I wasn’t involved in making.

***

TUESDAY
Pork ribs; Coleslaw; Burned Rice

I made this while asleep. We already had shredded cabbage left over from the tacos, so I mixed it up with shredded carrots, mayo, a little sour cream, vinegar, sugar, and pepper. Good enough.

The pork, I just threw under the broiler with salt and pepper. I keep asking for new pork recipes, and then I keep doing it this way.

I intended to make biscuits for this meal, but when it came down to it, I thought, “Burned rice would really hit the spot right now,” so that’s what I made. Mmm, crunchy.

***

WEDNESDAY
Tacos; Tortilla chips

The kids made this while I drove around like a maniac. An okay meal, which I wasn’t involved in making. I forgot to buy envelopes of taco seasoning, so we made do with chili powder and hot sauce.

***

THURSDAY
Quesadillas; Polenta with Spicy Chorizo and Carmelized Red Onions

Gosh, it’s Thursday, and I’ve barely done any cooking this week! Well, today’s the day I’ll make up for it all. The kids love quesadillas, and we’re all kind of excited about polenta, and chorizo is very tasty.  Oh, wow, look at these magnificent onions!

[img attachment=”99038″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”red onions” /]

Ravishing. What a world. What a beautiful, delicious, beneficent world it is. This is going to be the best meal ever.

So. Who remembers that scene from The Witch of Blackbird Pond where she’s making cornmeal mush?

Toward evening they set her at the easiest task they could devise–the making of corn pudding. The corn meal had to be added to the boiling kettle a pinch at a time. Before half of it was consumed, Kit’s patience ran out. The smoke made her eyes water, and there was a smarting blister on one thumb. She suspected that Judith had invented the irksome procedure just to keep her busy, and in a burst of resentment she poured in the remaining cupful all at once. She learned her mistake when the lumpy indigestible mass was ladled onto her wooden trencher. There was nothing else for supper. After one shocked stare, the family downed the mess in a silence that made Kit writhe.

So, that’s how I started. Oh yes, there was writhing. Then I fixed it by dumping a bunch of greasy orange meat and slithery onions into the pot, and then I threw it in the oven to firm up and become wonderful.

Behold:

[img attachment=”99036″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”polent chorizo” /]

I’m sorry you had to see that.

I would have gotten away with it, too, if I weren’t completely incompetent. Although it takes a certain type of skill to produce a dish that looks like it’s got an infection.

***

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Because I think maybe I can boil water.

Oh, there was one bright spot the week, foodwise. It was Benny’s shopping turn. I take one of the kids shopping with me each week, to get in a little one-on-one time. We have lunch, and the kid gets to spend his allowance, pick the weekend’s desserts, chat, and otherwise be charming. Here, Benny conquers Aldi:

[img attachment=”99037″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”Benny Aldi” /]

How did your week go? Any better than mine? Will Goodwife Cruff and her grim cadre of joyless harridans expel you from the community, or will you learn to tame your wild spirit before it’s too late? Also, what do I do with pork?

This at-home ovulation test could be an NFP game-changer

Here’s some amazing news for couples who use NFP: the Marquette method, which measures estrogen and LH in the urine, is about to get more effective — or it could, if MFB Fertility raises enough funds to get their newly-developd Ovulation Double-Check Test Strips into production.
Amy Beckley is a biologist with a background in hormone signaling, and is a co-founder of MFB Fertility, which developed the Double-Check Test Strips. Beckley says that after two frustrating years of trying to conceive, she realized that women could manage their fertility better if they could test their urine at home for the presence of progesterone, confirming that ovulation had occurred, not just predicting it.  The test strips she developed can be used both by couples trying to conceive (indicating that ovulation has actually occurred) and by those trying to avoid pregnancy (confirming that they are safely past the fertile phase of the cycle).
MFB Fertility is currently in talks with Marquette, and the goal is to eventually include these progesterone tests into the Marquette protocols. As I’ve mentioned before, I use Marquette myself, and I’m thrilled to see these test strips about to come on the market. They will make family planning more accurate and reliable.
There’s an Indiegogo campaign going on right now to raise funds to get the test strips into production at a manufacturing site in the U.S.  They need to raise $28,000 to start production. The campaign ends May 12th, and if you contribute now, you can get some test strips for yourself — a lifetime supply for the first 250 to contribute $99.
And you can also get — what else? — some adorable sperm and ovum socks, because sex is funny, always has been, always will be.
I’m very excited about this effort! Anything that makes NFP easier and more effective is a huge gift to couples. Please share the word!  If you have questions, you can contact Beckley directly at amy@mfbfertility.com.

Facebook History: Beyond like, wow, weep, giggle, or grr

Facebook and other social media notoriously distort our sense of what is normal. The ceaselessly updating parade of unsorted images and ideas makes the world more hectic, more urgent, and at the same time more trivial and ephemeral, so that we feel the need instantly drum up a response to everything large and small — but then it all evaporates in a few hours, and the next urgent thing presents itself, demanding that you like, wow, weep, giggle, or grr.

Within five minutes, there’s an earthquake and lots of people are dead! Vote on my cute kid in a chef’s hat! I’m outraged that your senator was outrageous (or maybe it’s from a fake newspaper that’s lying and calling it “satire”)! Here’s a cartoon about the uterus! Pope Francis is a demon! Pope Francis is a genius! Pope Francis is a piece of soap; here’s where you can get yours! Only you can stop abortion and sex trafficking and fluoride and Kanye West! BABY OWLS! And abortion.

Like the man says:

For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel, half beast, but no man.

You said it, Walker.

Well, mythical monster though I may be, I have hit upon something useful and unexpected that Facebook is doing for me — something that turned out to be great for my mental health: It’s showing me my memories from previous years.

At first, I thought the “See your memories” option was a cute feature, but just another way to wallow. But after a while, I noticed a pattern. At the beginning of the year, last year, and the year before, and the year before that, and so on, I had posted a series of articles that got tons of attention. It was really good work! I was doing real writing, and expressing myself with force and originality, and opening the floor for lots of fruitful conversation among thoughtful people.

Then, I saw that sometime toward the middle of Lent, last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, I posted a bunch of articles about struggling — about feeling flat — about not feeling what everyone else was feeling. There are lots of essays about feeling lost, feeling helpless, feeling like a wanderer and a loser.

I’d have to be blind not to see it — but I couldn’t see it, when I was in the middle of it. I have a burst of creativity in the beginning of the year, and I can hardly catch up with all the wonderful ideas that spring up out of nowhere. And then it all drains away, and I start feeling about as useful, appealing and energetic as something that washed up under the boardwalk.

When I’m doing great, I think, “Yes! It’s finally coming together! This is what I’m supposed to be doing! Now I need to make sure I’m taking advantage of this special, unique time in my life and not missing any opportunities!” When I’m barely keeping my head above water, I think, “Yes. I’ve finally been found out. I’m a shallow fraud, and now everyone will know it. Whatever razzle dazzle fakery that was, the fuse has burnt down, and I better scramble for a back-up plan, because now the slow death begins.”

Yes, I’m in therapy, thanks.

The crazy thing was, this was the pattern no matter what else was going on in my life. New baby, old baby, pregnant, looking for work, just about to get hired, kids doing great, kids falling apart . . . the pattern was the same.

I still don’t know what’s causing it. Is it the weather? Is it how much sunlight or sugar or iron I’m getting? Is it the liturgical year? Is it marsh gas? All of the above? Who knows? The point is, now I know that this pattern is part of what’s normal for me. Whatever stage I’m in right now, it’s just a stage, and it won’t last forever. It’s immensely liberating to realize this. If you’re stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel, it’s terrifying; but if you know it’s all going to come around again, it’s much easier to enjoy the ride. Whee!

So, there you go. If you, like me, tend to think that whatever you’re going through is the Really Real Truth About Your Life, and things never have been or never will be any different, maybe ask Facebook. Maybe Facebook knows something about you that you need to hear.

***
Image: By Troy McCullough via Flickr, CC BY 2.0, 

How to trick yourself into daily prayer

I’m an idiot, and will avoid prayer if I can get away with it, even though I know it will make me miserable and weak. I’m extremely resistant to change; so for me, sticking to daily prayer is all about linking it to things I can’t avoid and habits I already have. Here’s how I make sure I never have a prayerless day….

Read the rest at the Register.