Tag: panic

All right, then, let’s talk about Catholics doing yoga

War? Schism? Genocide? Fraud, pestilence, global conspiracies? These are all child’s play. Back in my day, Catholics used to spend our days on the internet arguing about really important things, like yoga.

Oh yes. It’s finally summer, the streams are flowing, and I’d dearly like to start a fight about the spiritual dangers of banana pose.

I’ve been doing yoga, off and on, for four years now, and it has changed my life. It’s been great for my joints and my digestion, it builds muscle and helps me sleep, it’s brought my blood pressure back to normal, and I really enjoy showing fealty to false deities and demons. All while wearing revealing pants!

I kid, I kid. What is true is that I love yoga and it has changed my life, but whenever I talk about it in Catholic circles, someone freaks out and says I’m gonna catch a demon.

Believe it or not, I take that warning seriously. I think the world is full of things we can’t see, and it’s entirely possible to slide into a state that welcomes in malignant spirits, and we shouldn’t mess around with spiritual practices that are not our own.

I also believe the body has meaning. When I make the sign of the cross, I believe that it has an inherent meaning. It means something when an actor in a movie does it without any understanding of what it signifies. It meant something even when my mother, far gone in dementia, made the sign of the cross on herself out of sheer habit. When I have sex, THAT has inherent meaning, even if my thoughts at the time are not necessarily fully engaged with passages from Theology of the Body. What we do with our bodies matters.

So even if I don’t MEAN to honor Shiva when I manage to pull off a wobbly natarajasana, isn’t there something wrong with a Catholic doing the thing that was designed in ancient times to honor Shiva?

These questions bothered me. So I did what any good Catholic would do: I looked it up.

It turns out the thing that springs to mind when we say “yoga” — yes, even the kind with gongs and incense and statues of elephants — is about 60 years old. There is an ancient practice that was once called “yoga” but it was mainly concerned with interior, spiritual concepts and practices, and barely even mentions the body. Yoga as we know it, and as most modern people practice it, is physical exercise that happens to have originated in India; and some people — some eastern, some western — have done their best to grandfather in some spiritual practices.

But historically, the only common denominator between ancient yoga and modern yoga is India. The spiritual elements of modern yoga are about as rooted in ancient pagan spirituality as Totino’s Orange Chicken Pizza Rolls (WHICH ARE A REAL THING) are rooted in old Napoli. There is a connection, sort of? But not a meaningfully historical one.

However! In this essay, I will not claim that, because of this lack of seamless historicity, there is therefore no possible spiritual danger that can come from getting into yoga.

Read the rest of my latest column for The Pillar (subscriber content).

Photo by Mohamed Hassan form PxHere

How to make chocolate caramel almonds without panicking

When we manage to make treats for Christmas, we usually make fudge and buckeyes, sometimes rum balls or peanut brittle, and of course rugelach. Last year, looking for something a little more decorative, I tried chocolate caramelized almonds from Smitten Kitchen. You don’t need a candy thermometer to make them, and you can use whatever kind of sugar or sprinkles you like, so they are adaptable gifts for just about any holiday.

Here’s the ingredients list from Smitten Kitchen:

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 1/2 cup whole almonds
  • 1/2 teaspoon flaky salt
  • 8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
  • Approximately 1/2 cup cocoa powder, sanding or coarse sugar, or sprinkles to coat

You will want a good, heavy pot and some parchment paper or silicone pads for this, too.

I’m trying very hard not to run afoul of recipe copyright laws here, so I’m going to send you right to her page to get the detailed directions. Basically you put sugar and water in a pot and bring it to a simmer, add the almonds and simmer them until they’re caramelized, stir in the salt, and then spread the almonds out on a pan covered with parchment paper.

Put the pan in the freezer for a few minutes until they are set. Then break them up and dip them in melted chocolate; then roll the chocolate-coated almonds in various fancy coatings. Let them set again, and then you can store them for quite a long time at room temperature.

Here’s my reason for writing a whole post about it: In the detailed instructions for caramelizing the almonds, she says,

“Once the liquid has fully evaporated, it will become sandy and you will think something has gone wrong; it has not. Continue stirring and the sandiness will dissolve into a bronzed but clear liquid; this is the caramel.”

I was glad of the reassurance, and prepared myself not to freak out. But then! I freaked out anyway! Weird stuff happens in that pot!!! So I’m sharing the photos of the caramelization process here, so you can see how it goes and maybe not panic like I did.

Here we are simmering, fine, very good:

then it got thicker, and yes, there are soap-like bubbles forming:

the the liquid was just about evaporated, and all was well:

then, sure enough, it started to get dry and a little bit cakey, and I was like, “Wow, she was right! That is sandy.”

Then it got dry and even more sandy, and I thought, “Good thing she warned me, because this does not look normal at all. I would definitely be worrying right now.”

Then this happened. And it went on and on. Just kept on being sandy. I didn’t stop stirring, but it was the stirring of futility. I assumed the candy gods were onto me, and knew I had no business in any kitchen, smitten or otherwise. Look at this!

Yeah, these are totally ruined. Great, now they’re clumping. No one said anything about clumping. Dammit. Almonds are expensive! Dammit!

But wait! Down there in the center of the pot, under all the nuts, there’s a little, kind of syrupy patch!

Well, hallelujah! Those little bastiches are caramelizing after all, aren’t they.

And there they were, coated with caramel, just like Smitten Kitchen said. So I put them on parchment paper, slid them in the freezer, and went to sit down for a bit.

I was so emotionally spent by this time that I left them in the freezer for a few days, rather than the suggested five minutes, until I did the next step. I don’t recommend this, as they got a little soggy; but you will be the best judge of what kind of load you can carry at this point in the evening. It still worked, but they weren’t as crunchy as they might have been.

Now I’ll send you back to Smitten Kitchen for the rest of the directions. You’re going to pour the nuts into melted chocolate, stir to coat, and then pick out the almonds and roll them around in your sugars or sprinkles or whatever. It’s messy and time-consuming, especially if you’re making a large batch, so don’t think you can just zoop-zoop-zoop (as my mother used to say) and be done with it.

The good news is, you can make them ahead of time and then store them at room temperature for a long time. Here’s the finished product:

I wish I had a brighter picture of the finished product. They were so pretty, especially the sugar-coated ones! They looked like little Christmas gems. (I buy up expensive seasonal-themed sugars and sprinkles after holidays, when they are marked way down. This doesn’t work, as the kids tend to develop an unconquerable hunger for tiny little bats in May, but it’s a good theory.)

I think these almonds make nice treats on their own, or they would make lovely accents to a package of fudge or cookies. Just keep telling yourself, “It’s supposed to look this way,” and you’ll probably be right.