“It smells like Thanksgiving!”

/ faithsweatandtears / Leave a comment
2013-08-03 22.16.03

Honey & vegetable broth brine

I fired up the smoker today and cooked a turkey and two chickens. I brined the turkey overnight using a modified Alton Brown recipe. Kosher salt is very expensive, though, and I used coarse ice cream salt in a previous brining experiment (which worked just fine), so I stuck with my cheap alternative.

Also, without a gas grill, I don’t really have a way to maintain a set temperature. I do love the smell of a wood-burning grill, though! My smoker is just somewhat hit-or-miss with target temperature, since I’m still learning how to balance the charcoal and wood amounts over time.

I rely on visual cues (clear juices, browning skin and no pink interior) and a meat thermometer, for the most part. I could have left this one in a bit longer to brown the skin some more, but the temp was perfect, and the meat was so juicy & tender that I didn’t want to risk it drying out.

2013-08-04 19.27.33

Tender & juicy!

After I brought the bird into the kitchen to de-bone it (my least favorite part of cooking any poultry), one of the boys walked in and said, “Oh, wow! It smells like Thanksgiving!” Then, he tried a bite and declared it “awesome.” 🙂  I’ll take that compliment!

Wash up (Prayer Devotional for the week of August 04, 2013)

/ faithsweatandtears / Leave a comment

As I was thumbing through the Bible this week, I came across a verse that I had forgotten about in Matthew 15. To set the stage, we need to flip back to chapter 14. John the Baptist (Jesus’ dear friend and cousin) had been beheaded at the whim of Herod, and verse 13 tells us that Jesus sought solitude by taking a boat out into the lake by himself. He couldn’t get away, though, because thousands of people were clamoring to meet him on the other shore. After performing a miracle to feed the crowd, Jesus tried again to get some quiet time, so he sent his disciples out on the lake while he hiked the mountain to pray. In the wee morning hours, Jesus walked on water to meet up with his disciples. They freaked out, of course, and then Peter tried to walk out to meet Jesus, started to sink, and Jesus saved him.

After all that, I imagine Jesus was emotionally sapped. Enter chapter 15. Some religious uppity-ups came all the way from Jerusalem to badger Jesus about something apparently heinous that his disciples were doing: they weren’t washing their hands before they ate! *gasp! I can imagine Jesus rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of it all.

Granted, I tend to be a stickler about hand-washing. The last thing I need is a virus running through my house, so I try to make sure that the kids wash up before they eat. However, is that really the biggest issue that I ought to address? Will having clean hands matter if the food they eat is foul? Or, is having clean hands more important than having a clean heart? That’s where the Pharisees missed the boat. They got so hung up on one minor issue that they ignored the major issues that they were flouting, themselves.

In response, Jesus quoted from Isaiah 29: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules” (Matthew 15: 8-9, NIV). So, by all means, wash up before you eat. Become a germaphobe, if it makes you feel better, but not at the expense of clean living in other areas of your life.

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

/ faithsweatandtears / 2 Comments

My little brother would be 35 today. I don’t remember exactly how the tradition started, but I think my mom wanted to do something special on the first birthday after his passing, so we made brownies and put birthday candles in them. Since then, we’ve celebrated his birthday with a special dessert and sharing stories and memories. This year, the boys and I decided to go all-out and fix a German-themed dinner, since Nathan was born in Germany (while our dad was in the Army), and he always loved German food. Here’s a photo recap of our special dinner:

2013-08-02 18.35.39

I promise I’m not a pyromaniac, but I do love watching the flame on a grill. It’s so pretty, and it smells wonderful!

2013-08-02 18.49.01

2 beers to marinate the brats & 1 beer for the cook to enjoy! 😉

2013-08-02 18.44.00

The age-old privilege of helping to bake: getting to lick the beaters! 🙂

2013-08-02 19.12.27

My sous chef grill master, helping with the brats.

2013-08-02 19.36.40

I wish this was a scratch-and-sniff photo, because mmm, mmm, mmm — they smelled amazing!

2013-08-02 19.51.48

Bratwurst, sauerkraut & homemade German potato salad!

2013-08-02 20.04.20

German Chocolate cupcakes for dessert, to round out the themed dinner. They turned out a bit flat, but they were scrumptious, anyway. 🙂

In print!

/ faithsweatandtears / 3 Comments
first article

Co-author! 🙂

This morning, I received this lovely monograph in my office mail. It’s not just any ol’ book, though … it contains my very first peer-reviewed, scholarly article! 😀

We’ve been working on the article since last summer, and I found out a few months ago that it would be published, but I didn’t realize that I would receive my own copy of the journal. I’m just a co-author, but it is still very, very exciting to me. When I used to write for newspapers, it never failed to amaze me to see my name in print. It could have been a dull report about a City Council meeting; it didn’t matter. There’s just something immensely gratifying about seeing something you wrote become published.

Someday (hopefully sooner than later), I would like to be the lead author on a scholarly article. I think I’ll get there; it just takes time.

Speaking of writing, I submitted a rough draft of Ch. 1 of my dissertation (the intro, basically), and I’m waiting for the green light from my committee chair to move on to Ch. 2. I doubt I’ll hear anything before mid-August, since the fall term doesn’t begin until then. (I jumped the gun and wanted to start early, but now I’m playing hurry-up-and-wait.)

The boys asked me the other day how long a dissertation is, and I told them that they vary, but typically at least 100 pages. They got wide-eyed and asked how many more pages I need to write. I laughed and said, “About 95.” It’s a long process, but I’m still hoping to finish next spring!