Meatless Stuffing

Only a mere number of days now until Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays...

We'll be packing up for a quick jaunt to the beloved Twin Cities, where we'll spend the holiday in the stellar company of my amazing sister B and my godparents. I haven't been to the Cities in over a year, and that is over a year too long for a visit to my beloved college alma mater! I am most certainly excited.

Thanksgiving commemorates my plunge into vegetarianism...my very last meat was Thanksgiving turkey my freshman year in college. Haven't looked back since. And though I can honestly say that I've never missed meat, I have to admit that sometimes vegetarianism becomes a slippery slope...the more you know, the more you learn about how many "meatless" foods actually contain not so cruelty free animal parts (altoids and gummy bears, to name a few, sorry to break it to you). And I always struggle around this time of year because I really, really love a good Thanksgiving stuffing, and you'd be surprised at how hard it is to find a totally meat-free version! Even the boxed stuff from the store usually has chicken or beef broth as one of the first ingredients. This is very upsetting.

But last year, after many years of searching, I found the stuffing to satisfy my cravings (thanks to one of my favorite magazines, Body & Soul). And today, I will share the recipe with you, in case you've been looking for just the thing. This dish will grace whatever Thanksgiving table I sit at for years to come! Enjoy!

Healthy Harvest Stuffing 

• 
  
• 1 pound whole-wheat Italian bread, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 3/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 2/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium celery stalk with leaves, chopped fine (about 1/2 cup)
• 8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed, and caps chopped
• 1 Granny Smith apple, cored and diced
• 1/3 cup fresh parsley leaves, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh sage leaves, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 3 cups reduced-sodium vegetable broth (you may not need to use it all)
• Olive-oil spray (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with oven rack in middle position. Place bread on a rimmed baking sheet and bake, tossing occasionally, until crisp, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl along with walnuts and dried cranberries; set aside.
2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium. Add onion, celery, and shiitakes and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables have softened, about 5 minutes. Add apple and continue to cook until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Add parsley, sage, and thyme and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove from heat; season with salt and pepper.
3. Add onion mixture to bowl with bread mixture; stir to combine. Add enough of the broth to thoroughly moisten the bread mixture without soaking it (there shouldn't be any excess broth in the bottom of the bowl). Spoon stuffing into a 2-quart casserole dish, cover with foil, and bake 20 minutes. Uncover, mist the top of the stuffing with olive-oil spray, if desired, and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes more.

November 21

Remembering today...

Those we've loved, lost, and whose birthdays will always be worth celebrating.

Happy 63rd Birthday, Pops.

Drawing From Its Heat

We're back! Jet-lagged, confused, tired and tan, but home. It feels good. Bali was amazing, and there is much too much to cover in one post, but I will share bits and pieces in the following weeks. Highlights included lots of swimming in beautiful waters, doing some dance therapy here and there, adorable Balinese children excited to practice their English with tourists, many wonderful talks with my dear friend Clair, and biking through the rice fields in Ubud (Ubud, I am in love with that place!). I also enjoyed daily being asked where I was from, and excited responses of "Barack Obama!" from anyone who asked. Yes yes yes.

One of the things that I like best about traveling is that the change in my regular routine reminds me to turn back to books, movies and music more than I do in my "normal days." I enjoyed some good inspiration on the trip.

First, books. I spent the bulk of time with my exam study guide for my impending counseling licensing exam (yipes), but I did take the time to read Elizabeth Gilbert's novel Eat, Pray, Love. I sort of had to, seeing as the third section takes place in Bali and Julia Roberts left the day before I arrived (so close!) from filming the movie. A bit slow in places, but overall I give this one a thumbs up. Gilbert's description of Bali is spot on, as I realized while there!

I also took in several movies, thanks to the mini screens on the long, long, long flights (ergh, glad that part is over!). I watched My Sister's Keeper (good, but about cancer, i.e. emotionally draining....), The Time Traveler's Wife (eh), Julie & Julia (quite cute, actually liked this one much more than expected), and Adam (definitely recommend this sweet story about a man with asperger's who falls in love with his neighbor).

But the hit of them all was turning back to my ipod and reaching for some of my favorite tunes, some that I haven't visited in years. If you know me much at all, you know that my two all time, unmatched favorite music groups are Over the Rhine and Waterdeep. There was much listening to them with memories of all kinds attached. I get in this pattern where I am reminded of a song I love and I just listen to it on repeat again and again, and this happened with the Waterdeep Song I am in my being here with you. This song started off our wedding ceremony, and I just love the melody and lyrics. The lyrics, below: 

I Am In My Being Here With You

Written by Don Chaffer

The deepest ties are the hardest to understand

But the warmest to embrace

And today I am assured of this

At the seeing of your face

In giving up myself to you

I'm becoming more complete

Darling, we're in the face of mystery

But we're drawing from its heat

CHORUS

I'll swallow all the problems

I will swallow all the pains

I'll drink this life together

Down to the blood inside my veins

I'll swallow all the pleasures

I will swallow all the smiles

I'll drink the life I have with you

Down through the years and through the miles

A song is in its singing

A gift is in its bringing

And I am in my being here with you

I've seen in you an oceanfront

I've seen in you the skies

And sometimes I when I'm suffering

I find comfort in your eyes

When the whole world starts to shaking up

Right underneath my feet

I remember, Darling, we're in the middle of a mystery

But we're drawing from its heat

BRIDGE

I love you so much

It sometimes makes me weep

It's so simple to say

But it runs so deep... so very deep

I know, I know it's generally a sappy and sweet love song, but as I listened to the lyrics again and again throughout the trip I found so many more meanings. In the past few months I've been reminded in so very many ways, some enormous and some quite small, that I really don't have control. I can make all of the plans and to-do lists that I want, but when it comes down to it, life truly is a mystery and really the only way to stay sane is to remind myself of that and choose to draw from its heat. In addition to "regular life" happenings, being in a foreign country you can feel especially vulnerable and unsure, which also forced me to live in the moment and just take in life for all that it is.

Take a pause out of your normal treadmill routine today to listen to a song, read a poem or reflect on a quote that reminds you about how you want to live your life. It sometimes takes me too long to do so, but, alas, I am always glad that I did. 

"fall" ing

Mmmmm, what a lovely month October has been. This time of year is just delicious, literally. I can’t get enough of the apples or the pumpkins or the spices. And orange! I just want to be surrounded by deep, lovely oranges in leaves and sweaters and pumpkins waiting to be carved. What a great month.

October was ushered in with our third wedding anniversary (!), filled with visitors and apple picking and final trips to the farmer’s market and dance shows, and will be ushered out in style as we look towards November (and no, I’m not talking about the stylish costume I’ll be wearing tonight to my teen girl’s dance group, although it is pretty special all on it’s own).

On Wednesday, Paul and I will pack our lives into two backpack suitcases for 2 ½ weeks (alas, much easier for P than for me…), hop on a bus to O’Hare, and then start a long series of flights that will land us, 36 hours later, in the warm hugs of our dear friends in Bali, Indonesia. We’ve been awaiting this adventure for so long and now, boom, here we are (and oh my how not ready are we, you don’t even want to know!). We are leaving long away messages at work and putting our lives on hold in the anticipation of surfing, Balinese dance classes, gamelan lessons, dance therapy with my dance therapist kindred spirit, the Malaysian jungle, and oh so much more. And then, all too soon I am sure, we’ll cry a long good-bye, leave the 86 degree days, take in many more planes and land back in the sweet Midwest, where we will most likely, in exchange, be taking in some November snow.

But until Wednesday, it’s just October in Wisconsin. Work to be done, leaves to rake, preparations to be made. From the usual autumnal festivities to long planned dreams taking wing, here’s wishing you sweet, pumpkin spice filled, remaining days of fall.

Unexpected Wisdom...and Grief

Tonight I was flipping through channels and I caught the last few moments of the Grey's Anatomy season premiere. At the end, giving her usual ending commentary, Meredith was talking about the experience of grief.

"...the very worst part is that as soon as you think it's over, it starts all over again..."

Well, amen to that. This, to me, is the simultaneously most frustrating and most beautiful part of the process of grief. Some days you just want it to end, to stop hurting, to not be as real. And then other days you cling to the pain, the rawness, the gnawing at your soul - because it reminds you that the love you had and still have was just that real. And within all of this intensity, you are absolutely powerless over the cycle of starting, stopping, starting, stopping.

It's not just Meredith Grey who has me pondering this whole equation this week. Last Sunday's sermon has been sticking in my chest, reminding me that God makes light out of dark places, another dichotomous view of dark and light, sorrow and joy, despair and hope. And then Monday morning I had a little coffee shop run in that I haven't been able to shake...

I was still not feeling quite awake following my first in-home client on Monday, so I popped in to a coffee shop to grab a quick cup before heading into the office. Directly inside of the door was a man working at a small table. He appeared to be transferring dates from his 2009 AAL (Aid Association for Lutherans) red calendar to his 2010 calendar (same one, also red, of course). I could recognize these planners in my sleep; they came in the mail every year when I was growing up. My dad took the pocket sized version, and kept every detail scrawled inside in slanted writing that used a capital "R" in the middle of words, all kept together by a trusty rubber band before being slipped in his back pocket. My mom used (and uses to this day) the bigger version of the calendar, where she wrote every detail of her life and of every other person's life as well - that calendar did not miss a birthday, anniversary or any other remotely important occasion. Every December she'd complete the arduous task of transferring everything by hand to the next year, perhaps the early roots of my complete satisfaction at making lists and transferring information by hand (proof of the dually genetic and learned components of neurosis, I suppose...).

So I digress. I catch the calendars as I'm walking in the door, and the whole time I'm doctoring up my coffee I'm considering whether or not to say something to the nice Lutheran calendar user on the way out the door or just to walk on by and keep the little connection to myself. In the end, I hypothesize that this guy must be a pastor, and he'd probably get a kick out of my thankful connection. So I stopped on my way out, awkwardly saying hello and explaining that I really loved seeing his calendar and although it seemed quite silly altogether it made me think of my parents. Our little conversation continued, and was classic Lutheran - he was a nice pastor who had recently moved from a church in downtown Madison to one just outside of the city, and gosh he sure wondered if he knew my dad or if maybe they went to school together (he didn't, and they didn't, but he did know one of his old interns). After it couldn't be avoided any longer, he asked where my dad was working now, and I had to stumble around saying that he wasn't around at all in fact and in that moment I was so sorry that I'd said anything in the first place. But, in very pastoral fashion, the unnamed pastor smiled and said, "well, then it must have been meant to be that you walked in today and saw me, so that I could help you have a fond memory of your dad." And then I smiled and said thank you and we said goodbye. I got in my car and drove away and cried good and hard, and that was that.

The very worst and the very best part about grief indeed is that just when you think it's over it comes rolling back. It doesn't take much, and you start to know the cycles for yourself - the dates, the months, the seasons, the periods of the church year (hello outing myself as a pastor's child) when it will be the worst. But it's not always that clear cut, because then it's just Monday morning and you're getting coffee and the man sitting inside of the door pierces your heart without ever knowing it. And you remind yourself that God is really really good at tripping you up when you need it so badly that you can't see it coming until you're face down on the floor.

Fine Form

Madison is ushering in fall in its usual fine form. The Farmer's Market will only be here for a few more weeks, and the days are reminding us that winter is just around the corner (noooo) but for a bit we can all bask in apples and beautiful leaves and brisk air in this sweet little city. Two events that you should not miss coming up:

Food for Thought Festival 2009. Saturday morning, adjacent to the Market on MLK Blvd. Michael Pollan is the keynote speaker. Be there or be square.

Gallery Night 2009. Great art all over town. And it's all totally free. There are no excuses. I'll be dancing with the Bare Bones Dance Collective at Mound Street Yoga. (And if this isn't all convincing enough, there is free cake. You heard me right.)

I love this place. (Please just remind me of that when fall quickly fades into a relentless winter!)

Oh, and yeah...

I finished my first (and last?!?) half-marathon! The Chicago Half-Marathon on September 13th. I ran with my sister and cousin. It was generally hotttt, sweaty and painful (after mile 8) but had many fun moments as well. So relieved that it's over and that I made it!