Giving Up to Get a Lot

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JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Friends, it's happened again. My week and Ash Wednesday coincide once more, and, as your resident observant deist, I'm going to talk about it. In past years, I've pointed out the near-universal practice of fasting, shared my painful sacrifice of sweets, and we've discussed the day just past: Shrove Tuesday, a/k/a Pancake Day, a/k/a Mardi Gras (the consensus was none of us wanted to go to New Orleans for Carnival, but we all liked powdered-sugar pancakes and beignets.)





In some ways, February and March are ideal for revisiting some of the good resolutions and self-denial we were all  super charged up about on January 1st. We've all had the chance to fall off the wagon - did you really stick with the intermittent fasting? How are you doing with being nicer to your in-laws? A little wiser, a little more sober, we can take a look at the disciplines we'd like to integrate into our lives and take another crack at it.

Another reason? What else are you going to do to get through what's arguably the dreariest time of the year? Yes, okay, those of you in Arizona and Southern California are enjoying the weather God intended for the Garden of Eden. But, as Debs recently pointed out, for most of the rest of us, February, March and early April are one long, wet, chilly, slushy slog to Spring. What better time to gird your loins and Do Something Meaningful?






Do I have a suggestion for something meaningful? Readers, you know I do. The past two years, my church has asked us to consider abstaining from - or at least cutting down on - our habits that harm our local environments and our climate-challenge world. What does that look like? Let me share something written for our church newsletter by our own Celia Wakefield:

To observe "a season of penitence and fasting", takes some discipline. This discipline received new wheels last year as we were asked to cut back on single use items in our lives. Refusing straws, trying not to use one off containers for drinks etc.(Though I haven’t yet worked out how to enjoy a milk shake without that big paper beaker.) Carrying a small towel to class for hand washing, or a cloth napkin if it was lunch out on the run.

In addition, I worked on some other ways where I could do better. I carried reused plastic bags to the supermarket, or didn’t use a bag at all. Does one head of broccoli really need a bag? I bought fabric bags for veggie storage and to use when shopping. I made sure there were always shopping bags in the car. I also tried to cut down on paper products in day to day use. Instead of automatically reaching for paper towels, I stocked in more fabric dishtowels for spills. Washing my hands when out finds them drying on my butt more often than not! (So far no dread illness or reaction from that choice.) Even just shaking them after washing finds they are dry within a minute. 

 

What can we do to build on this this Lent? Save Water. Americans use on average 88 gallons of water daily. Colgate toothpaste prints on their wrapper that running water while brushing used 4 or more gallons. We read that dishwashers clean perfectly well when plates are not rinsed, and that saves water. This is from the EPA site - According to a 2014 Government Accountability Report, 40 out of 50 state water managers expect water shortages under average conditions in some portion of their states over the next decade. Well, not in Maine! In Maine we have the best water evah! But there are many more states facing scarcity.

Over the forty days I encourage you to think about your use of water. Please email --- with thoughts, saving ideas, your own water plan. We will share, expanding our ideas for the planet. 

So, Reds and Dear Readers, here's a challenge for you to get you through the next forty days until blissful spring - what changes can you make in your life to help the environment?

The (no) Sweet Life

Julia Spencer-Fleming: For most of the USA, this time of year is known as OhGodWillWinterEverEnd, but for those of us following liturgical calendars, it's also Lent, the forty days (and nights) between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

Lent has many similarities to February, the month in which it usually begins: it's dreary, it seems somehow much longer than it is, and it exists in a limbo of non-festivity; Christmas only a pine-scented memory, Easter (and spring) unimaginable as you squelch through mud and decaying snow. In our churches, we forgo pretty floral arrangements and swags and banners (admittedly, the flower thing may be because the flower guild's budget is low after the big Christmas blow out - five hundred poinsettias don't come cheap.) The readings can be charitably called pointed - the past Sunday we were reminded we are a "sinful and adulterous generation." Which makes me believe I'm definitely missing out on fun somewhere. Even the hymns are depressing - check out this dirge-like classic:




So what am I doing to get through this, the DMV waiting room for the rest of the year? I have sacrificed sweets. Oh, dear readers, it's painful. I've always had a sweet tooth. My mother tells a story about having to pin a note on my that read "Don't feed" because I would go from neighbor to neighbor asking for cookies. The only reason I finished my BA in four years was because I powered through every paper eating a party-sized bag of M&Ms while drinking a six-pack of Coca-cola. (No, I didn't sleep for two days afterwards, why do you ask?)

I am everymore a dessert person. I like dessert after dinner. Hell, I like dessert after lunch. I've substituted my usual candy/cookies/pastries with oranges, unsalted almonds and raisins. I'm waiting to experience that thing over-eager diet writers describe, where just a bite of yummy fruit is more than sweet enough for me! So far, this has not happened. I don't care how deprived I am, a handful of dried fruit tastes nowhere near as good as a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Like, if they were men, the raisins would be Steve Mnuchin and the peanut butter cup would be Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

The only reason I made it through the first week of Lent without cheating was the fact I cleared the fridge and pantry of anything sweet. (We still have three-month old candy canes in the cupboard, but even I take a hard pass on those.) The real challenge came a couple days ago, when I had dinner with our own Brenda Buchanan and her wife Diane. Like an idiot, I volunteered to make dessert. I managed to bake brownies, take them to Brenda's house, and bring back one for Youngest at the end of the evening, all without tasting them myself. However, I confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that I licked the bowl. Not in a dignified way with the scraper, either. I got right in there. I had brownie batter on my cheek.

Will I make it through to Easter? Possibly. Will I have developed healthy new habits and learn to prefer apple slices over Snickers Bars? Not likely. But in the dreary days of February and March, sometimes the struggle is is sufficient unto itself.

As Thou didst hunger bear, and thirst,
So teach us, gracious Lord,
To die to self, and chiefly live
By Thy most holy Word.

40 Days

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning, for many Christians around the world, of the season of Lent, a forty day period of  "fasting and abstinence."

Don't worry. I may write about an Episcopal priest, but I'm not going to sermonize you.  What fascinates me about Lent - about the idea of a time set apart with discipline and self-denial - is how widespread it is. Ramadan, in Islam. The Hindu festival of Navatri. The Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It seems as if wherever people gather together, they strike upon the idea of doing without. Voluntarily.

Of course, self-discipline and voluntarily doing without is practically the American way. We foreswear gluten, and carbs, and eggs and bad fats. We haul ourselves up on our exercise bikes and treadmills and dutifully put in the miles. While the citizens of France and Germany are enjoying their six-week vacations, we're putting in overtime at the office. Maybe calling our habits voluntary is a misnomer. Instead, it's a lot of cultural expectations and guilt.

Any country that pretty much invents a new eating disorder - orthorexia - has the "fasting" thing down pat. For most people, that's the definition of Lent, and Ramadan, and Yom Kippur. Giving up food, whether it be meat on Fridays or meals between sunrise and sunset. Giving up is another thing we're good at in contemporary America - we give up smoking, and eating animal products and toxic relationships. Sometimes, we're really stupid about the things we give up, like vaccines and privacy.


The problem is, it's too easy to give up things (I'm going to make a broad exception for cigarette smokers.) Lent rolls around and people will say, "I'm giving up chocolate." Or wine. Or tea. (I gave up tea one Lent while in law school and I nearly passed out from caffeine cravings during my Property Class.) The most devastating wits will inform you they are "giving up Lent." That one was old back in the days of the Avignon papacy. 

I don't mean to say that it's easy to stop eating Doritos or drinking beer for forty days - mmmm. Beer and Doritos. Just that when you live in a country where most of us have better food, warmer houses and more stuff than your average 15th century monarch, giving up Hersheys isn't much of a sacrifice.


What we are bad at is doing without. We don't like to do without giant agribusiness, or gas-hogging SUVS, or clothing that's cheap because it's made by people working for twenty-four cents an hour. We don't like to do without 139 channels and pizza delivery guys and really low property and income tax.  We're great at giving up - especially if what we're giving up is guaranteed to make us Lose Weight, Look Years Younger and Get Healthy in 21 Days. (Hint: it won't.)

There's something in human nature that wants to fast and abstain, in these short periods of time when, if you're lucky, self-discipline can work a transformation in you. Imagine what we could transform with a little less giving up and a lot more doing without. Or, to put what it took me nine paragraphs to convey into just two sentences, this is what the prophet says:

             Is not this the fast that I choose:
             to loose the bonds of wickedness,
             to undo the straps of the yoke,
             to let the oppressed go free,
             and to break every yoke?
   
             Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
             and bring the homeless poor into your house;
             when you see the naked, to cover him,
             and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Pancakes Make People Happy!

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Back in the 80's there was a restaurant in NYC called Pancakes Make People Happy.
In celebration of National Pancake Day (yes, there is a national day for everything) we're going to put aside nutritional and caloric concerns and indulge ourselves today!
I'd probably denied myself for years before a visit to one of my favorite restaurants changed everything. Some of you may know that The Lakeside Diner in Stamford, CT gets my vote for one of the top ten places to eat in Fairfield County.  (It's also the inspiration for the Paradise Diner in the Dirty Business books.)

The owner, Jane, and Lizandra and the other waitresses have welcomed me and we've all been featured numerous times in local papers about Mysterious Doings in our town. It's all great fun and I've even had a few Coffee and Crime events there. But I feared I was disappointing them with a steady diet of two eggs, scrambled well, sliced tomatoes instead of potatoes. Where's the fun in that? Hubby is chowing down on the Lakeside Special (a little bit of just about every breakfast food) AND a donut and I'm left wondering what's wrong with this picture?

One day a diner at a nearby table ordered something that made my standard meal seem as appealing as a bowl of cold gruel -- Jane's Red, White and Blue Pancakes. Frisbee-sized  pancakes covered with a mountain of sliced strawberries and blueberries and topped with a dusting of powdered sugar. Whipped cream optional. It was enough to make me want to fling my eggs into the lake.

HALLIE EPHRON: Ah, breakfast, one of my favorite topics.
For me it's waffles, not pancakes. And they've got to be homemade (Bisquick), hot off the griddle, really crisp, with unsalted butter and real maple syrup. It doesn't get much better than that.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Um. I love breakfast, too, but I don't like pancakes. I think they're gluey and taste like paste. The THEORY of pancakes is good, and the theory of waffles, too. But I'm not...drawn to them.  Scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon? Yes, ma'am, yummeroo. Or just the bacon. I LOVE BACON. Just saying.
I also make gallettes--which is oat bran, eggwhites and lemon yogurt, fried like a pancake. DELISH, topped with lemon yogurt and raspberries.

RHYS BOWEN: Ah yes, pancake day. We celebrate it in Britain. Growing up my mom would make pancakes every Shrove Tuesday (or Mardi Gras as it's known most places. It was supposedly to use up the sinful things you couldn't eat in Lent)
Now my husband has become famous for Bapa's crepes in our family. He makes them whenever the grandkids stay over. Thin, thin crepes made with lots of butter. I often stuff them with strawberries then drizzle with maple syrup and a dob of whipped cream. Heaven. And Hank, I love bacon too. We treat ourselves every Sunday to a full English breakfast,but not the fried bread--that's bread fried in the bacon fat--too much cholesterol suicide!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Ross is the Pancake King in our house, and, especially in the summer, we often have a veritable pancake buffet: chocolate chip, strawberry, blueberry or plain. I like mine Maine style: blueberry with real maple syrup. Best Maine breakfasts I've ever had are at Jordan's Restaurant in Bar Harbor. Everything you can imagine in Wild Maine Blueberry and portions big enough -- well, big enough to satisfy teenagers. http://www.jordanswildblueberry.com
Rhys, my church is doing a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper next week. That, and our every-other-month pancake breakfasts, are fundraisers for the youth group. We always get a big turnout, which leads me to suspect that most people LIKE pancakes; they're just intimidated about cooking them at home.

LUCY BURDETTE: If I'm going to order pancakes, I like them to be buckwheat blueberry with real maple syrup. But my sister makes a wonderful pancake with cottage cheese and nuts, topped with plain yogurt and maple syrup. It tastes much better than it might sound. In fact I'm going to make some for dinner this week:). thanks for the idea Ro!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I love waffles and pancakes. For the waffles I usually use Arrowhead Mills Multi-grain Pancake Mix, but pancakes I make from scratch, with whole wheat flour and buttermilk (recipe from my old Laurel's Kitchen book.) I don't like white-flour pancakes; I agree with Hank that they taste like glue. In the summer I put fresh blueberries in my pancakes (Rick doesn't like them. I ask you, how can anyone NOT like blueberry pancakes?) and I use unsalted butter and real maple syrup.

But our most frequent Sunday breakfast is French toast. It's a great way to use up the week's leftover whole wheat or multi-grain bread, and I use a recipe I found in Gourmet about thirty years ago. The original recipe called for eggs mixed with equal proportions cream and orange juice. I use milk instead of cream, but add a bit of half-and-half. But the real secret is the dash of Grand Marnier.  And yes, we have bacon a couple of Sundays a month, but I try to do organic.  And now I'm hungry...

ROSEMARY: They are not something I order every week, but dang if they don't MAKE ME HAPPY! So 'fess up. Do you have a favorite pancake dish? One you make or order out? Cranberries? Chocolate chips? Navaho pancakes? What's your pleasure?

(Come back tomorrow when our guest blogger will be Julia Pomeroy, author of No Safe Ground, a cracking good mystery about an Afgan vet who comes home to the US with hazy memories of a crime - or was it?)