Shaken. Oh, and stirred. Whomever you voted for on November 8, this election has left a lot of us shaken and stirred up, to boot. How plan the day when the president-elect snubs the Constitution, a delightful friend has invited me for coffee and pie, religious do-gooders chisel away women’s rights, and a mere twenty …
Daily Dilemma Plus Beef Bone Broth and Barley Soups Read More »
Stories and food, that’s all we really want. Maybe a drink. As we sat on the tarmac, delayed for a transatlantic flight, everyone around me poked at the screen on the seat-back in front of her, hoping to get them going with the promised movies or television series. When the plane took off, and those …
I am calling it Vegan Figs Diablo… with bacon. It’s a clear night in Charlottesville, and I really should be writing about the gorgeous full moon that hangs above the reservoir behind our house. The ancient moon god, Nanna-Suen, is one of my most favorite character’s preoccupations, and I’ve been learning more about magic in …
Persian cuisine elevates rice to high art, but it wasn’t always so. When the ten-year-old Cyrus II sat down for his first meal in the palace of his father, Cambyses I, around 568 B.C. he probably didn’t eat rice. As I researched the foods available in ancient Anshan (probably Tel el-Malyan in the modern Iranian …
I participated in my first “crop mob” yesterday at Bellair Farms (CSA). If you’re already lost — what’s a “crop mob” and what is “CSA”? — you’re not alone. Both are pretty new ideas out of the old world of agri-culture, sustainable and sweet. First, CSA: It stands for “community supported agriculture” and is a way …
Living as a nomad, it was bound to happen: I left my computer behind. Bouncing between cities (two) and offices (four) as I’ve done the past semester, I rely on THE LIST — things to do before leaving the house (empty the kitchen compost, e.g.) and things to bring (er, that’d be the computer, e.g.). The list works great… if …
The storied “sea” (actually a freshwater lake) where Jesus performed miracles among its fisher-folk and from which Jesus called his disciples to become “fishers of men” is now off limits. Galilean fish stocks are so depleted that Israel has instituted a ban on fishing there, in effect for two years, in the hopes that that piscis population …
A version of this post first appeared in Christian Century‘s “Theolog.” It’s spring, and Richmond is busting out in lush green. White pompoms of elderberry blossoms are bustling with bees. Hard new figs are attached impossibly to smooth branches, and my grape vine sports countless tiny clusters of lime green nubbins. The cats stretch out in …
Sexy Spring Comes ’round Again, Just Like Back in Biblical Times Read More »
Countless visual representations of the Garden of Eden creation story narrated in Genesis chaps 2-3 depict a crisp apple as the downfall of Adam and Eve. Yet the original Hebrew reads simply “fruit.” Without knowing that, we English speakers (and readers) can be excused for assuming that it was specifically an apple such as a Gala …
“In the beginning,” the Bible says, food meant plants. Everybody — human beings, birds, beasts, everything that moves and breathes — vegan. Yup. “It was so… and very good.” Or so the authors/editors of the first chapter of the Bible tell it. Not till after the great Flood and Noah’s (meat) sacrifice do the biblical narrators …
