The Cookery Wife

A great, new recipe blog. Check it out for some tasty tips and scrumptious recipes.

The Cookery Wife

New Blog: Writing Ellie

This blog is about my favorite things. Right at the top of that list are my children and the things they are doing. Ellie has a new blog, because sometimes it takes more than 140 characters to say what she wants to say. This blog is for those times. Check it out here.

I previously shared about Ellie's book review blog, Reading Ellie.

Check it out here.

New Blog: Reading Ellie

As I have grown older, I have found that my children lead me into new experiences, new discoveries, new things I might not have found on my own.

For example, Bonnie made me a more frequent communicator via email by her example. She used to write a regular (weekly) email that went out to hundreds of friends and family around the world. I never achieved that regularity, but I did manage what I called my non-weekly newsletter.

Jimmy convinced me I needed an iPhone (after first convincing his mother and helping her set it up). Now, it's one of the most useful devices I own. I can't imagine how I got along without it. He also led the way into the world of online music and explained to me about "the cloud." He keeps up with the latest technology and is a tremendous resource and sounding board about new devices and concepts.

The children led me into MySpace (which I never really liked) and then Facebook (which I really like). Six or seven years ago, Bonnie started blogging. Her first blog was Simple Beauty. It covers many different topics, family and current happenings and interesting things she is learning. Her other blog is a recipe blog called Pass the Beans, Please or The Beans Blog. It is a wonderful source of quite an eclectic variety of tasty dishes from around the globe. That led me to start this blog, which I consequently titled "I have a blog," (which is yesh li blog in Hebrew), implying "I have a blog, too."

Ellie has led me in many ways, especially in watching her interpersonal relationships. Although we don't have small children any more, I love watching her interacting with her boys. The way she encourages others is an inspiration and a great example.

She has also led me to discover new authors, and that is what this post is about. She has started a book review blog called Reading Ellie. One of the first books she reviewed is Sackett's Land by Louis L'Amour. Now I have been an avid reader of everything I could get my hands on since I was a young lad, but I had never read anything by this popular American author and great lover of America, Louis L'Amour. Ellie inspired me to read the first in the Sackett family series, and let me tell you, it won't be the last. I look forward to reading the remaining 18 books in the series.

Ellie wrote an excellent book review, which I have reproduced for you here. I couldn't have said it any better. Check out her blog when you get a chance at Reading Ellie.

QUOTE

Sackett’s Land by Louis L’Amour
Posted on April 7, 2012

I have started reading the Sackett books by Louis L’Amour on recommendation from my husband. Actually, the recommendation was like this, “You will get much insight into my family, especially the men in my family, if you read these books.” So, off I went on an adventure into the wild west. Well, that’s where I thought I was going. As it turns out, the Sackett books begin in England with Barnabas Sackett in “Sackett’s Land“

I knew I was going to love the books when I read this in the preface, “History is not made only by kings and parliaments, presidents, wars, and generals. It is the story of people, of their love, honor, faith, hope and suffering; of birth and death, of hunger, thirst and cold, of loneliness and sorrow.” The aim of these books is to tell the History of this great country through the story of people. Namely, the Sackett family.The book begins with Barnabas Sackett coming into some unexpected treasure. In true character, he makes a plan to invest this money into his future. He reaches beyond what he was born into and sets out to a better life for himself and generations to come. He plans to trade with the natives in the New World. His plans however are hijacked by a pirate who is hired to shanghai him into service, and then drop him into a deep bit of ocean. In true Sackett form, he gives the pirates the slip, makes friends with the natives, trades his goods (which he recovered from the pirate ship) and returns to England better off than he left it; with plans to return again and settle in the lands beyond the blue mountains.


Among the things I enjoyed about this book are the ideals that are passed from father to son. Such as this: “Each man owes a debt to his family, his country and his species to leave sons and daughters who will lead, inspire and create.” In a world that so often overlooks strong parenting, it is refreshing to hear the strength and conviction of a man, even fictional, who feels the responsibility of guiding and teaching children so strongly. Even before he has any. This statement also reminds me of my father, who so often tells us that we, his son and daughters, do “lead, inspire and create.” I am grateful to him and my mother for not only feeling, but acting on the responsibility of parenthood so strongly and lovingly.


Another theme that runs through the book is loyalty. Sackett, seemingly arbitrarily, finds strong, fast friends. Often. These friends and he prove their loyalty to each other quickly and often. They are willing to risk life and fortune for each other, and are frequently required to do just that.


Barnabas Sackett reminds us of what we want to be as a nation. Of the character that we expect from our founding fathers. He reminds us of the pride we can have in our country. “If I was to establish a family, it would be here in this land. And if they were to prosper here, it would have to be in such a way as the land demanded. I had no doubt those distant sons and grandsons would respond, that we Sacketts would establish a place for ourselves here, in this land, this America” -Barnabas Sackett


I absolutely recommend this book. In fact (even without reading them all yet) I recommend the whole series to you, but if you’re not willing to base your enjoyment of a series on my reading of the first book, then stick around. I’ll be reading and reviewing the rest of the books right here.
ENDQUOTE

Featured Blog: Cognitive Dissonance

I discovered this most excellent blog when I reconnected with a friend from many years ago. I had the pleasure of working with Mike Kubat when we were both stationed in Rota, Spain. Although his self-description below is of a grump, I remember him as a courteous, pleasant, intelligent, well-spoken naval officer, for whom I had the utmost respect.

The writing on his blog, Cognitive Dissonance, reinforces those impressions from so many years ago. I commend the entire blog as a source of "real help when things simply make no sense," but in particuluar, I consider his recent article concerning global warming/climate change/climate disruption to be one of the most articulate, clear, well reasoned, and adequately documented I have encountered.

His writing style is not only cogent but engaging and often entertaining. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Cognitive Dissonance

real help when things simply make no sense...

About Michael J. Kubat

I'm a grumpy Czech-born clinical social worker who is vitally interested in the survival

of the United States as a viable democracy and a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

Go to Michael's blog.

Featured Blog: Ethan in Australia

Our daughter's husband's brother (I don't think we have a special name for that in English, but he's a special guy) is going to Australia for three months of training with Youth with a Mission, followed by three months of outreach in Central Asia. You can follow his exploits on his newly minted blog.
He will be at the YWAM base/school on the Whitsunday Islands, which are off the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 560 miles north of Brisbane. You can find out more about the YWAM base at Whitsunday on the following site:

YWAM Whitsunday

Whitsunday is another designation for Pentecost Sunday on the Christian calendar (especially in the United Kingdom). More information here and here.

A Favorite Blog

Every now and again, I discover something so good, so moving, I just have to share it. Not too many months ago, I discovered this blog, and I've been addicted ever since.

It's not just the ideas, which are thought-provoking, novel, rich, and profound.

It's not just the raw emotion that sometimes jumps up and grabs you.

It's not just the creative use of words and poetic devices.

It's not just the life-as-lived, human interest, real-people realism.

It's not just the sense of wonder, sometime exhiliration, and frequent yearning.

It's not just the playfulness nor the seriousness nor the profundity.

No, it's all of these things and more, much more.

We briefly met the author at the airport as we were arriving and she was departing. If I had known then what I know now, I would have said, simply, "Kate, I love your blog."

Below I have excerpted small bits of various posts, some of my favorites, but you should really follow the links and read them in their entirety. They are well worth it.

(Click the title of each to read the entire post on Kate's blog.)

break-up, compliments of the letter H
Hold it...enough is enough, Harry! You had my heart, you huckster, and you fed it to the hamster and hid the hull under the Hamilton's house. Maybe I was hypnotized by your heavenly hips and healthy hamstrings, but both hell and high tide have hit and I'm not hearing harmony in your hymns from here on out.

Check out this huge, hearty, heavenly handful of h's here.

How I Make it Through the Night

My mood is pressurized as I walk the hall checking on my patients. We are all passengers tonight, flying through the night, hanging on the silver balance. Hoping to make it home safely to the comfort of our own beds.

A moving account of the overnight duty in a hospital...

Catherine Barkley would've cried too
She sets her bag on the floor and walks closer to her husband's bed, tucking the edges of the blankets deeper under his still body. Once she's satisfied, she walks to the head of the bed, leans in close, and cups his face with her hands. I'm here my darling and you're doing just fine. But these kind nurses must be confused, because they say that you're very cold. But that just can't be, can it? You can't be cold because you are the one who always keeps me warm at night. All these years you kept me warm. Show them how warm and good you are, my love.

Love, medicine, a lifetime of taking orders from his wife? I don't know. But our man got warm and got stable while I bawled into the pile of unneeded blankets.

Man or woman, I dare you to read this post without being moved to tears. Read the rest on the blog.

knowing
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how much living without going crazy or numb depends on our ability to walk the fine thin tension lines that run through our common experiences, marking out for us what it really means to be human. Individuals have infinite inherent worth yet our single lives are a mere drop in the bucket of human history. All the frailty, gravity, fleetingness held up against the body’s drive to survive, the brain’s ability to compensate, hearts that go on. I know my beginning, my undeserved resurrection, the ending. But it is the moments, days, years between that can drive me to distraction. Say it to yourself, Kate: There are things we can know and things we should not hope to know. Now mean it, believe it. Proclaim it.

This is what I know. Their baby was beautiful and loved by so many people. She looked like her dad. She could not have had a better mother. She changed all of our lives and now we are heartbroken & somehow still grateful. The rest? Why? When and if it will ever make sense? I don’t know.

That's just a taste of the entire piece. Check out the rest here.

Ash Wednesday

T. S. Eliot wrote a poem called Ash Wednesday and in it is a line I go back to again and again when I don't know how else to pray. Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still. Only a handful of words and yet they are strong and broad enough to hold all my questions & inadequacies. I need to be taught to care for my neighbor better - how to love that woman, how to love Tim, how to love people who hurt me. How to love like Christ, because of Christ's love for me. I need to stop caring about the things that don't matter, the voices who really won't have a say in the final count. Thank God for these 40 days to learn to sit still, to turn, to listen, to change. Thank God that His grace is not limited by merit, time nor space.
This is a Lenten meditation in which she uses the words of the following confession, breaking it up and interspersing it with life experiences. You really must read it to fully appreciate it. It can be found in its entirety here.

Most merciful God,

we confess that we have sinned against you

in thought, word, and deed

by what we have done

and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart;

we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

have mercy on us and forgive us,

that we may delight in your will,

and walk in your ways,

to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Proposal
Please remind me that clouds

are a shaky foundation, of the danger of

drowning in a pool of my own whimsy

This is a larger composition. I just love the imagery here.

answer & some sentences
I was born in this small, scrubby town in the part of Washington that is never green. The air is very dry, the river is very wide, the sky is very big, and everything else comes in shades of very brown. The county fair is still a big deal. There are no good restaurants or traffic jams.

"There are no good restaurants or traffic jams." Brilliant.

absit iniuria verbis
Nursing school has made my hands useful and I am thankful for this. In college, I hopped around between disciplines, trying to find the right balance of poetic & practical, a way to meld an inclination toward language with a compulsion to make a tangible difference. Chemistry was too academic, English too indulgent, so I settled on politics and its implicit room for negotiation. After college, I slowly drifted back towards words, burying myself in paper. I could look beyond my computer screen and see how the sentences might rise off the page, walk up the Hill, and maybe someday change things for someone somewhere. It never seemed immediate enough, though, and left me fidgety and empty handed at the end of the day.

When you don't know what to say

how to string the words together

and then match them up

with your own roiled thoughts

if too much time has passed, sorry

sticks in your throat, or the nervous

syllables shrink and retreat

back down to the safety of your belly

sometimes it's best, the only

way really, to go with that

tried and true old standby

hello
As an inveterate lover of words and a sometime Latin scholar, the title alone of this post was guaranteed to get my attention. It's well worth reading in its fullness.

I know this now

Real things are not always simple.

Simple things are rarely easy.

Easy things are never real.

Poem #3

Tick tock

goes the clock

and here

I sit

with writers'

block

life, homonymically

WE are paired first by our eyes.

Buy me a pear, say aye.

You say bye and I am pared.

no doubt
Do you doubt that I love the things you think are funny?

Or that I think the things you love are funny?

Or that I doubt your love for funny things and thinking?

Or that I love your doubt and think you're funny?

No doubt, I love you and think most things are funny.

Love and Doubt...what funny things to think about.

Funny things indeed and wondrous and inspiring and beautiful.

Check it out.

Just do it!

You'll love it.

I Could be Wrong...

but I don't think so!

Apologies about the formatting. I tried to approximate the original formatting, since that is part of the beauty of the composition. Blogger didn't cooperate, despite my best efforts. As I have often stated, it is WYSINNWYG (what you see is not necessarily what you get)!!

Recipe Blog

I just think it's a shame, a shame, mind you, that more people do not visit our daughter's great recipe blog, which she calls Pass the Beans, Please or The Beans Blog.

When Kathy and I were driving to Manitou Springs (earlier post gives the details), we were listening to 850 KOA's The Ride Home, and they were discussing food and taking pictures of food. We called in and mentioned our daughter's food blog, with the address of the web site. I figured that would cause a lot of hits on her site, but no such luck.

I'm hoping that this post will bring the thousands of hits I expected from 850 KOA to visit her recipe blog. It really is a great site. Nothing there but great menu ideas and recipes.

Check it out here.

Denver Jewish Examiner

A friend of ours (and son of our good friends) has begun blogging as the Denver Jewish Examiner at eXaminer.com.

He has some interesting and enlightening ideas. You can check them out at Matan's blog here. (The link is posted on my sidebar, as well, for future reference.)

Leave a comment to let him know you visited.

Foods of the World—Spain

Let's go to Spain ! Oh how I wish I really could ... but for now, I'll have to make do with just going there in my kitchen !! And on the beans blog ... in your kitchens !!

To get you started, I'm going to give you the link for a wonderful website that has amazing recipes. The people who run this site are friends of our family from way back !!

If you live in the States or Canada you can even order food from them ... but I'm really just directing you to the recipe section ! There's some yummy stuff in there !!

So ... get your research hats on. Find your recipe. Get cooking and photographing and posting ... I can't wait to see what you all do !!

(click on the La Tienda "photo" to go to the website ...)

Our daughter, Bonnie, is running a month of Spanish recipes on her recipe blog, called Pass the Beans, Please...A Collection of Extremely Healthy, Yet Surprisingly Tasty Recipes. The above is from that site. Check it out, and check out La Tienda, the best of Spain in America. It really is!

Bonnie's Beans Blog Bids for Best

This is a copy of a post on Bonnie's Food Blog, called Pass the Beans, Please (see link at right).

Bloggers Choice Awards ...

This is Michelle, my friend that I've only maybe met when we swam on the same swim team, in Spain, as kids. Remember when she posted the review of this blog on my highschool's alumni blog ? The one she started, maintains and does such a great job with ...Well, now she has nominated us for the Best Food Blog on the blogger's choice awards website !! How cool is that !?!

If you think this is the Best Food Blog ... click on the button above and cast your vote !! I just did ! That give us two votes ... me and Michelle !! ha ha. Have a look around while you are there. I saw Pioneer Woman Cooks is in the top three. One of my favorite food blogs that I've been reading for ages now ! Tried some great recipes from there too !! Not that I'm gonna vote for her ... I think she's popular enough already !! Thanks Michelle for your nomination and vote !

So, if you have any interest in Food, Spain, our daughter in Australia, Blogger's Choice Awards, or some new recipes, check out Bonnie's Beans Blog.