Comfort Food

I've had a sore throat for days. This means I took two "snow days" this week, despite the office being open. Today I finally relented and sought medical care, which is always tricky given my complicated insurance situation. Luckily Walgreen's Take Care clinic turned out to be efficient and reasonably priced. (How does that work? What public health organization funds this? How is it decidedly not sketchy?) Unluckily, I do not have strep throat, so I just get to ride out this virus. Woohoo.

On the way home I stopped by WholePaycheck and treated myself to some luscious key lime pie ice cream. It's like a miracle. It has a creamy texture and hunks of graham crust. Yet, it is both gluten AND dairy free! Turtle Mountain deserves a Nobel Prize for creating a frozen dessert that does not taste like salty dough. (I'm looking at you, Rice Dream.)

They like me! They really like me!

Last night was informed via voicemail that I made "callbacks" for the Notre Dame history PhD program! This literally means that they like my application and so have decided to call me and chat about my graduate study plans. After rounds of calls they pick who actually gets accepted.

So this morning I had a short interview with a professor who specializes in American religious history (yay!) He was very interested in my Modern Catholic Architecture project - he suggested that a liner study of the "built environment" in a single community would make a nice thesis. He also was interested in my time in CW - he's familiar with Handler and Gable's scathing study of it as a "Republican Disneyland."

Overall I think it went well, although it was 8:30am and I was feeling ill so you never know how coherent I sounded. Then again I improved by GRE scores while feeling profoundly feverish, so you never know.

Book review: Gluten Free Girl

This book is part memoir, part recipes, part whole-foods apology. Shauna James Ahern's blog is usually a joy to follow, but an entire book of her gooey prose turned me off somehow. Her musings on food and life were a little self-congratulatory and definitely too cute. Most chapters contain a least one "OMG I love love food and I love cooking and I love grocery shopping. Isn't eating vegetables a profound spiritual experience?" paragraph. It's nice, but gets old after the umpteenth time. Her gluten backstory would have been better had it been told at the beginning, instead of bits and pieces throughout. Gluten-Free Girl (GFG) has a penchant for the short, Hemingway-esque sentences that get on my nerves. Ironically, she's also fond of SAT vocab, especially "enervate" and "redolent."

GFG's correct that people should think outside of the hamburger helper box, but her intense foodiness can be intimidating. I'm sure $25 bottles of excellent olive oil are delish, but that's the my entire weekly food budget. Am I a sellout because I use boxed organic chicken broth instead of making my own stock?

Unbearable tweeness aside, GFG's overall message is an important one. Cutting a harmful food out of your diet should not be deprivation, but rather an invitation to be more creative. Going gluten-free requires you to become something of a hippie, rejecting the fast-food buns, boxed cereal, and pre-packaged foods that are staples of American eating. You have to be willing to try new grains and new foods. Would I be so fond of salad and brown rice and Indian curry if I could eat wheat?

GFG is also right that Americans ingest way too many artificial ingredients and non-nutritious fakery. You can't live on fried foods and not get fat. She reminds me of another food writer, Ruth Reichl, in her rejection of childhood junk food. My mom is the same way. The generation that grew up in the 50's and 60's is realizing that there are alternatives to bland, overcooked, artificial convenience food. Wonder Bread, TV dinners, and cream of mushroom soup aren't that great after all.

Lucky me, my parents forced us to encounter healthy food at a young age. Homemade spaghetti sauce, raw vegetables and dip, cocktail shrimp, and sauteed green peppers were all favorite dishes. Soda was for illness or special occasions only. We never ever sipped Capri Sun. Sugary cereals were verboten until I was 14, when July heatwaves made my hugely pregnant mom relent to one purchase of Cap'n Crunch.

Shauna Ahern and her chef husband have an upcoming cookbook, which I am excited to see. In the meantime, I probably should visit the local farmer's market. Maybe I'll even swallow my pride and make my own stock.

Landmarks

Today is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, aka when God literally knocked Saul of Tarsus on his butt on the road to Damascus. Caravaggio's depiction of this scene is one of my favorite paintings.
(I should point out that the horse is never mentioned in the Bible account, despite being a popular element of most artistic depictions. Poor steed is merely one of those lovely historical myths that look nice but are only figments of our collective imaginations. Doesn't Caravaggio paint a nice figment, though?)

I learned at Mass today that it's also the anniversary of St. Vincent de Paul's founding of the Congregation of the Mission aka Vincentian priests in 1617. Apparently the pulpit he preached from on that day is still preserved in a little French church. I never really had much desire to visit France before - Rome and London and Prague are much more alluring - but now I would love to visit all the Vincentian landmarks that dot the country. The Daughters of Charity love to talk about Vincent's villages and Louise de Marillac's group of charitable French ladies and the convent where Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal appeared to St. Catherine Laboure.


Even if I can't make it across the pond, I should at least re-visit a Vincentian landmark in my backyard. Up the road in Emmitsburg, MD is where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the American version of St. Vincent's Daughters of Charity. This summer there is a big celebration of the order's 200th aniiversary. If I can't pay my respects to the place where American Catholic education was born, I might as well turn in my religious historican card now.

My high school, Seton School, always has this St. Elizabeth quotation on letterhead "Let his will of the present moment be the first rule of our daily life and work." That's an important lesson, and one that will likely take me a lifetime to master. As the priest said at this morning, there is no "How to be a saint" manual. Instead, you live in the present moment, doing what God wants in the here and now. As Paul knocked to the ground so aptly illustrates, we cannot control the future. Accepting the grace of the moment will help us respond to what does happen in a Christlike way.

Today's loot

When I hear the side doorbell ring, that means it's time to grab my coat and help unload some donations. Here's a look at some of the things we have collected this week.

• several bags of canned goods and pasta from a local Methodist church's food bank
• bushels of magnetic chip clip thingies advertising iron supplements
• four lovely handmade quilts
• the preemie clothes that New Jersey woman promised to ship
• blankets made by a Girl Scout troop
• twenty Build-a-Bear animals made by another Girl Scout troop, ranging from pandas to rabbits to a hot pink monkey (Build-A-Bear started in STL and I got to hear founder Maxine Clark speak at a seminar for non-profits)
• a huge stuffed horse large enough for a toddler to ride. It is currently seated at Ebony's desk, wearing a tiara and shirt and holding an American flag. (That's what happens when you aren't at work and Dorene gets bored in the afternoon.)
  

This is what comes of reading too many Catholic blogs

You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

A Visa to Steelers Nation

When you share a house with someone from Pittsburgh, it is inevitable that the Steelers become a prominent part of your life. Thus, Sunday night involved lots of cheering, Terrible Towel waving, and victory lap running around the church parking lot next door. Pittsburgh's going to the Suuuu-per Bowl!

I suppose this makes me a bandwagon fan. I'd rather call it continuing education in American sports culture. Also, I have a right to be proud of head coach Mike Tomlin since he is a WM alum and was my commencement speaker, after all. He might seem an unlikely Tribe member since our football is not exactly legendary. At yesterday's press conference, though, he proved that The College made its mark on him.

"... I just told that group, 'We've got miles to do before we sleep,' " Tomlin said.
"I'm no Robert Frost," he added sheepishly.

See? Like any true William and Mary person, he footnotes his literature references. Now that's Tribe Pride!