Maria Goretti

Four years ago today my husband asked me to marry him. Today is also the feast of St. Maria Goretti. I'd always prayed to her for purity in our dating days; I remember my high school youth minister giving us a "Prayer Before a Date" card that asked for her intercession. But today what struck me about her martyrdom was not that she died to protect her purity, but that she would not submit to being raped out of love for her attacker! She said, "No, Alessandro, you will go to hell." Even as he was stabbing her, she was thinking of the good of his soul. That is a saint. (A more complete bio can be found here. Also check out Alessandro's page!)

St. Maria Goretti showed extraordinary Christian love for the man who she knew would kill her, and sacrificed everything in trying to keep him from committing a mortal sin. As a wife and mother, I have a great responsibility for the souls of my husband and son, but so often I am lazy and not willing to sacrifice even twenty minutes for prayer for them. St. Maria, help me.

Easy No-Measuring Watermelon Sorbet

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you all enjoyed your holiday. Ryan is going away, again, in two days, so I've been trying to make a special effort in the kitchen this week. I don't know if any of you other wives do that, but when he goes away I like to leave him with a good taste in his mouth, so to speak! It must be confessed, however, that some of the cooking got totally forgotten when Bubs got sick this weekend. Baby fevers are never fun, but he's had a seizure from fever before so we really have to be aggressive in keeping the fever down. He still is sick today, but seemed happier and more active than yesterday. Antibiotic seems to be working, but doctor visit tomorrow for sure. As an aside, we have the best doctor ever for answering pages promptly on Sunday afternoons and helping us avoid trips to the ER.

But before all that excitement, I did manage to make this dinner on Friday for the feast of the Sacred Heart:
Grilled steak and various sauteed summer veggies with basil. Yum. And for dessert, the very fancy-tasting watermelon sorbet I'm going to teach you to make! No recipe, just needed to use up this huge watermelon that I was inspired to buy at market this week. Why I bought an entire watermelon for a household of three I will never know, but it had to be used and necessity is indeed the mother of invention! I served it in our crystal wineglasses from our wedding, with vanilla pizzelles (I'm sure I've spelled that incorrectly.) leftover from the massive amount of cookies we brought home from Katie's wedding, and garnished with mint, but I did not take a picture of it in all it's fancy glory, alas.

So on to the tutorial! First chop up half of a watermelon, or however much you want to use. Half a watermelon will yield about 3 quarts of sorbet! I still have the other half in the fridge. I haven't got a big enough mixing bowl for this much watermelon, but a stockpot works.



Then add a big handful of mint, and about 1/2 cup of honey, and the juice from 1 lemon.


We have a ridiculous amount of mint. See? Ridiculous.



Blend it all together.



Then pour it into a 13x9 pan. It just makes it!

Cover and freeze overnight. I really ought to do something about the organization of this freezer.


Before serving, run some hot water over the back of the pan to release the sorbet in one big block.

Chop it with a knife into manageable pieces, and run it through the food processor until it's smooth. The longer you run it, the creamier the texture.

It's really good; you should try it! It would probably work with just about any fruit, but you might need to add some water to get the right consistency. I'd love to hear about it if you do try this!

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

It's been awhile, so let's jump back in to blogging with a meme from my new favorite blog, Like Mother Like Daughter.

~Pretty~

My friend Erika and I took the boys to the Wyoming farmer's market. One stand has enormous buckets of summer flowers and you can make your own bouquet!


~Happy~

Peppers are growing!!!


~Funny~

Anthony still is not walking, but he'll push a laundry basket around for twenty minutes! He's really fast and agile, able to pull it backwards and maneuver in tight corners.

~Real~

Last night I came across the proper way to hang laundry on the line in my library book. Sure enough, no need to iron, even that linen skirt on the far left!

Of Worms and the Rapture

Yesterday was the day we began planting our summer veggies. After weeks and weeks of rain and muck, it's finally time. I got a good workout turning over about 350 square feet of pure clay again. But there was a very important difference in the soil this time, versus when we first dug up the grass in March: Worms! Each spadeful of dirt had at least three or four of them. Amazing what a difference a truckload of compost makes to the earthworm population. As I kept digging them up I felt like an intruder to their peaceful existences, or like some horrible Godzilla monster causing 9.8 level earthquakes with every stroke of the spade that sent them screaming (if worms could scream) back down into a safer level of subsoil. But just before they realized the Worm Apocalypse had come upon them, I could see these actually quite fascinating creatures going about their usual business. That business being digesting and reproducing. It made me think of "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" before the Flood. This Bible passage has often been quoted in reference to the May 21 Rapture prophecy Matthew 24:36f):

 

But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone. And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, And they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. Then two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left.

Usually that would be the end of it, since it sufficiently answers Rev. Camping. But the rest of the chapter is just as worth reading:

Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come. But know this ye, that if the goodman of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Wherefore be you also ready, because at what hour you know not the Son of man will come.

Who, thinkest thou, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath appointed over his family, to give them meat in season. Blessed is that servant, whom when his lord shall come he shall find so doing. Amen I say to you, he shall place him over all his goods. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: My lord is long a coming: And shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and shall eat and drink with drunkards: The lord of that servant shall come in a day that he hopeth not, and at an hour that he knoweth not: And shall separate him, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Even though this false prophecy has been widely regarded as a bad move, one positive that can be taken from it is that the people who believed it prepared for the Judgment by repenting of their sins and commending themselves and their families to God's mercy. They might not have otherwise done that. Even if their hope for that particular day was misplaced, fact is there will be a Judgment and we all have to be prepared for it. The temptation for those who don't believe it is to laugh at those who do. We all need to pray for those people though, especially those who spent their life savings spreading this message or quitting a job or some other drastic measures that they will now have to live with. The temptation to despair will probably be great for these souls. There's nothing funny about that. As for the rest of us, are we ready to meet God? Are we doing the work God has given us diligently? Is there something we have been over-indulging in ourselves? are we at the very least in a state of grace? Be you also ready.

Menu planning addendum

Okay, so I left out part of my menu planning process in the previous post. You remember all those post-it notes in my binder? Well I neglected to mention that each day's menu is either lifted directly from the binder or else written on a new post-it. These are then placed in my calendar on their day. If the menu's a keeper, it goes in the binder at the end of the week. Thus expands my cooking repertoire.