Little things

When a lot of big things are going on around you, it is nice to be reminded of God's presence in even the most minute things of your life.

A loaf of homemade bread

My favorite tea in the morning

A beautiful flower

How wonderful that we can continually discover His unending love for us in new ways.

The lamp of the body is the eye.

if your eye is sound your whole body will be filled with light

but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.

And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.

Matthew 6:22-23

Those cookies don't look very good

Today was our last religious education class so I decided to bring in some special treats for the kids. Having witnessed the effects of cupcakes, brownies, oreos and pop on small children, I decided to go with a healthier but hopefully equally tasty menu.

Well...the homemade blueberry muffins and home popped popcorn went over well but I thought I would share this gem in regard to my fresh out of the oven honey bee cookies (that I should mention I LOVED when I was a child).

Chris: Um Ms. Kate, I don't like these cookies
Brian: Oh man, I took 3 of them!
Andrew: Oh oh! Ms. Kate!!! (frantically waving his hand)
Kate: Yes Andrew
Andrew: Ms. Kate, I didn't take any of those cookies because I came in and looked at those cookies and thought "Those cookies don't look very good!"

I love first graders, where else can you get that kind of honesty? :)

Two conversations too good not to post

(These conversations were from two different but equally cute little boys that I babysit for)

K: O.k. let's pick a book out before bed, how about "If you give a moose a muffin"
A: Um Kate can we please not read that
K: Sure, but why not?
A: If we read that book I am really going to want a muffin

Conversation 2
K: O.k. its time for bath
M: Umm Kate, I really don't like my bellybutton. Actually I don't like all bellybuttons.
K: Why is that?
M: They are too distracting.
(distracting from what, I do not know)

Spicy Bean Salad

Here is a recipe I made up today for a picnic. It turned out really good especially with our homemade crispy cajun bread!

Spicy Bean Salad
1 can of black beans (or 2 cups cooked black beans)
2 cups of frozen corn
1/4 small red onion diced
2-3 slices jalepeno pepper sliced

1 T. olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lime
1.5 t. cumin
1/2 t. cayenne pepper.

Combine beans, corn (thawed), onion and jalepeno. In seperate bowl mix together oil, lime juice, cumin and cayenne pepper. Pour over salad. Enjoy!

Some of my favorite things

Last night I went to a talk held by a local university. It involved two of my favorite things:

1. Ending malnutrition in children in developing countries

2. Peanut Butter

Don't think those two go together? Project Peanut Butter does. Dr. Mark Manary, Pediatrician, teacher, and founder of Project Peanut Butter gave the speech last night. As someone who worked with malnourished children in India, I was intrigued by his research and innovative solutions to solving severe malnutrition. It started with a simple study to see if severely malnourished kids could recover at home (instead of in the community health centers or hospitals) with a peanut butter RTUF (ready to use food) that had extra vitamins and minerals and some sugar to make it taste good! After discovering that this supplement worked and worked better than previous supplements, Dr. Manary went about finding ways to use local ingredients and to produce this peanut butter locally. And he did! It was a very hopeful story, a beautiful blend of assessing a problem, finding a solution, and making that solution sustainable (both culturally, financially, and environmentally).

Dr. Manary was very knowledgeable individual and he talked about the difference in malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa and in India. In Africa, the problem is a lack of food which is different from India, where cultural beliefs about food are the root cause of malnutrition in children. The talk just illustrates how important it is to know the culture and situation you are going to serve. What I liked most about Dr. Manary's talk was that he lives in Malawi, he lives in the villages, and it was through trial and error and careful observation of daily life in the village that Dr. Manary found what worked. Once he did, he worked to make sure that the food was culturally acceptable. Once he opened up the plant to make the food, he employed Malawians. He took an idea and gave it over and let the people of Malawi make it their own. I am really convinced that that is the only way to make sustainable change.

I could not figure out how to attach his website but just google Project Peanut Butter and you can learn more about it!

Here are some pictures of the kids I worked with while in India. I especially like the first one, I keep it on the cover of my binder to remind me why I am going into medicine.

Lapidary Arts

If you knew what the title of this post meant, I am impressed.

If you are like me, however, and happen to pass a small building in a small suburb outside of Chicago and see a large sign that says "Museum of Lapidary Arts" you would be slightly confused. That is until you see a large rock outside the museum and realize that yes, you did stumble upon a rock museum. As I see it, there are two ways to respond to this finding

1. Chuckle and walk away, never again to think of the lapidary arts

2. See when its open and make plans to go

Obviously I fall into category 2 and I did go back and I am happy to say that:

1. Lapidary arts are much cooler than they sound (they carve all sorts of amazing figures out of precious stones, and fit together pieces of stones to make incredibly intricate pictures)

2. I now know what a snuff jar is

3. I have visited the ONLY museum in the United States completely devoted to the lapidary arts (or so said the lady that greeted us)

Above is a picture taken by Joe, who I should also credit for planning the outing to the museum :)

If my camera was working....

I would take a picture of the amazing cheese bread or Pane con Formaggio that I made for dinner tonight.

It is amazing because
1. It requires almost no work
2. It requires no weird ingredients (just flour, salt, yeast, water, cheese and a little pepper)
3. It comes out extremely impressive and looks just like an artisan loaf
4. Did I mention there is almost no work involved??
5. It costs very little to make
6. It tastes soooooooo good

The recipe came out of Jim Lahey's cookbook "My Bread" which was a very sweet gift that was left on my doorstep a couple weeks a go by a very generous person.

Tomorrow night I am trying the Irish brown bread recipe which has Guinness in it...we will see how it tastes!