1. Bridgit, Diane, Bill, Val, and I jumped on ZOOM this morning and got right into an intelligent discussion of the election results. I prefer to keep the content of our discussion private, confidential.
I thought a lot after we were finished about something I find remarkable. Bill, Bridgit, and Val were all students of mine at Whitworth forty and more years ago. In fact, Bill was in a writing course I taught at Whitworth in 1977.
That's 47 years ago.
I met Diane at a get together at Bridgit's mom and dad's house on the Kalama River on August 28, 2010.
Here's what I wrote about meeting Diane, in this very blog, referring, when I say "we", to Susan-Louise, Bridgit, and me: "We reunited with Bill and got to meet Diane and within minutes we were all talking with each other as if it had been 20 minutes, not over twenty years since we'd seen each other and it felt like those of us who went to Whitworth had known Diane forever."
I kept thinking, as we talked today, not only how fortunate we are to be continuing to grow together as friends, but what deep thinking, caring, alert, and good people we've become as we've aged.
All of us went to Christian colleges, Whitworth and, in Diane's case, Pacific Lutheran University.
We've lived out our spiritual lives in a variety of ways since our Whitworth and PLU days.
It's awesome to listen to each other talk about where our paths have taken us, where we are now, and where we might be headed.
What's unwavering in each of us is our commitment to goodness and this came through urgently and admirably as we talked today.
Even as we moved away from talking about the election results and talked about food and cooking and other lighter subjects, our discussion, our laughter, our enjoyment of each other was grounded in our commitment to goodness, making the two hours we ZOOMed together uplifting and nourishing.
2. Speaking of cooking and nourishment, in preparation for today's family dinner, I cooked up a batch of wild rice, something I can't remember ever having done before.
If you've cooked wild rice, you know that it can take as long as ninety minutes for the rice to cook. That was exactly my experience today.
First, I chopped an onion, some celery, and some mushrooms and sautéed them in butter in our smaller cast iron Dutch oven.
Then I poured in the uncooked Minnesota wild rice and about five cups of chicken broth.
I put the lid on the Dutch oven and, following the recipe Christy sent me, I set the oven at 375 degrees and let the rice cook for 75 minutes. Upon checking it after that amount of time, Debbie and I determined the rice needed more broth and gave it another 15 minutes to cook.
Ah! Success! I was a little late for dinner, but the rice turned out pretty good.
3. Christy's longtime friend Tracy visited Christy this weekend. Her family's roots are in Minnesota. Tracy and Christy put their heads together and planned a Minnesotan family dinner. The main entree was a tater tot hot dish with venison that Christy made. I contributed the wild rice with celery, onion, and mushroom. Christy made a loaf of wild rice cranberry bread and Tracy fixed a fruit salad. Tracy told us about traditions around food in Minnesota and her family. We rounded out the meal with a dessert Carol made, a cake with the words apple and donut in its title, but I didn't quite get the name of it right.
We visited about Minnesota and midwestern food. I got kind of carried away talking about The Band and their song "The Weight", but the rest of the family nicely balanced me out as we commented on different Light Rock from the 70s songs that played on Pandora while we ate and yakked.
It was a fun and delicious dinner with a lot of fun and sometimes funny conversation.
I'd be just fine with the idea of returning to Minnesota cuisine again, if Tracy returns for another family dinner or if we decide to repeat it on our own!
No comments:
Post a Comment