Thursday, December 29, 2011

New Year’s Transformations instead of Resolutions


With trepidation I stepped on the scale this morning and sure enough, learned that I’ve gained 4 pounds in the past five days.  That’s what I get for feasting with 33 of my relatives over Christmas as we celebrated my uncle and aunt’s 50th wedding anniversary.
Like so many others, my New Year’s resolutions should include losing 10 lbs and exercising more in 2012.  Yet after spending 5 days with 3 generations ranging in age from 7 months to 79, I’m struck by how much more than New Year’s Resolutions, I need New Year’s Transformations.
One of my favorite current day sages, Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk, says that the typical trajectory of life is towards bitterness.  Our hurts, disappointments, betrayals, and disasters will embitter us unless we allow God to heal and transform our pain.  Even worse, Rohr says:
If we don’t transform our pain we will transmit it
There’s been pain.
  • Dislocation of my grandparents and parents’ generation from China to the West with the cultural struggle, poverty, racism, and confusion that followed.
  • The death of 2 uncles, one because of alcoholism, the other because of cancer
  • Hard marriages
  • Mental illness
  • Missteps and mistakes in parenting
My grandfather, once called the Virgin Prince back in China because of his regal manner and refusal to dabble in women, held incredible potential in his youth—a Harvard Ph.D., connections to the highest echelons of government—he was part of leading China in ways none of his progeny can ever imagine.
Yet over the 19 years we both lived, I mostly remember him sitting in his pajamas listening to NPR, reading the New York Times or the Chinese newspaper, and yelling at his grandchildren every time we made too much of a ruckus.
His dreams for greatness died when the Communists took over China, and that disappointment overshadowed the blessings of his remarkable spunky wife, 5 children, 15 grandchildren, and new life in America.
It’s funny to notice the choices my generation has made in light of our crazy families, all sorts of different choices about money, lifestyle, relationships, parenting, and faith.  Sometimes we’ve reacted to our parents.  Sometimes we’ve embodied the exact patterns of behavior we couldn’t stand even though we tried so hard to be different.
Yet the saving grace in my family, amidst all the pain and disappointment, has been an incredible sense of love.  And it’s pretty clear that those who’ve been most lavish with love seem also the most content, the least bitter, and the most filled with life, even if they weigh too much with bodies as soft as playdoh.
So this New Year’s I’m wondering if my best resolution could be to offer my pain for transformation each time I feel it.  Choosing to feel pain rather than stuffing it.  Choosing to mourn, to forgive, to come out of denial.  Choosing to talk to Jesus through it all, to reconcile if possible, to forgive yet again.  Choosing to risk.
Exercising and dieting through it all, of course.
What are your resolutions?   What might choosing transformation look like in your life?
This first appeared on What She Said

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Why Santa Comes to our Home and Brings my Kids Crap

Back in 2004, my first-grade daughter had to write a “book” on famous people for homework.  She threw the papers on the kitchen floor and wailed, “I can’t do this!  I don’t know any famous people.”
The 2004 election was just weeks away so I said, “There’s John Kerry or George Bush.”
“I don’t WANT to do George Bush!”  She stomped out of the room.
Awhile later, she came back happy.  “I figured it out.  I can do Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy, and Mickey Mouse.”
“Do the famous people have to be real?” I asked.
She looked at me like I’m an idiot.  “Santa and the Tooth Fairy ARE REAL!” she shrieked, then thoughtfully, “I’ll have to ask my teacher if it’s OK to do Mickey Mouse.”
Hmmm.
Once again I felt the dilemma that our family participates in the myth of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  In the words of my brother-in-law, we’ve chosen to LIE to our children about magical creatures.  Some of my Christian friends would say I’ve chosen to allow Santa to steal the glory of Jesus at Christmas.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
My choices are ironic because Santa brought much humiliation to my life as a child.
By about 1st grade I began doubting whether Santa was real.
“Well if you don’t believe in Santa, I guess he can’t bring you any presents,” was Mama’s reply. . . for the next SEVEN years.
I don’t know why that argument swayed me since Santa was a notoriously bad gift giver.  Many years we awoke to find our stockings drooping on their hooks–absolutely empty.   The presents on the piano bench weren’t always much better.  One particularly infamous year I received a large clamshell from Santa.  When I say large, I mean large—it was about 12 inches wide, 4 inches deep.
So why did I decide to LIE to my kids about Santa?  Because even though I argued with Mama about him, even though he gave terrible presents, even though he was the star of Christmas and not Jesus, Santa brought the best magic and fun our family experienced all year.
Mama loved Christmas with an almost unholy gusto.  This Chinese immigrant, who moved to America when she was thirteen, embraced every tinsel-covered trapping of the American commercialized Christmas season she could afford.  In contrast with her childhood in China spent escaping from the Japanese and memories of hunger, she lavished the wonder, opulence and celebration she never had on us.
And I wanted to give our kids some of the same wonder and joy.
In my defense, I didn’t bold-face lie.  I let my husband do it.  I never told my kids Santa was real.  I just didn’t say he wasn’t.  And in the age-old Tuan tradition, I made sure Santa brought them crap—slippers, banks, Christmas books.  The fun presents came from us because I didn’t want Santa getting the glory.
Santa gives terrible gifts.  The Tooth Fairy forgets to come for months at a time.  But I’m trusting that Jesus (who even in my most atheistic moments I desperately hope is real—this is why it’s called faith) will actually show up for me and my kids.
On Christmas and every day.
This was first posted on What She Said

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Tricks to Slow Me down, even as I need to Step it Up


"Slow down!"  Ren whined as we walked the mile downtown.

"Nope, I got to walk fast--this is my exercise for today." I picked up the pace even more.

Thursday was my physical.  Can you believe my PCP called me on a Saturday to chastise me for being overdue on my physical, mammogram, and pap smear?  

I warned her as soon as I walked in that I've put on weight in the past 2 months.  She even let me strip naked.  But there I was--3 pounds heavier naked than a year ago clothed.  

Sigh.

She grilled me about my eating, drinking and exercise.  Which I believe are all at healthy levels.  Finally, she poked me in the stomach, pointed out how I was protruding, and said "This is metabolic--you need to exercise more."

"What?  I already exercise 5-6 times a week, how can I exercise more?"

"You need to exercise 7 days a week."

You've got to be kidding.  7 days a week???

She conceded that a couple of those days could be walks, but stuck to her guns that I need to move my body every day.  I’m fighting my body’s proclivity for Type II diabetes, and one of the key ways is keeping my weight down.

I debated whether or not to tell Scott.  I knew that telling him means he’ll hold it over me until the day I die.  But the chances that I'd self-motivate 7 days a week of exercise are slim to none.  So I told him.

Sure enough, Saturday he asked me what I was going to do.  I couldn't go to my favorite spin class because we were going to the mall.  

"I'm going to walk."

After the mall, he said, "When are you going to walk?"

"Sometime. . ."

"You should go now and take Ren to the hardware store to see if they have a wheel for his history project."

So off we went.  

I felt annoyed on many levels:

1.    This was my future--taking an extraneous walk every day just because I have to
2.    I was cold.  I wore my light black leather jacket instead of warm red coat because I was wearing red pants and I didn't want to look like a candy cane.  So I was also vain.
3.    Ren was lollygagging along
4.    We were looking for a wheel for a school project I didn't believe was doable
5.    Ren whined incessantly about walking and how fast I was going.
6.    To slow me down, he kept grabbing my hand, or pulling on my arm, or leaning on my shoulder


On the way back, after indeed, not finding a wheel for this school project that I was now doubly convinced wasn't doable, Ren, with even less motivation to walk fast, lollygagged even more.   

"Slow down!" he kept begging.

"Nope!" I speed-walked on.  

Now the kid really started grabbing me--pulling on my shoulder, my arms, anything to get me to slow down.  Which made me more annoyed and made me speed up even more.  "Stop grabbing me!" 

But he wouldn't stop.  We bickered back and forth, and finally he put his hand on my shoulder, holding me back and said, "I'm praying for you--you have to let me put my hand on your shoulder!"

"You've got to be kidding"

"No, I'm praying. . .  God," he looked up in the sky, "Please make Mom walk slower."

What does it say about me that I still tried to shake him off of me so I could go faster?

But he was relentless.  He grabbed my shoulder again, "I'm still praying!  God. . .  PLEASE make Mom go slower."  

He giggled.  I couldn't help it.  Even with my annoyance, I laughed too.  And laughter can really help break a funk.

Ever the budding thespian who wants his glory, he said, “Are you going to blog about this?”

So here it is Ren.  A blog about you praying for me to slow down.

Amen  


Friday, December 16, 2011

Almond Macaroons and the Curse of a Tradition

Someone else's macaroons, but
this is what the plain ones look like
I have a special cookie--do you?

Every Christmas for the past 15 years, I've baked Almond Macaroons, a recipe from Cook's Illustrated.  I make them 3 ways--plain, fudge and sometimes pine-nut crusted.  These cookies are actually relatively healthy because their only ingredients are almonds, sugar, egg whites & almond extract (plus cocoa powder for the fudge ones and pine-nuts for the pine-nut crusted.)

The funny thing though, is that while I like these cookies, I no longer LOVE them.  They're still good, but perhaps familiarity breeds contempt.

Yet I make them every year because it's expected, they're what I'm known for, and it almost feels like it's not really Christmas if I don't.

I liked the idea of creating traditions in our family like our nightly Advent celebration, but me being me, almost all other traditions have to do with food.  As the resident chef, that means I'm cooking.  So we have the cinnamon rolls on Thanksgiving and Christmas morning tradition, the Christmas Beef Wellington tradition, and the whatever kind of dinner & birthday cake you want tradition.

This is the pickle (hah!) you get into when your primary language of love is food.

This is the Cook's Illustrated version--mine have
only looked this nice once--usually the pastry
splits.
There's outrage in my family that we're going 2 Christmases in a row without Beef Wellington.  Last year we traveled to Maine for turkey with the grandparents, and this year we're traveling to New York for who knows what with my cousins.  It's been decided by powers beyond me that we WILL have beef wellington on New Year's Eve.

This year, I was tempted to skip the almond macaroons but my mother was in town and they are her favorite cookies of all time, especially the pine-nut version--I sometimes even mail them to her  in Hawaii via next day mail.

Anyway, I've already had 3 requests for the recipe, so thought I should post it.

Bon Appetit!

Note:  I usually make a quadruple recipe of both plain and fudge.  These cookies dry out quickly, so I freeze them as soon as cooled and pull them out of the freezer before serving.  I've kept them in the freezer as long as six months and they still tasted pretty darn good.

ALMOND MACAROONS
Makes about 2 dozen 2-inch cookies.   Published September 1, 1996.  
Macaroons must be baked on parchment paper. They will stick to an ungreased sheet and spread on a greased one. You need a slightly less stiff dough if piping the macaroons, so add water, as needed, to make a pipeable paste.

INGREDIENTS
3
cups blanched slivered almonds (12 ounces), measured without packing or shaking the cup
1 1/2
cups granulated sugar
1/3
cup large egg whites , plus 1 tablespoon, from about 3 large eggs
1
teaspoon almond extract

INSTRUCTIONS
      1. Set racks in upper-middle and lower-middle levels of oven and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
      2. Turn almonds into food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade; process 1 minute. Add sugar; process 15 seconds longer. Add whites and extract; process until the paste wads around blade. Scrape sides and corners of workbowl with spatula; process until stiff but cohesive, malleable paste (similar in consistency to marzipan or pasta dough) forms, about 5 seconds longer. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn machine back on and add water by drops through feeder tube until proper consistency is reached. 

      3. Allowing scant 2 tablespoons of paste for each macaroon, form a dozen cookies upon each paper-lined sheet, spacing the cookies 1 1/2 inches apart. You can drop the paste from a spoon (see illustration below) or for a neater look, roll it into 1-inch balls between your palms (illustration 2). (Rinse and dry your hands if they become too sticky.) To make fancy macaroons, pipe the paste using a large pastry bag fitted with a 3/4-inch open star tip, (illustrations 3 and 4).
4. Bake macaroons, switching cookie sheet positions midway through baking, until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored. Leave macaroons on papers until completely cooled or else they may tear. (Can be stored in an airtight container for at least 4 days or frozen up to 1 month.)


FUDGE-ALMOND MACAROONS 
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2
cups blanched slivered almonds (6 ounces), measured without packing or shaking the cup
1 1/2
cups granulated sugar
1
1/4
teaspoon table salt
1/3
cup large egg whites , plus 1 tablespoon, from about 3 large eggs
1
teaspoon almond extract

INSTRUCTIONS
      1. Set racks in upper-middle and lower-middle levels of oven and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
      2. Turn almonds into food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade; process 1 minute. Add sugar, cocoa and salt; process 15 seconds longer. Add whites and extract; process until the paste wads around blade. Scrape sides and corners of workbowl with spatula; process until stiff but cohesive, malleable paste (similar in consistency to marzipan or pasta dough) forms, about 5 seconds longer. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn machine back on and add water by drops through feeder tube until proper consistency is reached. 

      3. Allowing scant 2 tablespoons of paste for each macaroon, form a dozen cookies upon each paper-lined sheet, spacing the cookies 1 1/2 inches apart. You can drop the paste from a spoon or for a neater look, roll it into 1-inch balls between your palms . (Rinse and dry your hands if they become too sticky.) To make fancy macaroons, pipe the paste using a large pastry bag fitted with a 3/4-inch open star tip.
4. Bake macaroons, switching cookie sheet positions midway through baking, until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. The macaroons are done when they have cracked lightly across top. If overbaked, macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored. Leave macaroons on papers until completely cooled or else they may tear. (Can be stored in an airtight container for at least 4 days or frozen up to 1 month.)


PINE NUT-CRUSTED ALMOND MACAROONS

INGREDIENTS
3
cups blanched slivered almonds (12 ounces), measured without packing or shaking the cup
1 1/2
cups granulated sugar
6
large egg whites , separated
1
teaspoon almond extract
10
ounces pine nuts (2 1/2 to 3 cups)

INSTRUCTIONS
      1. Set racks in upper-middle and lower-middle levels of oven and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
      2. Place 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon egg whites in a small bowl. Place remaining in second bowl and beat lightly, set aside for dipping. Turn almonds into food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade; process 1 minute. Add sugar; process 15 seconds longer. Add first bowl of egg whites and extract; process until the paste wads around blade. Scrape sides and corners of workbowl with spatula; process until stiff but cohesive, malleable paste (similar in consistency to marzipan or pasta dough) forms, about 5 seconds longer. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn machine back on and add water by drops through feeder tube until proper consistency is reached.
      3. Allowing scant 2 tablespoons of paste for each macaroon, form a dozen cookies upon each paper-lined sheet. Roll into 1-inch balls between your palms . (Rinse and dry your hands if they become too sticky.) Dip each ball into beaten egg white, then roll in pine nuts, lightly pressing with fingertips, (see illustration 5 below). Transfer cookies to parchment-lined baking sheet and flatten slightly with fingers, making inch-wide buttons, (illustration 6).
4. Bake macaroons, switching cookie sheet positions midway through baking, until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored. Leave macaroons on papers until completely cooled or else they may tear. (Can be stored in an airtight container for at least 4 days or frozen up to 1 month.)