Monthly Review: April 2023

I never believed the hipsters and old people who told me music sounds better on vinyl until my husband convinced me to get a record player. At that point, I had no choice but to recant, becoming a true believer from the first moment the needle dropped onto the spinning plastic and turned it into art. We bought a cache of secondhand records: 50s hits, orchestral compilations, big band music, and what must be nearly the entire discography of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. We had never actually listened to him, but my sister-in-law insisted he was great, and, since most of the records came out to about $2 a pop, we figured it was a cheap enough experiment.

"Do you know Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass?" I asked my grandpa over the phone a few months later.

I should have known he would. He even still had some of their records himself. He had always played 50s music for us grandkids, a decade before Alpert's prime, which partially explained the gap in my oldies music education. "We'll have to play it for you the next time you visit," I told him.

So, two months later, when my grandma and grandpa show up to surprise us for my nephew's first birthday party, we take them back to our place and pull out the bin of records. Carefully, we prise open the cardboard sleeves and fish the records out of their crinkling yellowed liners. We lift the record player's lid and settle each record in turn onto the felt-lined turntable. It swirls around like the kiddie orbiter ride at the Allegheny county fair in home videos from our childhood visits with my grandparents, transporting us back into the past.

For me, the dipping and soaring melody evokes a past I have glimpsed only in old movies, where dancing women wore dresses fit for Edith Head while their partners led them expertly through each step. But for my grandpa, this music is the soundtrack of a youth long since passed. I look over at him. Eyes closed, he rocks back and forth to the rhythm, tapping his hands and feet in time. For him, the past is not imagined but remembered, undergirding the melody of the present with the softest harmony.

He has told us of this past––growing up in small-town Massena, New York, spending summers on the family farm, pulling pranks with his younger brother. In memory, he is back there now.

But the needle moves ever closer to the center; the evolutions will cease all too soon. His memories will pass to us in secondhand records, cracking and skipping in places. The music will play on, and I know it will take me right back here. Like the old records, these memories will, in our safeguarding, still sing.

---

Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of April.

What I Read

• The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales, G. Ronald Murphy (★★★★★)

• Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, Ellen Vaughn (★★★★★)

• The Inheritance Games, Jennifer Lynn Barnes (★★★)

• Teeny Little Grief Machines, Linda Oatman High (★★★)

If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.

What I Cooked

• Italian Sausage Soup

One would think that the time for soups would be past, but since we have had a lengthy and grumpy winter that just refuses to go away, I have continued to make soup. I found this one quite pleasant.

• Chili-Honey Chicken and Sweet Potatoes

This is now my third time trying a Modern Proper recipe. Conceptually, they always sound fabulous, but in practice, there is always something...off. In this case, it was the amount of salt (way too much). That being said, I liked the spicy sweet potatoes, and I am a sucker for anything that either a) is served with a sauce or b) can be made entirely on one sheet pan. This might be a once-a-year meal, but I do not think it would be a consistent rotation.

• Creamy Potato-Cabbage Soup

I love cabbage. I love creamy, easy soups. This should have been a slam-dunk.

Alas, it was not. It just tasted like nothing with a slight hint of vinegar. I would not make this again.

• Blueberry Crumb Cake

My best friend and I have decided to start getting together regularly to talk about books. For our inaugural gathering, I had planned to make something else, but then this little recipe floated through my Instagram feed. I had all the necessary ingredients, so I made it.

Oh, so good. It tasted like a happy little bite of summer. Definitely a keeper.

What I Created

• Untitled original blackout poem

• And, for the first time in a long time, I started working on a new story. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out or what it's going to end up being, but it's been fun to work on.

May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.

Monthly Review: March 2023

The dog is in the way again. He has been the worst of himself ever since Daylight Savings Time ended––waking me up at odd hours to go outside, peeing on my living room floor, barking at nothing when I am trying to go to sleep––you know, all the dog things that make people without dogs feel justified in their life choices (and, conversely, make people with dogs question theirs). And now, as I am heading upstairs at the end of my lunch break, here he is, lying in my way. It's like he wants to get stepped on.

But there, in the warm rectangle of March sunshine at the top of the stairs, he tilts his head to look up at me. The rays catch in his eyes, and they glow gold and amber. I stop mid-step, and I look down at this small, weird creature who lives in my house and goes on my walks and snoozes on my bed. He gazes back at me with his incandescent eyes, and though he can most accurately be described as looking like a baby hyena, he is, in that moment, utterly beautiful.

Locking eyes with Dobby, I suppose that all creatures, be they human or animal, are like this. They are easy to ignore, easy to resent. They are either checklists or nuisances, or perhaps they become nuisances because we view them as a series of tasks to complete. But when the sun hits just right, as it is right now, we see each other for what they are: strange, lovely, unique. We get to share our lives with one another; we get to bear witness to the beauty of a small dog in a patch of sunshine on a Monday afternoon.

---

Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of March.

What I Read

• Ten Words to Live By: Delighting in and Doing What God Commands, Jen Wilken (★★★★★)

• North! Or Be Eaten, Andrew Peterson (★★★★)

• Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner (★★★)

If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.

What I Cooked

• Chocolate Chip Nutella Stuffed Oatmeal Cookies

In the decadent early years of Pinterest, Nutella reigned supreme. Those 2012 recipes from random food bloggers shaped enough of my tastes to make me want to try these cookies.

Unfortunately, as with literally every other HBH cookie recipe I have tried, these were just okay. Not great, not terrible, but not particularly memorable or special. The Nutella flavor was undetectable, and the cookie itself was crumbly and rather dry. For this much work, I expected a much better payoff.

I can link only one of the new recipes I tried this month since the rest are from cookbooks I own, but I can tell you about them.

• Better Beef Burgers with Quick Pickled Onions

As those of you who follow me on Instagram know, one of my goals is to cook through The Newlywed Cookbook in its entirety by our 50th wedding anniversary. It seems silly to follow a recipe for burgers, but this was an easy one to check off. Because I don't own a grill, I had to cook the burgers on the stovetop, and I didn't gauge the timing right, so they were a little more well-done than we typically prefer. Other than that, however, they were good, and I liked the addition of the pickled onions. Will do again (and will do them right).

• Creamy Bacon and Tuscan Shrimp

I finally bought the Half Baked Harvest Every Day cookbook, and this was the first recipe I tried. I typically don't like it when a recipe involves 2 different meats, but the bacon truly does make the dish. Super flavorful and easy. The one thing I changed was to swap spinach for kale––there's nothing worse than slimy wilted spinach. When I do make this again, I might double the sauce.

• Citrus and Olive Oil Cakelets

We're on the tail end of citrus season, and I've never made anything with blood orange, so I thought I would give these glorified cupcakes a try (even though they can be made with any citrus). The cakelets didn't really rise as much as I anticipated, and I definitely should have used cupcake liners, but they tasted delicious. Great little recipe.

• Blood Orange Sugar Cookie Bars

Since I bought 2 blood oranges for the cakelets and only used one, I had to find a way to use the second. I've been chipping away at the recipes from 100 Cookies since my sister-in-law gave it to me, so I had to try these. I didn't want to roll out the sugar cookie dough because what's the point of doing cut-out cookies if you don't have a child to do them with you, so I made these in bar form. I should have pressed the dough down a little more meticulously, but the flavor was good.

• Green Curry with Sesame and Broccoli

This was also from HBH Every Day, and it was weird. Not sure I would make it again.

What I Created

• A lot of new assignment templates!

May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.

Monthly Review: February 2023

We all will die––let us

die beautifully.

We are momentary celebrations of love that

somehow

last forever,

even as our heads droop and petals drop,

one

by

one

onto the table.

The vase is still half-full.

We open our pink throats to sing of springtime coming,

still too far away to see

though we

can feel it

in this February sun.

Graceful and green,

we bow,

for death left first, and it will beat the robins here.

(Have we not been dying since our stems were severed;

shall we not, in death,

proclaim resurrection?)

---

Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of February.

What I Read

• Every Woman a Theologian, Phylicia Masonheimer (★★★★★)

• Finding God's Will, Kevin Bauder (★★★★)

• The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars, Joël Glenn Brenner (★★★★)

If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.

What I Cooked

• Garlic Butter Chicken Meatballs with Creamy Orzo

I had originally planned to try the crockpot form of this recipe, but I pivoted to the regular version, although I oven-baked my meatballs because life is too short to individually brown meatballs. I was skeptical of the meatball recipe––no breadcrumbs and no egg seemed like a disaster waiting to happen––but was pleasantly surprised that they held together without drying out. I was not crazy about the orzo. Even without the meatballs in the pan with the orzo while I cooked it, it still seemed to take forever, and I had to add quite a bit of extra liquid just to keep the orzo grains from fossilizing at the bottom of my pan. The sun-dried tomatoes were nice, but nothing else from the orzo recipe wowed me.

• Strawberry Mousse

My experiences with Christina Lane's petite and sweet recipes have been mixed. This, unfortunately, was not a particularly positive one for me. The sour cream made it unnecessarily tangy, while the strawberry jam made it overly artificial. Not a keeper.

• Spicy Buffalo White Chicken Chili Tacos

I love a good taco recipe, and 3 of the 4 taco recipes in my regular meal rotation (beef, chicken, and shrimp) are all from HBH. This one sounded intriguing, and I was thrilled to discover that it was as good as it sounded. This recipes calls for the same cilantro lime ranch from her famous chipotle tacos, and I whipped up some of my favorite Mexican coleslaw from the Smitten Kitchen Every Day cookbook as well. With avocado, shredded pepper jack, and pickled jalapeños, these tacos were absolute dynamite, and the meat may have been even more delicious served with nachos. My one complaint about this recipe is that the title is unnecessarily long. Tieghan just can't help herself.

What I Created

• Unpublished original poem "#13"

• Unpublished original essay "Peonies and Providence"

• Original blackout poem "Seek First"

May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.