Maggie’s Kitchen – November 05
FROM MAGGIE’S KITCHEN . . .
I’m writing this at the end of the first week of October. Summer still lingers here, uncharacteristically, and the garden has unfortunately taken a new lease on life. I enjoy all the canning and freezing and preserving, the aroma of still more chiles roasting and smoking, but even for me there comes a time when I would welcome a hard, killing frost. My husband was away half of last week to deanery clericus, and I thought I’d have little to do by then, so I was glad to have a copy of Michael O’Brien’s apocalyptic Father Elijah to while away the solitary hours. As it happened, there was more other stuff to do than I could ever get done, but shortly thereafter I finished the book nevertheless, mostly by staying up too late too many nights.
A few days before he left, he (my spouse, that is) took a leisurely hike up through the woods behind us, on the lookout for new varieties of mushrooms. He came home with two very distinct species: a lovely, graceful, pure white one, and a misshapen red-orange affair. The former, as you might expect (especially if you’re convinced that all wild mushrooms are poisonous toadstools), was the Destroying Angel, innocent to the eyes and fatal in the eating. And the latter? A Lobster Mushroom, a “choice edible, with caution”. The caution is that you usually don’t know what kind of mushroom is host to the red-orange mold on the exterior. And I am cautious! Fortunately, there are several varieties of mushrooms in our woods and fields that, with care, would never be confused with anything deadly, even by amateurs like me. As they say, “There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.”
With this in mind, I read Fr. Elijah. Although (for a number of reasons related to the writing craft) it will probably never be considered one of the great novels of our time, it was a memorable read. The difficulties we have in discerning good and evil, the angelic and the demonic, were strikingly presented. The world is hungry for peace, and justice, and true brotherhood. The President, in the novel, is like an angel of light in the darkness, the one hope the world has to satisfy its hunger. Compared to him, Christianity seems not only useless but poisonous, a tangle of obstructionist myths and irrelevancies holding society back from true progress. I won’t give away the plot or the ending, since you may very well have the chance to read the book yourself. Suffice it to say that appearances are often misleading. Read Second Corinthians 11:14!
Perhaps what unsettled me most in the novel was how easily Fr. Elijah had the pins of faith knocked out from under him, how vulnerable he was to temptation. Repeatedly. Is our faith really so fragile? Yet I should know full well that mine is, at any rate. However many hours spent in prayer, however many spiritual exercises completed, I, like Fr. Elijah, am still too weak to face the Enemy alone. Only pride and self-delusion could make me think otherwise. On the other hand, the hours of prayer and the spiritual exertions will have accustomed me to recognize not only my weakness but God’s presence and power. “If I say, `My foot slippeth,’ thy mercy, O Lord, holdeth me up” (Ps 94:18).
It’s why, again, I need Advent, no? Jesu mercy, this year I won’t let it be overrun by the “pre-Christmas” season. I have from now till November 26th to get those other concerns out of the way, so that my attention to the Last Things will be more or less undivided. I may never be expert in matters of spiritual discernment, any more than in mushroom recognition, but I’d better know what I don’t know, if I know what’s good for me!
Here’s something for Christmas I’ll do up before Advent Sunday. They’re fussy, but they freeze well, and their circular shape reminds me of the Eternity of God, which is our proper end.
MUREAT HAPANKERMA RINKILÄT
These are Finnish. Cream 1 cup butter with 1 cup sugar. Stir in 1/2 cup sour cream (the real stuff!), 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 tsp vanilla; mix in 3 cups flour. Chill. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On the counter, with your hands, roll a chunk at a time into pencil-thick lengths, using flour only if absolutely necessary; cut into 1/4-inch pieces. Form rings by overlapping ends; dip in sugar. Bake on parchment paper for 10-12 minutes, till barely coloured on the bottom. Cool on racks, then freeze in plastic containers. Should make about 7 dozen.