The Legacy of Gathering

Today, I’ve invited my friend Laura Jane Roland to the table today, here at Circling the Story. You can follow here on Twitter at @thelaurajane. Let’s listen in as she talks about life around the table.

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I woke up this morning aching for my Grandmother.

The dream was little more than a cluster of impressions. Her patience, her love, and (oddly) a bunny figurine that used to sit in a corner of her house that I haven’t thought of in years.

In the two years or so since her passing, this feeling has popped up a number of times. Especially in times of high stress or feeling lost, I find myself looking for that feeling I had around her. Like I was safer than safe. Loved, just because.

One of her best-loved recipes is on my Thanksgiving menu this year, and every year. Looking at the ingredients on my counter is a little like looking forward to hanging out with her. 

Her cinnamon rolls were my first kitchen lesson. Cracking eggs, kneading dough, sprinkling the cinnamon and sugar. I loved how gently she held the dough, and when she separated the batch into roll-out-able portions, she called the sections “little dough babies” and she’d pat them like little baby bottoms.

 

She was a genius with soup; her basement pantry was always filled with pickles and marinara sauce and green beans; and when my mom inherited Grandma’s recipe boxes, there were more cookie recipes than anything else.

 

And, while my grandmother was so much more than the food she made for us, it’s the magic of the senses – tasting, smelling, kneading – that brings up all the feelings and comfort I felt when sharing a meal or making a treat with her.

 

What I want – what I hope – is that those who eat at my table can take away that same comfort. I hope friends know that there is nothing to earn or prove, and that children know they are loved and safe. I hope that even when there are tears because we can’t watch My Little Ponies while we eat, what my daughter remembers is time focused on one another, listening, talking, daydreaming together.

 

I hope that when she wakes up aching for that calm in the storm, she finds it at her own table.

 

This is what we are here for: to love because we are loved. To come to the table hungry, and to walk away with more than just a full stomach.

 

Grandma Jane’s Cinnamon Rolls

 

1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 package yeast

1/2 cup warm water

4 cups flour

1 egg

For dinner rolls:

 

Scald the milk then cool to luke warm. Add sugar, butter, and salt.

Dissolve 1 package yeast in 1/2 cup warm water.  Add to cooled milk mixture.
Add 2 cups flour and stir smooth.
Add 1 egg and 2 more cups flour.
Stir, then knead for a few minutes on a floured surface.
Cover and let rise about 1 1/2 hours.
Punch down, cover with a towel and let rest for ten minutes.
Form dough into rolls.  Let rise for about an hour.
Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes.
When you take out of the oven, top with a little melted butter.

 

For cinnamon rolls

You will also need:

2 cups brown sugar

one stick of butter

1 cup of corn syrup

Scald the milk then cool to luke warm. Add sugar, butter, and salt.

 

Dissolve 1 package yeast in 1/2 cup warm water.  Add to cooled milk mixture.
Add 2 cups flour and stir smooth.
Add 1 egg and 2 more cups flour.
Stir, then knead for a few minutes on a floured surface.
Cover and let rise about 1 1/2 hours.
Punch down, cover with a towel and let rest for ten minutes.

Divide dough in half.

Roll out dough in to a rectangle roughly 10 inches by 20 inches.

Cover rolled out dough lightly with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnemon and sugar generously.

Roll up dough so it creates a 20 inch long log (that’s what she said)

and slice in to roughly 12 pieces.

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, syrup and butter and warm until bubbly.

Pour in to the bottom of a 9×12 casserole dish

Placed rolled sections of dough on top of the warm syrup mixture

Cover and let rise for about an hour.
Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes

When you take them out of the oven, turn the pan immediately upside down on wax paper so the gooey goodness covers the rolls.

Real Food + Real People = World Changed

I’ve said it before:  we buy and consume to fill up our own scarcity. That latte will make me feel better. That new pair of shoes will make me feel young again, or attractive, or at least put together. That new book holds out all the promises of transformation that I yearn for. Stuff, stuff, and more and more stuff. And it all piles up and collects dust and breeds more dissatisfaction. And we’re overwhelmed and tired from the cycle, and oh so very alone.

I think our North American culture really values invisible women, women that don’t take up too much space, physically or in the public sphere. Women who don’t have an ounce of extra fat on them, women whose jawlines have become taut again through surgery, women who say the right things and do the right crafts and don’t mess up. It’s becoming an epidemic — this stepfordization of women — where we feel we only make a difference if we can fit into a plastic mold.

What if we could break free from this cycle of wanting and envying and feeling like we just don’t measure up? Where we snatch sly glances at the mirror to see if our bodies look alright, or where we blame others for our emotional messes. What if we could break free?

And here’s where life around the table enters in. It comes rushing in with “yeah, me, too”, with mess and softness and the mercy of daily gifts of food and sustenance. It’s the antidote to consumption and the tyranny of self-evaluation that we have as our daily handmaidens.

You guys, I want to start a movement. Or join a movement. I don’t mean to get all Les Mis on you and start chanting at the barricade, “Will you join in our crusade, who will be strong and stand with me?”…but I kinda do, too. Point is, I want so much more for us. Here’s my vision and it’s simple: I see homes filled with tables around which people come and join together to eat real food regularly. At these tables (where perhaps the homework piles have just been cleared off), people gather. They invite their families and friends and neighbors and even, the stranger, to partake with them. They put down their phones. The meal doesn’t need to be Instagrammed or the pithy quote Tweeted; instead, they begin to focus on each other. And stories are finally told. 

Can you imagine that? Being invited in to a meal that not only fed your body but your soul also? And this isn’t just some fancy Martha Stewart-esque night of entertaining where you get out your precious plates and dress up — no, this is a daily, weekly or monthly thing. With the freedom to wear your yoga pants, even if you’ve never done yoga a day in your life. With the space to breathe, to try out new recipes and fail and end up ordering pizza. To laugh and ask questions and finally be present — really present — with one another. To stop talking about your To Do list and start living now.

We’ll just do life together, around the table. 

The table becomes the vehicle for real community. Shauna Niequist has a great talk on hospitality where she gives her audience a simple formula for inviting people into your home: 15 minutes, baby wipes and bacon (or onions if you’re vegetarian). (Check it out here; she’s the second one). What is remarkable about Shauna’s talk is that it’s really pretty easy — just inviting people in. I get it, inviting people in — and we’re talking more than just inviting people over — is scary. Because inviting people really into your mess opens us up to truth and vulnerability and then who-knows-what. And we fear that when we invite people in that we’ll be judged. So we set up our homes like fortresses instead of havens of safety. 

So here’s my radically simple idea:

1. Invite someone over to your home. Give yourself a goal (a once-a-week coffee date with another mom; a family in your house once a month, etc.). Make a plan to do it; pencil it in on your calendar.

2. Have them help out. Cook together or clean up together. But start to abolish the hierarchy that comes from a dinner guest feeling like they’re there to either impress or feel insecure.

3. Let them in. Practice vulnerability; make not only your home but yourself a safe place. Ask questions. Start with something simple: maybe it’s about how challenging your work is because it brings up your own desire to compete with others in unhealthy ways; maybe it’s how excited you are to have them in your home but that it’s also a bit scary; maybe it’s how you’re looking forward to an event because you’ve just been tired, or depressed or anxious. The point is to practice vulnerability, because it never happens on its own.

4. Repeat. As we practice being present regularly and as we eat together — as we use time with others intentionally — we’ll see growth and change. It’s not a magic pill, it’s often a slow walk towards community and being known.

Invite. Help. Vulnerability. That’s it.

Will you join with me in doing hard things? Simple things, but still hard things. Please share with others and comment below if you’d like to be a part of making other people seen around the table. Because I think that there’s something good and right and freeing about eating together; and it’s only in breaking bread together that walls fall down.

You guys, this world is only gonna change if we do small things consistently with great heart. So come back and share, too, once you’ve done it. I’ll join you. Let’s do this! And please spread the word by sharing, pinning or telling your friends about this.

 

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This month I’m writing on life Around the Table. I hope you’ll join me, cook with me, and invite others in to your real and virtual spaces. Please take time to comment below and share this post if it resonated with you.

*And if you haven’t read them all yet, please read Shauna Niequist, Glennon Doyle Melton and Brene Brown; they have been writers who have shaped much of my thinking on vulnerability and living life around the table.

**Other posts of mine that discuss similar ideas are: Invisible Women; Kale, Kombucha and Food Guilt; Vulnerability and the question we’re all asking; and, Mama to littles, I got your back.

 

How do you create daily habits of gratitude?

Today, I’m over at Jenn Thorson’s blog, The Purposeful Mom, sharing about 3 Easy Ways to Create a Culture of Gratitude in Your Home. Jenn’s got a great blog about living purposefully with grace in daily ways; and, it’s been a pleasure to be invited to speak to her readers.

Here’s just a snippet: Creating thankfulness means that we really see another person, and this is where story comes in, in the listening.

So go on over there and read the whole thing, and take a look at her pretty blog, too.

It’s so easy to get overwhelmed and discouraged by what you feel like you should do, or what Mrs. Crafty Pinterest shows are the ways you can be thankful this season. But like much of life, I’m finding it’s the same with gratitude; it’s little daily choices that add up that create new habits and new attitudes.

I’d love some more ideas! Please join the conversation. What are ways that we can all learn from one another about how to grow thankfulness? What do you do?

 

Come to the table of mercy

The table is big and wide with room all around it. It can fit your smallness. When you want to hide or disappear or not take up too much room, because when you take up room, you’re suddenly noticed. And being noticed is scary.

There’s a gracious host who beckons you to join. Not in a loud, booming voice or with an air of know-it-all-ness or where he makes you self-conscious by shaming you. No, no, this host smiles with a warmth that calls to you; he holds out a chair and a blanket and a glass of wine, wraps them all around you and says simply, “Come and sit awhile. Come and be a part. Come and breathe and leave your burdens here. Come.”

And the light from the table is a soft golden glow, with the scent of home and the warmth of the fireside. It is earthy and raw and glorious; rough-hewn wood and golden bowls and sparkling light and drinks. There are bowls of piping hot food and grapes in perfect little globes. It’s a party in the best possible sense, for it fills you with all the magic and hope of togetherness without a party’s usual companions — guilt and comparison — which rob you of enjoyment.

Instead of fancy dinner guests, the people at the table look as scared and needy as you. But when they look at their host, their bitterness and anger and hurt and the well-traveled ways they protect themselves drop as their shoulders relax. They look into eyes as deep as pools, with always enough room for one more. The food is savored and eyes close, as if in prayer, in grateful recognition of the gloriousness of the senses. For this moment. Where light and acceptance tell you who you are; where calories are not counted; where outfits are not scrutinized, where you never have to wait to appropriately insert yourself into conversation.

The table can take your smallness because it wraps you up into a bigger story. A story where weariness is exchanged for someone else’s strength; where you can give up trying and striving and hoping to do better next time. A story that is played out in food and the meeting of need with recognition — “I see you. Come and eat.” There are no dishes to shame you with, no budget — “for you who have no money, come buy and eat” — no limitations, just an invitation to come.

And your gracious host, with the firelight in his eyes and a voice of mighty rushing waters, sees and feels our hesitation at our own smallness, our own insignificance. So he comes gently and swoops us up in arm as lovely and rough as trees, and carries us, for we cannot get there on our own. He wraps us in robes and places a ring on our finger and sits us at the head of the table, for we have come home. But it is not the gloriousness of the table or the beautiful weight of our new status that makes us giddy and sigh with relief; no, it is the gracious host who names you, who calls you his own, who is the very definition of love itself that causes us to swell with the goodness of this moment.

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The host calls to us to come out from our hiding, where we prefer to blanket ourselves in shame — because although it’s poor covering, it’s comfortable and known, while the glory of the table at once beckons but also feels entirely too good to be true, too foreign. But he calls. And his voice is like the otherworldly sounds of stringed instruments that hit our hearts in ways we can’t articulate. He retrieves us from the highways and byways, “Come. Come all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Come to the table of mercy, prepared with wine and the bread. Nothing is required. Just come.”

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This month I’m writing on life Around the Table. I hope you’ll join me, cook with me, and invite others in to your real and virtual spaces. Please take time to comment below and share this post if it resonated with you.

photo credit: Jeremy Brooks via photopin cc

Favorite Fall Meals and Maple Balsamic Pork Tenderloin

It’s hugely important to think about the why behind hospitality and why we invite people into our homes, into our mess and into our lives. But we also need some very practical how-to’s; so today, we’re keeping it simple at Circling the Story and talking recipes.

What’s your favorite Fall meal? I’m always on the lookout to change up my own cooking routine rut, so I’d love to hear some of your favorites. Please share them!

I devoured Shauna Niequist’s latest book, Bread and Wine, and it was one impetus for starting this November series on the blog, Around the Table. I’ll have a book review on the blog soon, but until then, here’s a recipe to tide you over.

It’s her maple balsamic pork tenderloin. It’s easy and delicious and perfect for a chilly Autumn night. You can serve it with hunks of crusty bread and roasted brussel sprouts. If you’re still on the fence about brussel sprouts, you need to roast them. None of this steamed disgustingness. Toss your sprouts in a little olive oil, add some minced garlic and salt and pepper. Pop them into the oven at 400F for 35-40 minutes, tossing them occasionally. They’re also amazing with caramelized onions or bacon (or cook them in bacon fat).

But without ado, Shauna Niequist’s maple balsamic pork tenderloin. I just halved the recipe for our family and it was perfect. I also didn’t have dijon so used regular yellow mustard and my hubby didn’t want to part with good beer for cooking, so I substituted a bit of apple cider vinegar. Basically, it’s a very forgiving recipe!

Maple Balsamic Pork Tenderloin, from Bread and Wine

-2 pork tenderloins
-1 cup maple syrup
-1 cup balsamic vinegar
-1 heaping  Tbsp Dijon mustard
-1/2 cup beer or white wine

Whisk together maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and Dijon. Add 1/2 cup of the maple balsamic mixture to the beer or white wine to create a marinade. Save the rest of the maple balsamic mixture to make the glaze. Several hours before serving, salt and pepper the tenderloins, then pour the marinade over them. Cover tightly and refrigerate. Just before serving, cook on the grill or on the stove. On medium-high heat, cook for 4 minutes on each of the four sides until a meat thermometer reads 145 degrees. Cover with foil and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. We did ours on the grill and cooked them over medium-high heat until the internal temperature reached 145 degrees. While the pork is cooking and then resting, pour the remaining maple balsamic mixture in to a small saucepan and boil gently until reduced by half, about 15 minutes, creating a thick glaze. After the tenderloin has rested, slice it diagonal one-inch slices. Pour the glaze over the sliced meat, or put it in a little pitcher and let people pour it on their own slices.

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This month I’m writing on life Around the Table. I hope you’ll join me, cook with me, and invite others in to your real and virtual spaces. Please take time to comment below and share this post if it resonated with you.