Off Tract

From time to time I find an interesting blog that really gets my attention and then I usually find a post or two that gets me interested.  The following post was copied from THE HOMELESS GUY in Nashville TN.  Kevin is a Christian and homeless...And posts are/come from his knowledge of being chronically homeless.  Check out his site sometime and catch a few articles of his...you might be surprised what 'grabs' you!

Off Tract

Posted on April 10, 2007 by TheHomelessGuy

Someone recently asked about religious tracts for the homeless. For those who don’t know, tracts are small pamphlets some Christians use as a way to promote the faith. Personally, I’ve never known tracts to be an effective means of ministry, especially to non-Christians. And they often have the opposite effect - instead of bringing people closer to god, they often turn people away from Him.

Faith is a personal thing, and can only be properly dealt with on a person to person basis. Personal interaction is needed, and tracts are not personal. If anything, tracts are about as impersonal as you can get - and are often used so to avoid personal contact with people. Handing a person a piece of paper and then walking away from them is not how Jesus teaches how to minister to people.

Throw those tracts into the trash, and go out and meet people, and talk to people, and get to know them, and their needs, and help those people you encounter to meet their needs because that’s what God wants you to do. Then these people, so effected by your act of kindness, will be converted and they will begin doing as you do - going out and meeting people and meeting their needs, with the help of God.

And that brings up another subject.

What a weak and selfish people Christians have become. Even the well intentioned Christians get it wrong and make mess of things. When a Christian encounters a person with a problem, they will introduce Jesus, and tell the person with the problem that Jesus will help. And then the Christian leaves the person with the problem alone with Jesus, for them to work out the problem between themselves.

As Christians we are called to help people, and to be the problem solvers. We are supposed to be involved in the solutions. It is not our calling to point people in the direction of help, we are supposed to be the help. Passing out Bibles, or tracts, or inviting people to Church, is a way of avoiding our calling. We serve no one when we pass the buck, not our fellow citizens, not our God.

Old friends, New friends.

Posted by: StephanieRN

On Thursday I got a phone call from Tyrone saying that he wanted to have some friends (Chasity and Janel)over that night that he knew from Mercy Ships and of course I said sure. It was so fun to meet people that Tyrone and known before me and get to know them. Tyrone made us yummy frozen coffee drinks and I baked cookies and we chatted the night away. I think that at times it was Tyrone that felt out numbered being that he was the only guy, but he loved it.

Chocolate truffle ravioli with...

So I guess my playing around with the pasta roller 'rolled' on over into work.

As of the beginning of this week (maybe earlier, I don't know) our International Board (capitalization?) was here at the Operations Center for conferences and meetings. Meaning: they wanted us to plan some lunches that would be lite (mind read salads) so possible board members would be more alert for 'meetings' and such...And because they would be taking them out to eat dinner later in the evening for a more 'full' meal. But anyways...

One of the desserts led me to get a little creative. Using a chocolate truffle recipe that Gary (fellow Chef) gave me and some fresh made pastas rolled thru the machine, we put together our Chocolate Truffle Ravioli with a Vanilla Bean & Cardamom White Sauce accented with a Raspberry Glaze...Yes, I know - How delicious! hahaha!

The trick with the fresh pastas is frying it which melts down those oo-ee gooey truffle centers...enjoy the slide show:

One by One...

Posted by:  StephanieRN

As the time comes closer to moving out of our apartment and onto the base then eventually onto the ship my things (my lovely, wonderful possessions) find new homes. Today my dining table and chairs got packed onto a truck and hauled away. It was bitter sweet. I probably won't miss my table per-say, but the girl that I am attaches memories to my things. But then again, because our belonging are gone we have much more flexibility in order to live on a ship and live out our dreams. Oh man, if I get this emotional over my table I imagine I will be a mess when I have to see my amazing collection of shoes step into new feet.

Pasta Roller, Pantry, & Packing

As we start cleaning, packing, and moving stuff in order to get our apartment empty since our lease is up at the end of the month I broke out the pasta machine one last time before the dust collecting storage.  It's been nice having the challenge of using everything up but still trying to create that great meal out of dwindling pantry supplies that will not be restocked.

Tonight I made a simple tomato sauce with canned (that's right, Muir Glen organic fire-roasted) tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and a little red wine.  Oh yeah, a little of the extra virgin olive oil.

The pasta was pretty simple, a pinch of salt, cup and half flour, pour of oil, and a few eggs...when it starts coming together in little balls is a good sign just to smoosh it all together in a ball and let it rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  Roll it thru the pasta roller down to 2, my pasta roller goes from the high numbers to the low.  Our pasta roller at work goes from low to high, kinda crazy huh?!

Instead of going the simple (or hard?) way of rolling it thru the fettuccine or spaghetti cutter I cut 2-inch squares and finger egg-washed the edges of the square folding the sheets over some pan sauteed leftover spinach mixed with some shredded provolone cheese.   (I threw a quick fix of cajun seasoning in there too...just for good measure.)

Read the labels on your spice mixes if you have them, usually no matter what they call it there are a few that have all the flavors you want.  Like Cajun seasoning, it usually has some salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic, onion, etc...and 'other' assorted spices.  I usually don't buy spice mixes because I have so much of everything I can make about any mix I want.  But there are a few that seem to be good quick solutions to bump up a little flavor.

Anyway...Maybe you remember a few posts ago about Konop Meat Market in Wisconsin and how my mother-in-law bought up a bunch of meat for me?  Well, I oven-roasted them in foil.  They were called Swiss & Mushroom Brats (totally pork) and maybe you're saying they didn't really go with the pasta and sauce...but you can't tell my stomach or my wife that.  We are sitting pretty with a smile on our faces.

Last but not least, I had some sweet white wine I wanted to use up so I poached a few fresh pears I had with a little cinnamon sugar mixture (I also wanted to get rid of).  Made a little caramel-type sauce with the leftover juices and poured them over the pears which were on top of some puff pastry (that I also had in the freezer begging to be used).  Yes, it could have been better but nobody cared to go get the ice cream so we had to suffer and eat it like it was.

Kinda made me feel like a 'Door Knock Dinner' success...what is that?  It's an old Food Network show where...oh never mind.

Ethical Fried Chicken and a caterers dilemma...

Suppose your business was asked to cater a backyard picnic for forty that consisted of several side dishes say like:  texas caviar (a blackeyed pea cold salad kind of dish), potato salad, spinach salad, corn bread.  The main dish is Fried Chicken.

Lets say your commercial kitchen was not really outfitted for a fryer but added a small one (and I mean small, one basket tabletop) as a side thought 'just in case' would be the reply.

After cooking all the other dishes for the event you had the bright idea of saving yourselves some time and headache and increasing your chances for delivering hot, juicy (maybe still crunchy, the event was 30 minutes away from our kitchen) fried chicken by just picking up several 'mixed' chicken buckets from a local fried chicken place (closer to event, 5 minutes away) and then just putting them, the buckets of chicken, in your chafing dishes.

What would be the harm in that?  Is there some line the caterers would cross by doing that?  Or, is it ethical?

Hmmm...there is a poll please cast your vote or leave me a comment.   Just leave a comment please, crusty old poll froze up on me!!!
[poll=1]

Blue Mesa

I haven't been to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill but I would dare say this restaurant is a great find as well.

Stephanie and I got...[Uh, yeah sorry for the interruption.  Here is an update:]

While being back in Dallas for travel we went back to Blue Mesa and now I am glad I just saved this as a draft that I almost never got back to...because this last time was HORRIBLE.

Service, food, everything.

Imagine chicken tortilla soup tasting like a watered-down version of Campbell's vegetable soup.  There was nothing that made it discernable from a bad chicken and veggie soup.  Maybe if you squint and close one eye you can imagine seeing a few sprigs or flakes of cilantro?  Nah, I can't taste it.

Eat at your own risk.

Michael Ruhlman - The Elements of Cooking

Earlier I was fooling around and managed to lose/delete (?) an earlier posting of this book...

The Elements Of Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman.

An article/blog by a colleague of his can be viewed at this link -

A Hunger Artist:
The Elements of Cooking by Bob Del Grosso...or an Amazon article at this link - Essay.

If you reference my 'Tyrone' page on the right panel I have a pictorial of a few culinary books I have referenced or read in the past and Michael Ruhlman has written at least 3 of them.

I will be excited to read how Michael 'puts it down on paper.

Backup

So I (we) was in a couple of stores tonight to buy an external hard drive to backup our laptops on and I turned and said to my wife, "What do you think?  The Seagate, or the WD My Book?"  She looks at the boxes, then she looks at me...then she says, "Give them to me so I can see which one is lighter, thats the one I think we should get!"

No comment.

Hometown, homegrown, homemade...

Whatever you want to call it, specialty places, stores/food services that have been in place for generations...that's what real food is made from, or at least originally came from. I am glad to see that these days have not gone by the wayside yet.

Although I was a bit disappointed that Krohn Dairy Store would not let me tour the facilities (9/11, regulations, insurance, blah blah blah) I still managed to get my hands on some fresh samples and Judy (my mother-in-law) made sure we went away with a few pounds of their best cheese and cheese curds.

Mark Konop at Konops Meat Market seemed a little taken back that I would actually want to see his families operations...apologizing that the particular day we came there was not a whole lot of 'excitement' going on, but come tomorrow...that's ok Mark, I had to get back to work.

I would have gotten more pictures but I didn't want to get anyone nervous.

And don't ya know, after packing all that meat and cheese in my check-in bag I had one of those 'inspection' tags in my luggage upon returning home and unzipping it to put it away. It was sittin' right on top...and luckily for them, nothin' was missing!!!

Freezer to Green Bay

Well, this week we had quite a challenge at the IOC kitchen.  Our walk-in freezer went down...actually I think by the time we realized it was not keeping temp it could have been down for 24 hours.  We do not frequent our freezer every day, it's not necessary.

 We called US Foods & Sysco but to no avail.  Neither could produce a trailer with refrigeration(freezer capabilities) at 4pm in the afternoon (which seems kind of hoky to me), but tried to promise one first thing the next day.  But of course, that would be too late...we were a bit disappointed with the food companies.

But we got it all squared away ourselves and for now, our walk-in refrigerator is maxed out.  We'll just cook/make our everyday menu out of the thawing meats and products as they become defrosted and in order of the most likely to go bad first.  We think we have a pretty good chance at staying one step ahead of having to waste anything.  That was yesterday...

Today I am getting ready to leave work..we (my wife and I) will be attending a marriage up in Green Bay, WI.  This is Stephanie's extended family(Grandma, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, etc...).  And it will be a good time to spend with them since all her immediate family will be there as well.

We'll be flying out of Dallas in the morning...(yawn) 4 am comes quick!

I am so excited!!

Posted by:  Stephanie 

Almost 10 years ago I met this girl who had just finished 2 years with  Anastasis in the Drama Department. She showed me  the video about Mercy ships and talked to me about how Mercy Ships brings hope and healing to the poorest of the poor. I was in college at the time.... well mostly I was skipping classes, developing an impressive social life and wardrobe. One night after talking to her I went home found the Mercy Ships website and for the first time in my life I had clarity and purpose for my life. I knew then that Mercy Ships was for me. That summer I worked at Hume Lake Christian Camps and had a mentor nmed Stephanie. We went through all of my strengths and weaknesses and pretty much just picked the career of nursing. At the end of the summer I got really sick and spent a long time in the hospital and God placed the desire in my heart to be a nurse and re-sparked my desire to go work with Mercy ships. After bit more screwing around in college, I over heard one of my so called friends telling another girl I would never make it through nursing school or to the ship. That one comment was the turning point for me, when I enrolled for my courses that semester I new it would be different this time. Not only would I finish these courses but I would do well and this time I had the motivation of not only proving that I could do it, I also knew that I wanted to work with Mercy ships in Africa and Nursing was my vehicle. So in 2004 I served 1 year on the Caribbean Mercy as a nurse. In January, almost 10 years from that day I watched that video my husband (Tyrone, whom I met on the ship)  and I are heading to Sierra Leone  to work on the Africa Mercy. I will be working as a nurse and Tyrone will be working as the Cheif Cook. My plan was much different, but God is so good and His plans are much better than mine. I am so excited to be on the ship with Tyrone using the talents God gave us, to serve Him and truely bring hope and healing to those in need.

Done...maybe

I think I finally finished playing around with the whole website in general...but maybe to come back and finish a page for each one of us.  One Tyrone page, one Stephanie page will probably be added on this blog underneath the introduction link on the right hand side for our favorites and such...