mountain masala

last night's dinner menu

we had friends from melbourne over last night .... somehow that seems to say "baked baby"... please keep reading!

word art

i came across something not long ago where you could paste in text and it would turn it into a poster.

thanks to darren, i think this is where it was, although i do remember a black background....

Wordle website

Here's a Wordle made from John 1:1-18 (NRSV)

roast honey-orange chicken

i blogged a while ago about a chicken dinner with geoff, sandy and cheryl where I made three spice crusts or marinades for the chickens that we then barbecued on the Weber. I made up a spice mix on the day and recorded the ingredients without any amounts.

today I tried one of them again, and as far as I'm concerned it was fantastic. the family gobbled it up in their own polite ways. i apologise for not measuring the ingredients.

I was roasting two smaller chickens. one of our local shops sells a twin pack, and I always find that these smaller ones cook much juicier than the big ones. I kind of split the earlier ingredients so it went like this:

I rubbed the chickens with mixture of sumac, cinnamon, orange zest, olive oil, indian chilli powder and pepper.

they went into the oven, while I simmered the juice of 3 oranges (really dry, so make it two), freshly ground cardamom seeds (at least 1 tsp), about 1/4 cup sugar, and then later about 4 tbspns honey). simmered it down until it was pretty thick, then cooled.

I poured the orange syrup over the chicken twice during the last half hour of its cooking.

the veg were a tray of baked shallots (you know, french onions, not spring onions), sweet potato and red capsicum, with dates (softened in water) added towards the end and honey drizzled over the top. the kids said they loved the veg the most... I call it sugar...

served with coucsous, pan juice from the chooks sprinkled over the meal.

this was so good that I have to work out an actual recipe. with better orange flavour this could be a winner.

what is the body?

i'm writing  an article for a journal about young people, technology and embodied spirituality.

I just did the MS Word thesaurus lookup on "body" (cause I've used the word too much) and it came back with...

corpse
dead body
cadaver
remains
carcass
stiff
deceased

apart from the obvious fact that these people have been watching too many monty python parrot sketches, isnt it bizarre that 'body' means 'dead'.....

thanks bill gates. and the corporate body microsoft...

i blog, therefore i am

"i blog, therefore i am."

(just posting this so I can quote someone as having said it for a journal article! ha!)

is it original? who knows?

crafting sacred spaces

continuing our theme of trans-tasman brain-draining, we're delighted to have mark pierson from auckland joining us 14-17 September for sessions on crafting or curating alternative worship and participatory public art installations.

the idea is that over a couple of days we will explore and create a series of public installations for the annual World Day of Peace that is celebrated at the end of that week.

Download Mark Pierson brochure

It should be a great experience. We are encouraging churches to bring teams.

go and visit the cityside baptist website and have a look at their easter, lent and advent stuff!

(the photo is from an easter thing that mark and cheryl worked on.)

so you think you can be president

this is great

so you think you can be president?

it might get loud

lack of posts here is mainly due to still being crook on and off. a week ago i felt better than I do today. i'll write soon about the visit of diana butler-bass, but for now, let me celebrate the coming movie "it might get loud" - a film that explores the art of the guitar, featuring a meeting of jimmy page, dave evans and jack white (of course that means led zeppelin, U2 and the white stripes).

i found about it from electro-harmonix, some of whose guitar fx pedals i own and such feature in the film.

in might get loud

electro-harmonix

culture with a k

we're delighted to have steve taylor back in town for a week. he's the keynote speaker at our biennial, national in-service gathering for children, youth & family workers.

while steve is in town we've asked him to speak at our next [re]generate (see previous post).

steve will also be running a day seminar/workshop on culture-making as mission - namely how Christian might reshape culture rather than act as victims of culure.

hence "CULTURE WITH A Kiwi"

its wonderful that steve will be back in town. it is so refreshing to have someone who is actively, openly and humbly trying to participate in God's mission. and he almost talks like us (which is deep code for saying that we hear steve as a local, not as a pom or a yank... its a good thing!)

download info here:

Download Culture with a k

[re]generate - august 3