mountain masala

gnocchi and polenta

i'm nervous about cooking with flour and water (really), so polenta and gnocchi in the last week has been a good challenge. yvonne made the polenta from a recipe that i'd picked out from brisbane chef philip johnson's brilliant "classic ecco" 'cookbook. it was the second time we'd made 'wet' polenta so the cooking was a shared conversation. then the gnocchi a couple of nights ago - recipe from the same cookbook. as well as fantastic meals, johnson is excellent for basic techniques. on both occasions, the recipe was so successful that my fear of these foods has evaporated... i highly recommend this book. here's a quick summary of the two recipes.

Gnocchi

steam 750g potatoes in their jackets. I had a bag of no-name baby potatoes that were on sale. no idea what type, and not really 'baby', but smallish. and yes, they were steamed. Peel while still quite warm (the painful part) and either put through a sieve or potato ricer (bought one for $11 recently. makes all the difference). I used the finest ricing disk.

fold potato gently into 150g strong flour. sing to it while you're doing this. i'm sure it will help you fold gently. I have no idea what strong flour is. I used "000" flour which costs a bit more. I had bought my first ever bag of it because its supposed to be good for pasta, and there was just enough left. I don't know why it's called "000". there were no secret agents involved.  then gently add 1 lightly beaten egg  and 50 gm grated parmesan cheese (I used the regular supermarket brand shredded stuff, not the real deal). add a pinch of nutmeg and salt (Murray River pink ...) and black pepper.

Becoming a 'Blue Ocean' Educational Leader

Another characteristc of effective educational leadership, according to John Roberto in Faith Formation 2020, is the capacity to go into uncharted waters (or as Captain Kirk would say, "to boldly go.....). "Blue Ocean" refers to open opportunities where there are no competitors, as distinct from "red oceans" that are jam-packed with people doing similar stuff. His two examples of "blue ocean" businesses are Netflix, the US online movie rental company, and Pierce College, a US post-secondary college that decided to focus on adults, and to augment their campus offering with localised in-situ learning and online learning, well ahead of other institutions.

Roberto's references include an article by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (245kb PDF), their book titled - guess what? - "Blue Ocean Strategy", and the book's website. Key factors are to identify a 'target audience' and to consider the strategic factors involved (time, cost, availability, location, etc). Really?

I have to say that this section contains no examples of local churches doing something refreshingly new and different. It seems to me that this is really a subset of being innovative.

At the same time, it raises questions for me about church amalgamations. Robin Trebilcock used to say that if you put five plates of cheese sandwiches together, you end up with one big plate of cheese sandwiches. If what is needed across a region is a smorgasbord of spiritual growth and community experiences, then to go from, say, five similar communities into one isnt necessarily an improvement. If that new combined 'congregation' in fact provides a range of community experiences in different styles, places and times, according to local cultural characteristics, then it is a different proposition. It's one thing to reduce the competition, but its another thing to step out into new territory.

The Pierce College example is interesting, because it suggests that a congregation might see itself as a 'campus', and explore what on-campus,on-site (off-campus, in situ) and online learning opportunities might look like. A bit like what a theological college could do...

Roberto's schema ('faith formation', not 'Christian education') with multiple audiences pushes the church to consider which groups of people without current church connections might be open to experiences of spiritual growth, and to meet them in situ. hmmm..... sounding like 'fresh expressions' to me...

this is why i want a tenor guitar

seth lakeman playing his 1950's Martin tenor guitar. some of us saw seth at Greenbelt a couple of years ago. i thought he was fantastic. here he is trying to make violin playing look sexy.

anyway, i love the sound of this guitar. Martin make one of their cheaper travel guitars as a tenor, but i've never seen one in a shop.

scallops and spiced fish

picked up some cheapish seafood friday afternoon. i was going to make two meals of it, but it ended up being one... a bunch of scallops still in shell (had never shelled scallops before) and a mulloway which I filletted (about the second time I've filleted a fish).

The scallops were simply seared in a pan and put on a plate with a half shell. I made a puree of apple, butter, lemon juice and sour cream to go next to it. i tried to make an apple, red onion and apple cider 'jam' to put next top it, but it turned to toffee without me realising and when I tasted it i burnt my lip... so instead on a whim i put an artistic swirl of spiced verjuice dessrt syrup that we'd bought at Providore in Margaret river on the place. the spice was cinnamon and it worked a treat.

For the main course I marinated the fish fillets in the following paste from The Asian Barbecue Book, which is sensational. This was a mixture of
2 tsp toasted cumin seeds
1 tsp toasted coriander seeds
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves (the recipe has 1 tsp ajowan seeds with thyme as an alternative)
1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1-2 tsp chilli flakes (I used 1/2 tsp chilli powder
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup yoghurt

You grind the toasted spices and thyme, then add the ginger and garlic and grind again, the turmeric, white pepper, chilli and a little lemon juice. finally add the rest of the lemon juice and yoghurt. Marinate the fish for an hour. I was going to BBQ on the Weber but it was dark and cold outside, so I baked it in the top of the oven until it just started to brown.

We had it with home made chips and some aioli (not home made). Great stuff.

Beautiful.

Alive@5 July

Our next Alive@5 gathering will be held Sunday 3 July. We've decided to try exploring Christian practices as the themes for each gathering. This gives us a starting point about everyday life that we can then connect with Christian faith. This month we'll look at "Saying Sorry", ie forgiveness, which will follow on well from looking at friendship last month. We're using the "Living Well" Christian practices materials from LifeLong Faith Associates (aka John Roberto) for ideas to bounce off. We're still learning as we go, but its going well with about 35 people last month and a couple of new families within that. I was too busy helping run the event last time to take photos, and will have to rectify that next time.

We've decided to start with worship and have food afterwards, and thinknig about whether we reverse that. We aimed to keep the worship within an hour, but with activity time in the middle that's been a challenge.

The pattern both times has been

Welcome
Song (lively - everyone gets a percussion instrument)
Prayer of Thanks
Brief Theme Intro
Puppet Play - everyone gets a puppet, a few main characters get a script while someone holds up a line for the rest to say every now and then. On other occasions this will be a story.
Gospel reading on video
Brief theme talk
Activities - 2 each time. First week they moved between at their own pace, week 2 we broke into 2 groups and swapped after 15 mins
"Show & Tell" from activities - again brief
Prayer for Others
Song
Blessing

We're wanting the activities to not seem like 'Sunday School', and at the same time for them to be enjoyable and effective educationally. Some of the 'Messy Church' stuff doesn't do the latter as far as I'm concerned. But its a challenge to work up alternatives.One of the activities last time was some co-operative games using a parachute and small beach ball (the connection being that the games were co-operative rather than competitive). This was enjoyed by all, and has me thinking more about using play as symbolic learning each time.

 

ham and cabbage soup with parsnip and pear mash

tonight i adapted a stephanie alexander recipe for cabbage soup from "the cook's companion". i simmered a ham hock in water with a bay leaf, thyme sprigs and peppercorns for ages until it almost fell apart. meanwhile dice 1 onion, 2 carrots and a turnip into big chunks. saute in marg/butter and then add a couple of litres of chicken stock, bay leaf, thyme and simmer for 45 mins. while that's happening cut up a parsnip and a pear and boil until they're soft. throw in a bit of lemon juice along the way. the parsnip will take longer so put it in first.

after 45 mins add chopped green beans and chopped cabbage (we had chinese) to the soup. cook for another 10 mins or so. cut the meat off the ham hock and dice up as much as you want to put in the soup. add 2 cups of the ham cooking liquid to the soup. add ham and a can of white beans to the soup. Taste soup. add a couple of tablespoons of Dijon mustard, black pepper and salt to the soup as needed.

mash the parsnip and pears with some marg/butter and milk. serve the soup with a dollop of the mash in the centre. serve with fresh bread rolls that you made with the help of the bread machine.

just right.

Young People's Identity in Consumer Culture

Day #2 with Andrew Root last week explored how the identity of young people is formed in late modernity, based on his book The Promise of Despair. Andrew pointed out that in an earlier age, identity was largely shaped by work and by love, namely through family. Of course, that included the 'self' being defined by social responsibilities and relationships. In fact, there was no self as we know it today. To cut to the chase, work and love have been replaced by consumption and intimacy as the defining aspects of identity.

Andy drew on the work of Jean Baudrillard, French philosopher (who is well-known in media studies) it highlights the replacement of the signified by the sign, the real by the hyper-real.

CAR SONGS #8

I've been facebooking about SONGS I PLAY LOUD IN THE CAR (or have played). I'm posting this one here as well. Just after my Dad died last year, I at some stage got The Waterboys' album "Universal Hall", and "Every Breath Is Yours" just hit me in the gut. I played it over and over and over in the car. I even made a video clip that I played both at our church and at College for the two worship services where I felt compelled to say something about my recent experience. I've been a big fan of the Waterboys since we first lived in Adelaide, at the time when people were listening to The Alarm, early U2, The Call, etc.

The Waterboys music always has a spiritual theme running through, and this album seems both more Christian and more like a trip to Iona or something (one song is called "Peace of Iona". coincidence? I doubt it)

Anyway, this is a live clip from Spanish TV  in 2003. Two songs, and the second is "Every Breath is Yours". To me it clearly seems like a prayer to God, our Beloved, whose Spirit lives and moves in us. At the same time it speaks to me of the breath of a father or mother continuing in us. This song undoes me. It's gentler on the album. But not having ever seen the Waterboys Live, this is a bit of a treasure. I actually wanted to post "Church Not Made With Hands" which has had a workout in the car on and off, but there'll be enough bombastic rock songs in my playlist!

Rethinking Youth Ministry #1

We've just had Dr Andrew Root from Luther Seminary in Minnesota here for 4 days, and been incredibly enriched by his visit. Three days of teaching ministry workers and leaders followed by a morning for about 300 people at our Synod/Presbytery meeting. We had an ugly day trying to get him from Canberra to here on a plane thanks to the volcano... He finally arrived at College 50 mins before start time.

First up, Andy was great to be with and work with. I say this not as an evaluation (!) but in appreciation of him as a person. People warmed to him, his stories and honesty, and humility. You don't always get those things in a visiting speaker. (sorry Andy, just building you up again in order to tear you down.. ha..)

a new culture of learning

thanks to rob hanks for this post about a book and website called 'a new culture of learning' by douglas thomas and john seely brown. i like this from the website:  

By exploring play, innovation, and the cultivation of the imagination as cornerstones of learning, the authors create a vision of learning for the future that is achievable, scalable and one that grows along with the technology that fosters it and the people who engage with it. The result is a new form of culture in which knowledge is seen as fluid and evolving, the personal is both enhanced and refined in relation to the collective, and the ability to manage, negotiate and participate in the world is governed by the play of the imagination.

Typically, when we think of culture, we think of an existing, stable entity that changes and evolves over long periods of time. In A New Culture of Learning, Thomas and Brown explore a second sense of culture, one that responds to its surroundings organically. It not only adapts, it integrates change into its process as one of its environmental variables.

Read the interviews with medua studies guru Henry Jenkins here and here.