Snowpeople

I wonder why it is that we refer to snowmen as "snowmen"? What is it about them, really, that makes them male? True, some wear top hats and smoke pipes, which are stereotypically masculine behaviors. But what about the snowpeople who simply have a smiling face, twiggy arms, and no gender-specific accessories? A friend and I gave Christmas socks to the rest of our coworkers, and one design had a snowperson with a pink scarf. Pink = stereotypically feminine. Yet at least one person still referred to her as a snowman, and when some of us intentionally called her a snowgirl or snowwman, it felt really weird.

I also noticed this assumption of masculinity (for lack of a better term) while playing a card game with my dad this week. The cards have pictures of various kinds of bean characters on them (for instance, the black-eyed bean is in a boxing ring and has a black eye, and the blue bean is dressed like a police officer). There are eight or so different bean characters in the deck, some of which are decidedly male, but most of which are fairly gender-neutral. Yet we both kept saying things like, "I'll plant this guy but let you have those other two guys."

I also find myself talking this way while driving. If I talk about (or at) another driver on the road, I almost always refer to him or her as male. "That guy was nice to let me in," or, "Dude, what are you doing?" It's almost never, "She cut me off," or even, "That person cut me off"--and I'm normally pretty conscious of gendered language.

Just an observation. Well, a few observations, really. I just wonder why we are so inclined to use masculine language over feminine.

Note: In case you've missed it in other posts or conversations, I don't hate men. I think men are pretty awesome. And I have nothing against the term "snowman," or against referring to beans or drivers as guys. I'm just observing speech patterns in myself and others . . . and I think there must be some connection between our language and our societal norms about gender hierarchies.

The saga of the Christmas Cookies ice cream

Prologue:
Early in November, I glanced through the Blue Bell ice cream freezers and discovered a delectable-sounding holiday flavor called Christmas Cookies. Here's how Blue Bell describes the ice cream on their website: "Your favorite holiday cookies – chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and sugar – combined in a tasty sugar cookie ice cream with red candy cane-shaped sprinkles and a green icing swirl throughout." Uh, yum! But since it wasn't yet Thanksgiving, I put it back it back on the shelf with a promise that I'd be back for it. Big mistake.

The Saga:
Once Thanksgiving had had its glory and it was officially Christmas season, I started looking for it again . . . but couldn't find it anywhere. One store had empty cartons of it on display, but no cartons of Christmas Cookies in the freezer. Such a tease. Eventually I asked a manager at the store with the empty cartons, and he gave a friendly but non-committal answer along the lines of, "Blue Bell only sends us a limited amount in each shipment since it's a specialty, seasonal flavor, and we keep selling out. But we restock our shelves every morning." Sad times.

A night or two later, my friend Lauren whisked me away for an evening of hunting for this elusive Christmas Cookies ice cream. Store #1: no CC ice cream. Store #2: no CC ice cream. On the way to Store #3, I called three more stores in town, to no avail. (Side note: have you ever called a grocery store and asked for a specific brand and flavor of ice cream? It feels really strange. Fortunately the store employees who answered the phones were very friendly and even went to look and see if they had any Holy Grail ice cream.) And, of course, Store #3 was also out. We settled for some Reese's ice cream bars and went home deflated.

The next day, Lauren called and said, "I've been on the phone with about seven different Blue Bell employees, and I think we can get some Christmas Cookies ice cream tomorrow morning!" I've heard her tell the tale of the Blue Bell phone calls several times, but I still get some of the sequence and finer details mixed up. But it went something like this:

1. One of her coworkers has a family member who works at Blue Bell, and he (coworker) suggested she call Blue Bell directly to order some, even if it meant buying some in bulk.
2. Lauren called the Blue Bell plant in Brenham, Texas. But apparently you can't buy directly from them; so they gave her the number for a transit location. The number didn't work. So she got her hands on the number for the distribution center in Big Spring, Texas.
3. Lauren explained our quest to a Blue Bell employee (BBE). Apparently Blue Bell had already produced as much as they're going to this Christmas season, but there were still some cartons floating around in stores. So Lauren asked how she could get her hands on some Christmas Cookies ice cream. BBE: "How much are you wanting to buy?" Lauren: "How much do I need to buy?" They thought she might need to get a three-gallon container. But then the BBE remembered that they don't make three-gallon containers of the special flavors. Lauren: "So how can I get some?" BBE: "Well, let me check with my local delivery guy and see if he has any on his truck to deliver tomorrow." Somewhere in this process, Lauren got transferred to at least one other BBE and had to start over. Fortunately, all the BBEs were very friendly. Go, Blue Bell!
4. Good news! The delivery guy had some CC ice cream scheduled to deliver to one of our grocery stores the next morning (Saturday morning). Hooray!

At that point, Lauren called me to tell me the Blue Bell story. Now, sleeping in on Saturday mornings is normally a BIG priority to both of us. But we were willing to forego sleep for the sake of guaranteeing that we'd find CC ice cream at the store before they sold out. Because by this point, we were committed. There was no way we'd get through the 2011 Christmas season without trying this ice cream! She then proceeded to call the store to ask A) what time they stock their shelves, and B) if they could set aside a carton for us so we could still sleep in. They were non-committal and less than helpful.

A couple hours later, my friend Jaron called: "I have a weird question. I saw several posts on your Facebook wall about this Christmas Cookies ice cream. Did you ever find any and, if so, where? Because I want to buy some, too." So I told him the story and let him in on the secret that Blue Bell was supposed to deliver more the next morning . . . but selfishly asked him not to tell too many people, lest the store sell out before Lauren and I could get there. But Jaron was planning to go grocery shopping right then, so oh well.

A little while later, Jaron calls again: "I'm at [the grocery store with the empty cartons on display] and I'm holding the last two cartons of Christmas Cookies ice cream. Do you want one of them?"

!!!

Of course! Yes! I'll give you my left arm in payment for it. We worked out logistics and hung up, and I could barely sit still from excitement! And when Jaron got through the checkout and pulled up beside my building, I practically skipped outside to get the ice cream from him. I might have also hugged the carton at least once. And, of course, I thanked Jaron profusely and declared him a rock star.

Dancing back into the building with the Holy Grail ice cream under my arm, I called Lauren, breathless, and exlaimed with dramatic pauses, "Lauren! I am holding . . . in my hands . . . a carton of Christmas Cookies ice cream!" Lauren: "What!? How did you get it?" I told her the tale and half-asked, half-declared, "What time do your guests come over tonight? Can I come over right now for us to eat some ice cream?" Fortunately it was the end of the work day so I could leave the office immediately, and there was enough time before her guests came over so we could eat ice cream.

And oh, what a delicious ice cream it was (is)! It's like eating a platter of cookies, complete with icing and sprinkles . . . in ice cream form! Strong work, Blue Bell. Without the whole saga, this flavor would probably be in my top ten; but with all the energy that went into this--and with all the emotional highs and lows along the way--Christmas Cookies ice cream is easily in my top five.

Epilogue:
On Saturday afternoon, I had to run some errands and buy some groceries, and I happened down the ice cream aisle. Lo and behold! There were two cartons of Blue Bell Christmas Cookies ice cream! So I picked up a carton for Lauren and a carton for another friend who had been looking for CC ice cream since I first found it before Thanksgiving.

Later that afternoon, a friend from church texted me: "They have lots of Christmas cookie blue bell at [grocery store]!"

On Sunday afternoon, while eating lunch with Lauren and two more friends, I got this text from a work friend: "Just bought you some BB Xmas cookie ice cream."

Lauren and I got a good laugh out of it and filled in the other two friends on the saga. Lydia responded, "Oh, I've seen tons of that ice cream all over the place!"

I guess when it rains, it pours.

And that is the story of the Blue Bell Christmas Cookies ice cream.

Privilege

Not too long ago I had a frustrating conversation with a colleague of mine. It started innocently enough with us mutually asserting that churches should be more inclusive of women in their services. Usually these conversations about women in the church fit into two categories:

1. We fundamentally disagree on so much about what Scripture says about women, neither of us budges on our respective positions, and we both end up at least a little frustrated with each other.
2. Or, we agree on basically every point, and rally together in hoping for a better situation in our churches.

I thought this conversation would be more like the second category, but somewhere in the middle of our discussion, it became more like Category 1. Which was strange because we agreed on the main point that women are created equal and, therefore, shouldn't be treated as inferior and limited to potlucks and the nursery . . . but we disagreed on several of the sub-points leading up to that ultimate conclusion.

Of all the things that frustrated me and caught me off guard in the conversation, I think the thing that got me most was his refusal to acknowledge his position of privilege as a male. Most of the men with whom I've talked extensively about gender freely admit that their maleness automatically gives them an advantage in myriad situations. Even if they don't fully grasp the extent of that privilege, they know it's there. (Or they fall squarely into Category 1 above and may know they're privileged but think that privilege is ordained by God.) This colleague, though, was willing to admit that--just maybe--he might be privileged, but he didn't really think he was.

For a while I pushed back, but eventually just stopped talking because we were going in circles and I didn't want to say something ugly. And I left the conversation exceedingly frustrated.

Upon reflection later, I got to wondering . . . in how many ways am I oblivious to the positions of privilege into which I was born or have earned? I'm not in poverty. I'm white. I have a good job with a consistent paycheck. I live in a country with a (comparatively) stable government. I have a college education. I have clean water and easy access to food. I have friends and family who love me unconditionally and will be there for me no matter what.

While I consciously know these privileges exist in my life, I know that I take them for granted, and they're definitely not in the forefront of my mind. And I don't feel the weight of my privileges in the same way I feel the weight of others' privileges that I don't share (maleness, greater wealth, a more important-sounding job title, etc.). 

I wonder how many times I've unthinkingly opened my mouth and hurt someone who doesn't share these privileges that I take for granted. 

Sausage- and apple-stuffed acorn squash

My mom came to visit for a few days, which was delightful! And since that meant cooking for two instead of one, it was the perfect opportunity to make this recipe I'd been admiring for a few weeks. The recipe was for four servings, so we scaled it down to two but rounded up on most of the stuffing ingredients. The only other changes we made to the original recipe were cutting out the panko crumbs and using ground turkey sausage instead of turkey sausage in casings. 

I normally don't even like sausage, but this dish was good! The sausage served as an excellent complement to the creamy acorn squash and sweet apples. And, while it looks really fancy, it's actually pretty easy to make. It's a little time-consuming, but most of the prep time is spent baking (so less hands-on time). I would gladly make this dish again!

Without further ado, here is the recipe, adapted slightly from Nicole's recipe at preventionrd.com. For those of you interested in nutrition information, she includes it with every recipe.

Sausage- and Apple-Stuffed Acorn Squash

1 large acorn squash, halved and seeded

1 Tbsp butter, melted

1 clove of garlic, pressed

1/4 tsp ground sage, divided

1/2 lb. ground turkey sausage

1/4 to 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped

3/4 celery rib, finely chopped

3 oz mushrooms, chopped

1/2 to 3/4 apple, cored and chopped (we used Gala)

2 generous Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

1 small or medium egg, beaten (or beat a large egg and don’t pour all of it in)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine the melted butter, garlic, and 1/8 tsp sage. Brush the inside and outside of each squash with the butter mix. Place the squash on a cookie sheet, cut side up, and roast for 50-60 minutes, or until fork tender. (Mom started ours cut side down in an inch or so of water; we took out out after about 25 minutes, brushed with the butter mixture, turned cut side up, and returned to the oven for a little longer. This method meant the squash cooked faster and was more tender and less crispy.)

In a large skillet over medium heat, brown the sausage. When the sausage is browned, remove it from the pan and place on a paper towel lined plate, set aside. To the skillet add the onions, celery, and mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes. Add the apples and cook for another 2 minutes.

Return the sausage to the skillet then remove from heat. Season with 1/8 tsp sage, salt, and pepper. Stir in the Parmesan and egg.

Divide the stuffing evenly among the two squash halves. Return to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes.

Yield: 2 servings.

Acorn squash - cooked, and ready to fill 

The bottom left corner is blurry partly because of the focus setting,
but mostly because the lens was starting to steam up.

All gone!

Roasted sweet potato and pear

While grocery shopping the other day, I was captivated by the pears and had an uncontrollable urge to buy one and invent a recipe to go with it. Sweet potato seemed like a good complement to the pear, so I bought one of those, too, while visions of fall goodness danced in my head.

The result last night was good . . . but not awesome as I had hoped. But I have some ideas for how to improve it next time, so I’ll keep all two of you readers posted. J

My first mistake was roasting the sweet potato for too long. My Google searches led me to believe that sweet potatoes take much longer to roast than pears, so I gave them a 20-minute head start, and they were completely done at the end of those 20 minutes! So I’ve adjusted the instructions below to reflect a more reasonable cooking time.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Pear

1 small sweet potato

1 pear (I used Anjou)

Olive oil

Sprinkling of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger

Craisins (a small handful)

1-2 Tbsp. pecan pieces

Preheat oven to 350; line a baking sheet with foil and spray with olive oil spray. Wash sweet potato and cut into cubes. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with spices; toss to coat. Pour onto prepared baking sheet and pop into the oven to give the sweet potato about a five-minute head start.

Meanwhile, wash, core, and cube the pear, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with spices, and toss to coat. When the potato’s head start is up, add the pear cubes to the baking sheet and return to the oven for 10 minutes. It occurred to me halfway through making this that I could bake the sweet potato and pear in the same Pyrex bowl I used to toss them in the flavorings.

Meanwhile, put the Craisins into a small bowl with a little bit of water, and let them soak while the sweet potatoes and pears roast. When the timer goes off, add the Craisins (without excess water) and pecans to pan/bowl, and roast for an additional 5 minutes. Check for doneness, and enjoy!

Yield: 1-2 servings. The only other part of my dinner last night was some Greek yogurt that I ate for protein while this cooked, so I ate all of it. If it’s a side, it could easily serve two people.

Result and ideas for next time: This dish was definitely missing something. It was a little dry, and the flavor profile wasn't quite as complex enough for my liking. (Look at me, using a fancy term like "flavor profile." Can you tell I've been watching Food Network shows?) I think I will try one or more of the following adjustments next time:

• Use a little bit of butter instead of all olive oil.
• Sprinkle some cheese on at the end when I add the Craisins and pecans. I’m thinking Gouda or Parmesan . . . maybe Swiss.
• Add some red onions.
• As I’m typing out this blog post, it occurs to me that this could be awesome with the sauce from the Balsamic Roasted Pumpkin and Friends I made a few weeks ago. I can’t imagine balsamic vinegar and orange juice NOT tasting incredible with the pears and Craisins, and the added liquid would solve the dryness problem without dumping on too much oil. Hmm . . . this may be the winning idea. Now I can’t wait to try it!

Balsamic roasted pumpkin and friends

The fall cooking bug has bitten me. Not just a quick little nibble. No, it’s latched on with iron jaws and will not. Let. Go. Not that I’m really trying to get rid of it, mind you! I spent significant portions of last weekend browsing pumpkin and squash recipes, preparation tips, recipes, articles, and recipes . . . and just drooling and wishing I could make every single one of those recipes.

Side note: Did you know that WebMD has a whole section oncooking? I didn’t! But they do, and it’s great! They have all sorts of articles on things like how to cook healthfully for one or two, how to incorporate convenience foods in a healthy way, how to make healthy changes to recipes you already use, etc. If you’re interested in eating healthy foods, I would highly recommend it.

Anyway . . . needless to say, there are a whole lot of new recipes on my “must try” list, and it will take me awhile to work through them all! Tonight I made Balsamic Roasted Pumpkin and Friends. Even before my weekend of pumpkin recipe searches, I had wanted to roast some fall/winter vegetables. I had already picked up a sugar pumpkin, acorn squash, and sweet potato, and then I came across this recipe. So I used her sauce on my veggies, and the result was phenomenal! The smell alone was enough to drive me a little crazy because it smelled so good! And that first bite was unbelievable! I think heaven is going to taste pretty awesome, and I think that roasted winter squash is going to be among its flavors. Holy cow. Okay, here’s the recipe!

Balsamic Roasted Pumpkin and Friends

Ingredients:

1 sugar pumpkin (the small kind)

1 acorn squash

1 sweet potato, unpeeled and washed

1 yellow onion, cut into wedges

8-12 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Paprika

Salt

Juice of 1 orange

I eyeballed the sauce ingredients. Probably used about 2-3 Tbsp. each of the oil and vinegar, and just kinda sprinkled in the salt and paprika. I also learned from WebMD that pumpkin and sweet potato are denser than acorn squash and, therefore, generally take longer to roast. So I cut my acorn squash into larger chunks than the pumpkin and sweet potato, so they’d all cook pretty evenly.

Directions:

Peel the pumpkin and acorn squash, if desired. I recently learned that acorn squash skin is edible—and actually has lots of nutrients—so I didn’t bother peeling mine since acorn squash can be tricky to peel. Cut squash and pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and stringy fibers. Cube the pumpkin, squash, and sweet potato. Cut up the onion and garlic and dump into a bowl with the other veggies, preferably one with a lid. I did all the above steps the night before and refrigerated overnight.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a couple 9” x 13” pans with foil and spray with cooking spray.

Whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, paprika, salt, and orange juice. Pour over veggies and toss to coat (or put on the lid and shake). Add more salt, paprika, or olive oil if you feel the veggies need it. The goal is to have enough sauce and spices to add a nice flavor to the veggies and keep them moist while roasting, without overwhelming them or making the dish high in fat or sodium. Pour into prepared pans and bake until the veggies are tender, about 20 minutes, stirring once halfway through.

Yield: 4-6 generous servings.

Verdict and variations: This would be awesome with some pecans sprinkled on near the end of the baking time, though it tastes divine as is. And really, you could use just about any combination of winter squash that roast well. In this dish, my slight favorite was probably the acorn squash.

I ate it with these Easy Turkey and Parmesan Meatballs from Real Simple and some embellished store-bought marinara sauce (I think I added my own garlic, onion, mushrooms, and dried Italian herbs), both of which I made over the weekend. The only things I changed in the meatball recipe were to use half-and-half instead of whole milk, and to use crushed rosemary and olive oil Triscuits instead of breadcrumbs. Oh, and I used a smaller scooper than Real Simple does. I’ve never been a huge fan of meatballs, but these are really good—and fairly healthy! I’m not positive that the combination on my plate was an excellent one, but the meatballs and marinara were delicious, and the pumpkin and friends were even more so! So I ended up a very happy camper!

All ready to roast!

Ready to eat!

Mmmmm!

Apple pumpkin muffins

As you know, I recently returned from a trip to New Zealand to visit my brother and some friends. While we did cook several times while there, it was more in the style of “let’s create something out of the ingredients we have on hand” rather than the style of “let’s scour the internet for fabulous recipes and make one or combine several recipes into one masterpiece.” And in recent years, the latter style has become my preferred style.

So when I got back from New Zealand—and back into the hemisphere where it was fall instead of spring—I just had to make something delightfully fallish. Partly because I wanted to scour the internet for mouth-watering recipes, partly because I wanted something enjoyable (i.e., baking) mixed in with my day of unenjoyable laundry and unpacking, and partly because I wanted to make a little something to share with my coworkers (especially my student workers!) for holding down the fort while I was gone. And so, I settled on these Apple Pumpkin Muffins from allrecipes.com.

I didn’t change as much as I often do, but I did cut the oil, decrease the sugar, and use part whole wheat flour to make it a little healthier. The original recipe was for 18, I increased it to 24, and actually got 30 muffins out of the batch. Also, since I took several hundred pictures in New Zealand, I was a little pictured out, so didn’t take any photos of these little autumn muffins. Next time!

Apple Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/3 whole wheat flour

1-1/3 cup sugar

4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1-1/4 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

1-3/4 eggs (I accomplished this by cracking two eggs into a measuring cup and scooping out a couple teaspoons of the whites)

1-1/3 cups pumpkin puree

2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

2-2/3 cups finely chopped peeled apples (I used a little less than two largeish jonagold apples)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray muffin pans (or use paper liners). I waffle back and forth in my preference. Liners are definitely tidier, whereas the spray can leave tacky residue on the pans. But sometimes liners peel off the muffin easily when it’s time to chow down, so you end up losing half your muffin.

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients (through and including the applesauce). Make a well in the dry ingredients; add the wet ingredients and stir until just moistened. Fold in apples. Scoop batter into muffin tins, filling about 1/2 to 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 minutes, check for doneness, and cook longer if needed. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Yield: 30 muffins

Calories: Approximately 97 calories per muffin.

Verdict: Yummy and healthy! The pumpkin-apple combination is just hard to beat, especially when going for fallish flavors. I didn’t think they tasted like health food (though maybe I just like the taste and texture of healthy foods!), but at 97 calories, I could eat them without feeling guilty. They were perfect for breakfast . . . and mid-morning snack . . . and mid-afternoon snack . :) Everyone who ate one liked it (except for that one friend who doesn’t like pumpkin but tried really hard to like these). I will keep this recipe for future autumn baking needs.

Changes to make next time: I don’t feel these muffins need any changes to improve them, as I thought they were great as-is (technically, should that be “as-are”?). Chopping the apples so finely did take quite a bit of time, so I might grate the apples next time for the sake of making prep go more quickly. These would also be good with some pecans and/or walnuts folded in with the apples. Craisins would also be yummy—just be sure to cut back on the sugar measurement since crasins will add a lot of sweetness.