Over forty years ago Time-Life put out cookbooks containing authentic recipes from all over the world.  I picked up some of them at a used book store in the 70s and several recipes have found a permanent place in my repertoire.  From the Chinese book I cook Pepper Steak, Sweet and Sour Pork, and Egg Rolls that are as good as any Chinese restaurant’s I have ever had.  From the Italian one I use the Pasta Fagioli, the pizza dough and the marinara most often.
            That marinara may, in fact, be the recipe I use more than any other.  From it I make pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and the sauces for eggplant parmagiana, chicken parmagiana, and anything else you can parmagiana.  I use it with meatballs, ground beef, and Italian sausage on pasta, and as a dipping sauce for calzones.  You can change it up with various herbs and extra vegetables like mushrooms and peppers.             
            Whenever I serve it, I get remarks like, “Wow!  This tastes so—Italian!”  Indeed, and why shouldn’t it when it is made the way Italians like it—olive oil, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper, and a little tomato paste if your tomatoes are extra juicy.  It is simple.  I can put it together in ten minutes and let it simmer for 30-40 with only a stir here and there.  It has thoroughly spoiled my family. 
            Once, because it was on sale and we were in a hurry, I picked up a canned sauce, one of the better ones as I recall, not simply Ragu.  After the first bite, Keith looked at me and said, “What is this?  Tomato syrup?”  You see, Americans have become so addicted to sugar that nearly all the processed sauces are full of it. 
            I watched a blind taste test on a television show once, a homemade tomato sauce made by a trained chef, an authentic Italian sauce a whole lot like mine, against a national brand in a jar.  The majority preferred the jarred one.  They said the homemade one wasn’t sweet enough.  Why doesn’t that make people sit up and take notice?  Pasta and sugar?  Yuk.  It even sounds awful.  But that’s what Americans want it seems; not the true, authentic sauce, but the syrupy one they have grown accustomed to.
            I think the same thing has happened with religion.  It doesn’t matter to us how the first century church did things.  What matters is the hoopla, the spectacle, and the histrionics we have grown accustomed to.  If it excites us and makes us feel good, that’s what we want.  If I can compartmentalize the corporate part of it into a once-every-week-or-so pep rally, and then live as I prefer with no one bothering me about it, then religion has served its purpose.
            That religion--mainstream denominational religion--has totally changed its focus.  It is nothing but a religion of self.  Authentic religion is about God.   It wants only what God wants.  It lives only for Him and his purpose.  It understands that whether I am happy or comfortable or excited has nothing to do with faithfulness.  In fact, faithfulness is often shown best when those things are lacking. 
            Authenticity in religion does matter if you mean to be worshipping someone besides yourself.  I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land, Psalm 143:5,6.  When David was in trouble, when it mattered how God received him—he thought back to the old days.  The prophets often told the people to repent and go back to the old ways, the times when they worshipped God truly, instead of pleasing themselves in hedonistic idolatry.
            If you find yourself dissatisfied with your religious life, if you see differences in how your group attempts to worship God and how the original Christians did, maybe it’s time for you to go on the hunt for some authenticity.  Do it before you become addicted to the noise and excitement.  It is possible to worship in simplicity and truth.  It is possible to be encouraged by like minded brothers and sisters who want to please God instead of themselves.  In the end, they come far closer to the selfless ideal of their Savior than those who are determined to have what they want “because that’s how I like it,” instead of caring anything at all about how God might like it.
 
Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.' I set watchmen over you, saying, 'Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!' But they said, 'We will not pay attention.' Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it, Jer 6:16-19.

Dene Ward
 

If you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line, please don’t turn the page!  I have converted not only several children, but several Northerners to this Southern delicacy.  It’s all about taking the problems and turning them to your advantage--and being patient.
            The problem with okra, if you’ll pardon the expression, is the slime.  One reason it was used in gumbos was its thickening power, which is a nicer way of referring to that viscous property.  My family just calls it what it is.  It doesn’t bother them because they know what I can do with that--stuff.
            Follow these directions closely.  Use a colander, not a bowl, when you slice it.  You will still get the goo on your knife and a little on your hands—my method won’t fix that—but it will disappear when you cook it.
            Slice it about a half inch thick, discarding the stem end and the tails.  If it has been in the fridge a few days, it might need a little coaxing to release some of its “juices.”  If so, put that colander in the sink and scatter a few drops of water here and there from a wet hand.  Don’t deluge it.  If it’s already good and gooey, don’t bother.  Sprinkle it with salt, then with flour, not corn meal.  (My mother taught me that and we are both GRITS—Girls Raised in the South.)  Stir it to coat.  Now walk away.  In five minutes come back.  If it’s dry, do the water trick again, just a sprinkle.  Add more salt and more flour and stir it again.  Walk away again.  You may need to do this several times, allowing the excess flour to fall through the holes in the colander into the sink where you can wash it away—loose flour will burn in the bottom of a skillet. 
            After about fifteen minutes and maybe as many as five applications of flour and salt, the flour will have adhered to the “slime” and, magically, the okra will have made its own batter.  It will stick together in clumps like caramel corn, which is exactly what you want.
            Heat a half inch of vegetable oil in a skillet.  Put in one piece of okra and wait till it starts bubbling and sizzling.  Slowly add only as much okra as there is room in the pan.  Since it tends to stick together, you will need to mash it out to spread it around.  Now walk away and leave it again.  No fiddling with it, no turning it, no stirring it. 
            In about ten minutes you will begin to see browning around the edges.  When that happens you can start turning it.  The second side will brown faster, as will the entire second batch.  Watch your oil; you may need to turn it down if the browning begins to happen too quickly.  Drain it on paper towels. 
            You will now have the crunchiest okra you ever ate.  No slime, no weird flavor, nothing but crunch.  You cannot eat this with a fork—it rolls off, or if you try to stab it, it shatters.  This is Southern finger food, a delicacy we eat at least twice every summer before we start pickling it or giving it away.  Too much fried food is not healthy they tell us, but everyone needs a lube job once in awhile.
            The trick to that okra is patiently using the problem itself to overcome it—given enough time, that slime makes a batter that is better than anything you could whip up on your own with half a dozen ingredients.
            Patience is a virtue for Christians too, not just cooks.  How do you make it through suffering?  You patiently endure it (2 Cor 1:6), and you remember its purpose and use it for that purpose.  Patiently enduring suffering will make you a joint-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17,18).  It will make you worthy of the kingdom (2 Thes 1:4,5).  If we suffer with him, we will reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).  Only those who share in his suffering will share in his comfort (2 Cor 1:7). 
            But none if this works if you don’t patiently endure the suffering.  If you give up, you lose.  If you turn against God, he will turn against you.  If you refuse the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, he will refuse you.  We must use that suffering to make ourselves stronger and worthy to be his disciple. Just like I am happy to have a particularly “slimy” bowl of okra to work with, knowing it will produce the crunch I want, the early Christians “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  They knew it would make them better disciples of their Lord.  We can understand these things when it comes to something as mundane as fried okra.  Why can’t we recognize it in far more important matters?  We even have a trite axiom about this—when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When life gives you trials, make yourself a stronger person.
            After suffering, Peter promises that God will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us (1 Pet 5:10).  He is talking to those who endure, who use the suffering to their advantage and become better people.  Remind yourself of the promises God gives to those who suffer.  Remind yourself of the rewards.  Remind yourself every day that it’s worth it.  The New Testament writers did, so it is no shame if you do it too.
 
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Rom 8:16-18.
 

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite television cook is Ina Garten of “The Barefoot Contessa.”  I have saved very few recipes from the Food Channel, but of the few I have, the vast majority is hers. 
            One of my favorites is her “Ultimate Ginger Cookie.”  This is just about my favorite cookie ever, which is saying a lot for a cookie that doesn’t have chocolate in it.  It’s a chewy cookie, something else I like, and I have added my own little twist by rolling the balls of dough in sparkling sugar before baking them.  But what makes it “ultimate?”  Not only does it have powdered ginger in it, but also over half a cup of chopped crystallized ginger.  There is no question what kind of cookie this is—it’s a ginger cookie.
            I have several recipes with that word “ultimate” in the title.  My “Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie” is good too.  Not only does it have half again more chocolate chips than the usual recipe, but two kinds, bittersweet and milk chocolate.  My “Ultimate Fudge Brownie” is maximum chocolate with minimal flour.  My “Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookie” has no flour at all—just gobs of peanut butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla.  Do you get the picture?  “Ultimate” in a recipe means “a lot,” “more than usual,” and “well above average.”  “Ultimate” means there is no question what kind of cookie this is.
            I started thinking about the word “Christian” in that context.  Technically speaking, the word means “a disciple of Christ.”  That is not the way we use it today.  “Christian” gets tacked on to anything that is even remotely religious.  People can claim to be Christians just because they believe in a few of the Ten Commandments, which in itself is ironic when you understand the relationship of Christ to the Old Law.  In our culture’s vernacular, Christians do not even have to be members of a church.
            To keep that from rubbing off on us, maybe we should start thinking in terms of recipes.  We should be “Ultimate Christians.”  If we are really followers of Christ, we should be different from those who merely claim the name with a few allusions to prayer and God in their vocabulary.
            Real disciples of Christ, by the definition of the word “disciple,” are trying to be as much like their teacher as possible.  They talk like he does and behave like he does.  They know what commitment means—they serve as he did, sacrifice as he did, and fight the Devil like he did every day of his life.  In fact, they are not afraid to acknowledge the devil as a real and dangerous being (like He did), even when others laugh at them for doing so.  They condemn hypocrisy, especially among those who try to claim the same discipleship. They abhor sin, yet seek the vilest sinners in their own environment, knowing they are the ones who need their Master the most.  They have compassion on the ill, the hated, and the lost.  They will yield their lives to their Teacher by yielding their rights to others.  They live by the Word of God, take comfort in the Spirit of God, and glory in their fellowship with them.  In every decision, every event, and every aspect of their lives, they ask themselves how their Lord would have handled it.  They are completely consumed with the spiritual; nothing else matters.
            So, the question today is are we Christians in the modern vernacular, or are we real Christians, “Ultimate Christians?”  Maybe if more of us started showing the world what the word “Christian” really means, we could stop making distinctions. 
 
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked...A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher, 1 John 2:6; Luke 6:40.
 

The other day I was talking with a friend who loves to cook as much as I do.  We both spoke of how much more fun it is to cook for people who were not picky eaters.  When all that effort sits in the bowls and platters on the table with scarcely a dent made in them because this one prefers this and that one prefers that, it is hard not to be offended.  The very fact that I know so many more picky eaters these days than I did as a child emphasizes how wealthy this society has become.  Hungry people are not picky eaters.
            Real hunger is not a concept we understand.  We eat by the clock instead of by our stomachs, which may be the biggest reason so many of us are overweight.  If we only ate when we were truly hungry, would we eat too much on a regular basis?  A celebratory feast, which used to happen only once or twice or year, has become a weekly, if not daily, occurrence for many.
            And because we do not understand true physical hunger, we cannot understand Jesus’ blessing upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  We think being willing to sit through one sermon a week makes us worthy, when that is probably the shallowest application of that beatitude.  We don’t want a spiritual feast.  We want something light, with fewer calories, requiring little effort to eat.  In fact, sometimes we want to be fed too.  Spiritual eating has become too much trouble.
            How many of us skip Bible classes?  How many daydream during the sermons, plan the afternoon ahead, even text message each other?  If more than one adult class is offered on Sunday mornings, how many choose the one that requires more study or deeper thinking?  When extra classes are offered during the week, what percentage of the church actually chooses to attend?  How many of us are actively pursuing our own studies at home, studies beyond that needed for the Sunday morning class?  If we won’t even eat the meals especially prepared for us by others, how in the world will be seek righteousness on our own and how will we ever progress past simple Bible study in satisfying our spiritual hunger?
            Picky eaters suddenly become omnivores when they really need to eat.  For some reason we think we can fast from spiritual food and still survive.  Amazing how we can deceive ourselves so easily. 
            So, what’s on your menu today, or have you even planned one?
 
Oh how love I your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have kept your precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might observe your word. I have not turned aside from your ordinances; for You have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste! sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Psalm 119:97-104.

Dene Ward
 

The kitchen must be the favorite room in nearly every home.  It’s where the family meets to share their meals and their day, to gather important information—“Mom! Where are my good jeans?”—to pick up sustenance when the time between meals is long and the activities vigorous, and a place for sharing thoughts, dreams, and childhood troubles over chocolate chip cookies and ice cold milk.  When the kitchen is full of people and laughter, all is right with the world.
            That makes the kitchen floor a microcosm of how we all live.  All you have to do is drop something small, something that requires your face to be an inch above the floor trying to spy the odd shape or color, and suddenly you know everything anyone has eaten, spilled, or tracked in, even if you clean your floor regularly.  If I had every dustpan full of sweepings over my 38 years of marriage, it would make a ten foot high pile of sugar granules, flour, cornmeal, panko, cookie crumbs, Cheerios, oats, blueberries, chopped parsley, basil, and rosemary, the papery skins of onions and garlic cloves, freshly ground coffee beans, tiny, stray low dose aspirins, grains of driveway sand, clumps of garden soil, yellow clay, limerock, soot, and burnt wood, strands of hair from blonde to nearly black to gray and white, frayed threads, missing buttons, assorted screws, and loose snips from the edges of coupons.  If I had never cleaned the floor at all, it would be layered with coffee drips, dried splashes of dishwater, bacon grease and olive oil splatter, tea stains, grape juice, and sticky spots from honey and molasses spills while I was baking.  Put it all together and you would have a pretty good idea how we live our lives.
            Every soul has a kitchen floor, places where the accumulated spills of life gather.  We must regularly clean that floor, just as I am constantly sweeping and wiping and mopping, trying to stay ahead of the messes we make. As soon as I miss a day or a week, I have even more to clean up.  It would be ridiculous to think I could ignore that floor and no one would know about us, wouldn’t it? 
            Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt 12:34.  You can deny it all you want, but what you speak shows who you really are.  I can say I never bake, but whoever sweeps my floor will know better.  I can pretend we don’t like Italian cuisine, but the evidence is right there.  I can tell everyone we live in the city instead of the country, but the soil on my floor will say otherwise.  It is getting harder for me to see those things now and to sweep them up perfectly, but my blindness to them will not keep others from knowing exactly what I do here all day long.
            That kitchen floor of a heart will tell on you too.  All you have to do is open your mouth.  If you don’t keep it cleaned up, if you don’t monitor the things you store in it, it could belie your protestations of a righteous life.  Sooner or later a word will slip out, a thought will take root and become a spoken idea.  I heard someone say once that you cannot imagine in others what is not already in your own heart. 
            Of course, what’s on your floor could prove your righteous life instead of denying it.  So take a moment today to examine your kitchen floor.  Let it remind you to examine your heart as well.  I had much rather people see sugar and cookie crumbs than Satan’s muddy footprints.
 
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer, Psa 19:14.          
 
Dene Ward

Have you discovered panko yet?  Panko is Japanese bread crumbs, an extra light variety that cooks up super-crunchy on things like crab cakes and shrimp.  They also cost more than regular bread crumbs, but in certain applications they are worth it.    On the other hand a chicken or veal Milanese needs a sturdier crumb to stand up to the lemony butter sauce, an oven fried pork chop needs melba toast crumbs that will cook to a crunch without burning in a high heat oven, and my favorite broccoli casserole needs the faint sweetness of a butter cracker crumb to really set it off.
            Although none of these dishes are the food of poverty, using the crumbs and crusts of food rather than tossing them out certainly grew out of the necessity of using whatever was at hand to feed hungry bellies for thousands of years, and now we all do it, even when there is plenty in the pantry.  Pies and cheesecakes with graham cracker crumb crusts, anyone?  Dressing to stuff your poultry?  Bread pudding on a cold winter night?  Streusel on that warm coffee cake in the morning?  Bread-infused peasant food has even shown up on gourmet cooking shows in the form of panzanella (salad) and ribolita (soup), both of which use chunks of stale bread to bolster their ability to satisfy appetites.
            That reminds me of a woman 2000 years ago who understood the value of leftovers.  Her little daughter was demon-possessed, so ill she could not travel, but her mother had heard of someone who might be able to help, who even then was in hiding from the crowds on the border of her country.  It took a lot for her to seek him out, first leaving her sick child in someone else’s care, then approaching this Jewish rabbi, a type who had either reviled or ignored her all her life; but a desperate mother will make any sacrifice to save her child.
            Sure enough, even though she addressed him by the Messianic title, “Son of David,” he answered her not a word, Matt 15:22,23.  Still she persisted, and this time she was insulted—he called her a dog.  Oh, he was nicer about it than most, using the Greek word for “little pet dog,” kunarion, rather than the epithet she usually heard from his kind--kuno, ownerless scavenging dogs that run wild in the streets, but still he made her inequality in his eyes obvious.
            This woman, though, was ready to accept his judgment of her, Even the dogs get the crumbs, sir.  Moreover, she understood that was all she needed.  This man, whose abilities she had heard of from afar, was more than just a man, and even the tiniest morsel of his power was enough to heal her child, even from a distance.
            Do we understand that?  Do we realize that one drop of God’s power can fix any problem we have, and more, do we have the humility to accept our place in His plan, even if it is not what we have planned?  Yes, every day I ask for more—more grace, more faith, more of His power to change me and use me, but do I really comprehend His strength?  I would say it was impossible to do so, except for the example of this desperate Gentile mother who, like a widow of her nation hundreds of years before her, had more faith, trust, and humility than the religious men of God’s chosen people (I Kgs 17, Luke 4:25,26).
            And for this, perhaps, God chose her to foreshadow in the Son’s life the crumbling of the barrier between Jew and Gentile, and the inclusive nature of the gospel which had been foretold from the beginning: in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed, Gen 22:17. 
            Do I have the faith and humility to accept God’s plan for me?  One thing is certain—this Gentile mother knew she had nowhere else to turn, and neither do we.
            Even God’s crumbs are enough to satisfy our every need.
 
For this cause I bow my knees to the Father…that you…may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God…him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think…Eph 3:14, 17-20.
 
Dene Ward

I found a new soup recipe.  The first time I made it, it was absolutely swoon-worthy.  I played with it a bit and it's even better now—leeks, sausage, collard greens, chicken broth, cream and Parmagiana Reggianno cheese.  So I made it again for company with a Stromboli on the side. 
            Since it mattered more, I very carefully measured everything according to the recipe.  I even pulled down my forty year old food scale to measure out the sausage since the first time I had just eyeballed it.
          "My eyeballs must be way off," I thought as I piled what seemed like twice as much carefully measured sausage into the soup as I had the first time. 
           If my eyeballs were off, then I guess I really didn't like the recipe that much after all.  It was no longer Collard Green and Sausage Stew, it was Sausage Soup.  Period.  That's all you could taste, and I was a bit embarrassed at my meal.
           I must have mulled that over more than I thought because out of the clear blue one day I figured it out.  Just to make sure I pulled down my scale and looked.  Yep.  I was right. 
          At Thanksgiving we had an emergency run to the hospital with my mother so I was suddenly doing everything on one day that I usually take three days to do.  That meant Keith was my sous chef—peeling, chopping, and washing dishes.  For the Duchesse potatoes I needed two pounds of potatoes, peeled.  I had forgotten that he put a bowl on my scale and then reset it to zero so he could count pounds as he peeled.  The bowl must have weighed half a pound because my scale was still set half a pound behind zero and with these eyes I had never noticed.  As I measured out half a pound of sausage that day, I really measured out a whole pound.  I had doubled the sausage but kept everything else the same.  No wonder it was ruined.  Sausage is not exactly bland. 
            No matter how old you get, you still learn things, some of them the hard way.  From now on you had better believe I will check my scale and make sure it is set on zero! It's still a wonderful recipe, but only if you get the measurements right.
           It matters how our spiritual scales are set too. Every day we need to reset them. 
            For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom 8:5-8)
            We live in a physical (carnal) world.  We deal with issues that affect us physically and emotionally.  If we don't have our spiritual scales set on the things of the spirit, we will measure things just as wrongly as I measured that sausage.  If doing right hurts us or someone we love, we might not do it.  That's what happens when someone has set their minds on the wrong things.  Peter did it too.
            From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matt 16:21-23)
            Peter loved the Lord, but that very love made him refuse to accept his words and his mission.  It may even look good, after all, it was out of love.  But Jesus called him "Satan" when his priorities were not set correctly.  Why would he not rebuke us the same way?
            Paul says that when we are too caught up in political affairs, our minds are set on the carnal rather than the physical.  We have actually become enemies of Christ.
            For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Phil 3:18-21)
            He tells us we are still living as the old man of sin if we still obsess about earthly things.
            If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:1-3)
            He tells us we are being selfish and arrogant when we do not have the mind of Christ, when it is not set the way his is.
            Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5-8)
            All those underlined words in the passages above (and below) are the same Greek word.  Having my kitchen scales set wrong only messed up a meal.  Having our spiritual scales set wrong will cost us a whole lot more.
 
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before. I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded… (Phil 3:13-15)
 
Dene Ward

I grew up watching my mother make her own pie crust.  It never crossed my mind that was unusual, that there were convenience products, including ready-made pie crusts, at the grocery store.  So I was thoroughly spoiled as a child.  Homemade pie crust was all I ever had.
            Unfortunately, I married and moved a thousand miles away without getting that recipe and the special instructions that probably went along with it.  I lived closer to my in-laws then and, as luck would have it, they had owned a small town bakery, so I asked them for their recipe.  What I got was a ratio; otherwise I would have wound up with a recipe beginning, “fifty pounds of flour…”  It went like this:  half as much shortening as flour, half as much water as shortening.
            It took a few years, but I finally got the hang of it.  I also discovered the proper ratio of salt (a scant teaspoon per two cups of flour), the advantage of ice water rather than plain tap water (it makes the crust flakier), and the need to handle the dough as little as possible if you want to be able to eat it instead of use it as a Frisbee.
            I still have a little difficulty passing this recipe along.  You see, flour changes according to the humidity.  If it has soaked up moisture from the air, it will take less water.  How do you tell?  By the way it feels.  How does it feel?  Here the problem lies.  When everything is right, it feels right, that’s how you tell.  But how does “right” feel?  It feels like pie crust dough that is “right.”  There is no way to describe it if you haven’t ever put your hands in it before.
            The same thing happens when I am trying to help a person with just about any recipe—biscuits, cookie dough, cake batter, gravy, cream sauce—when it’s right, you know it.  In fact, when teaching someone to make gravy or béchamel, I have to take the spoon from them into my hand and give it a stir so I can feel it in order to really know.  That’s why I never make my pastry crust in a food processor—I can’t feel it! 
            The trick is to do it over and over and over for years.  That’s how you know what “right” is.  Yes, you must have a good recipe, but even a good recipe can turn out wrong if you are not familiar with it.
            Do you want to know how to avoid false doctrine?  It has nothing to do with studying every possible false teaching out there.  You would have no time for it.  What you do is study the real thing over and over and over for years.  Then when the false one comes along it won’t feel quite the same, and you will suddenly catch yourself saying, “Unh, unh.  Something’s not right here.”  Because you are so familiar with what “right” is, you will have far less trouble seeing what “wrong” is.
            Learning the facts may seem formalistic.  It may seem like our religion is lacking some “heart.”  Don’t be so quick to judge.  Some of the people most likely to be taken captive by false prophets are those who love the whir and excitement of “food processor” religion.  “Wow!  Look at it go.  Look how fast it comes together.  This must surely be the real thing.”  It is certainly more rousing than watching someone cut a cup of shortening into 2 cups of flour with a handheld pastry blender, up and down, over and over, for several tedious minutes.  But that food processor religion is more likely to be tough and overworked or wet and hard to handle, while the handmade religion will separate into flaky layers of depth, and rival the filling itself for the starring role. 
            There is no short cut for this kind of experience.  If it takes years of handling pastry crust to reach this level of comfortable, secure familiarity, God’s word certainly won’t be any easier, but what should we expect?  God didn’t write pulp fiction.
 
And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment; so that you may distinguish the things that differ; that you may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God, Phil 1:9-11 .
 

They tell me that May is National Salad Month, and indeed, if you go online you can find websites that give you a different salad to try every day of this month, for a total of 31.  Unlike some "national" days or months, the timing on this one makes sense. At least here in Florida we are beginning to get some really good produce.  I have just discovered National Salad Month, but we have always enjoyed salads this time of year, sometimes as sides, others as main dishes—a cucumber salad with Vidalia onions and a sour cream and fresh dill dressing, taco salad loaded with sweet juicy tomatoes, Greek salad of red onion, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives and feta cheese, lettuce wedges dripping with a homemade Basil Green Goddess dressing.  One of my favorite main dish salads is Panzanella.
            Maybe it's the change from heavier winter meals like chili and stews that make it so good, or maybe it's just the good fresh vegetables.  Whatever it is, panzanella really hits the spot the first time you have it in the summer.  And I often make it more filling with a can, or better, a jar of high quality tuna.
             In the bottom of a big bowl, pour in a couple tablespoons each of olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Add a small handful of chopped fresh basil and parsley, 1 tsp of salt and a half teaspoon of black pepper.  Whisk it all together.  Now add about half a red onion sliced thinly and stir till the onion is coated.  While you finish the rest of the chopping, the onion will mellow out a bit in the acid.
            This next part can be changed up according to what you have available.  French bread is good.  Focaccia is good, and I usually have some leftover somewhere because it is so easy to make.  Cube 4 cups of some sort of hearty bread and put it into a 325 degree oven for about twenty minutes.  (If you want to be a little extravagant, drizzle it with olive oil and toss it with your hands before putting it in the oven.)  It does not need to brown, just dry out a little and become crunchy, and then it needs to cool while you do the rest of the chopping.
             Now peel, halve lengthwise, seed, and slice enough cucumbers to make about 4 cups.  Throw that on top of the onion-dressing mixture, but don't mix it up yet.  Dice a large red pepper and throw that in.  Chop 3 or 4 tomatoes and add them.  Now drain the tuna, if you are using it, and add it in chunks to the bowl, along with a quarter cup of chopped Kalamata olives.  Toss the whole thing and let it sit a few minutes.  Between the tomatoes and the cucumbers, it should begin to exude a lot more liquid than you first put in there.  (Note:  the tuna is not an ordinary part of panzanella and you can leave it out if you wish, but if you have never tried the jarred higher quality tunas, this is your perfect excuse.)
            Finally, add the cooled bread cubes and toss.  Yes, it will look like it's mostly bread, but it really isn't.  Once that bread starts to soak up the juices it will begin to shrink a bit.  Sit down and eat immediately.  The bread will be half soaked and half crunchy, which is perfect.  The more you eat, the more you will want to eat. 
            And now you are waiting for the spiritual lesson I somehow manage to find in the most mundane things, right?  Usually I can come up with something in a day or two, if not right away.  Well, I have been looking for it for over a month now and it still hasn't come to me.  I have made lessons out of everything from chicken and dumplings to cherry pies, from shedding dogs to dead possums, but for some reason this panzanella has evaded me.  But today I suddenly thought—maybe that's the lesson!
            I am big on finding a purpose in your life that will help promote God's plan to save man.  If you have studied my Born of a Woman class book you know that.  My purpose in God's plan may be as simple as the Samaritan woman's, who ran and told her neighbors, Come see a man who told me all the things I ever did.  Can this be the Christ? (John 4:29).  Or it may be as complex as Joseph's, who over 20 years' time and the freewill actions of a couple dozen different people managed to be in a position to save God's chosen nation, and more specifically, the line of the Messiah.  …For God sent me before you to preserve life (Gen 45:5).  God does intervene in our lives through the freewill actions of others and in His great power and wisdom makes things happen according to His will.
            Some of our purposes are fixed by the choices we make.  When I marry, I have the obligation to be a helper to my husband, helping him get to Heaven being the most important purpose.  When I choose to have children, I have placed upon myself the divine purpose of raising those children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
            But sometimes things just happen.  Sometimes it may even be a result of someone else's poor decision.  Like the man who decides he is not too drunk to drive and crashes into a minivan filled with a family of five, or runs down an innocent pedestrian.  My part in God's plan has suddenly changed if I survive that.  Now I have the opportunity to show His grace by the way I handle this adversity, by the way I refuse to give in to despondency, by the way I forgive, and a host of other things.
          And this may be the hardest thing to accept:   sometimes there is absolutely no rhyme nor reason for any of it.  I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. (Eccl 9:11).
            I hear people giving comfort that I am not sure they should give.  "God has a plan," we tell our distraught friends.  Yes, He does, but do not be so arrogant as to presume that you know exactly what it is or that this tragedy is even part of it.  As much as I believe that God will use what I do to further His plan, I would never decide for Him what that use should be.  I would never assume that my feeble mind can even begin to comprehend His glorious thoughts.  And I would never, ever tell someone who has experienced a calamity that this is God's Eternal Purpose at work.  The only thing I could ever be sure of is that this is my chance to comfort a soul, and I would do that the best I could.
            It may be admirable to constantly try to find the spiritual benefit in every little thing that comes along.  In fact, I hope it is.  It is certainly better than thinking evil, or even just idle thoughts all the time.  But sometimes panzanella is just panzanella.  Nothing more and nothing less.  Just a tasty salad that reminded me to thank God, not only for his great and marvelous plan to save us, but for the simple things that make this sin-cursed world a little easier to bear.
 
​Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.​  The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.  Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished. (Prov 16:3-5)
 
Dene Ward
 

Wards have always been persnickety about people messing with their favorite food and drink.  Keith, especially, does not want his coffee messed with, and usually not his sweet tea.  But there is hope.  A friend recently gave us a brand of peach tea he has fallen in love with, so I cannot call him his father yet—but it's a close contest.
            And have you noticed that finding the original formula, flavor, or variety is nearly impossible?  You certainly cannot just run into the store, grab it, and run out in two minutes.  You will spend 10 minutes just reading the boxes.  Did you know that there are 21 flavors of Cheezits!?
            I first encountered this when my boys were young and thought the best macaroni and cheese was—no, not their Mama's, but Kraft's.  They have outgrown that and I am certainly glad.  Have you looked at the varieties lately?  Besides Original Macaroni and Cheese, we have Whole Grain Mac and Cheese, Cauliflower Pasta Mac and Cheese, Thick and Creamy, Creamy Alfredo, Southern Homestyle (which isn't), Sharp Cheddar, White Cheddar and Shells, White Cheddar and Garlic, White Cheddar and Cracked Black Peppercorn (I kid you not), 3 Cheese Mini-Shells, 4 Cheese, Gluten-Free, Microwavable, Spirals, Paw Patrol Shapes, and Unicorn Shapes.  And what do they place on the eye-level shelves?  All the weird ones.  I can remember crawling around on my hands and knees in the supermarket floor trying to find a box of Original Mac and Cheese which was always on the bottom shelf.
            We have simply become too wealthy.  We have forgotten what eating is all about.  Not entertainment ("snap, crackle, pop!"), not excitement, not textural variety, or any other culinary term.  No longer do we eat to avoid starvation and gain proper nutrition.  And because we have that luxury, we think that we can simply not eat what we don't like.  Poor people don't think that way.  They are grateful for anything they find on their plates.
            Perhaps that explains the plethora of denominations on the streets you travel every Sunday.  People always want something new and different, something that appeals to our likes and dislikes.  Something easy, convenient, and entertaining.  We certainly don't want "the same old thing."  Does that sound anything at all like this? Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand… (Ps 95:6-7).  We have forgotten that in spiritual terms we are not only poor, but completely destitute.  We cannot save ourselves.  We should be grateful to even be able to approach God at all, so maybe we should be eager to search out how HE wants us to do that. 
            When that first church started, the same things were taught in each one.  That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church (1Cor 4:17).  See also 1 Cor 7:17; 11:16; 14:33; 16:1.    Paul also said, The things which you both learned and received and heard and saw in me, these things do: and the God of peace shall be with you (Phil 4:9).  There most definitely was a pattern that every church followed, one that the inspired apostles gave them from the beginning.  Do you suppose that might mean that the original is the one we should be looking for?
            And if it takes getting down on your knees with the Word of God to find it, then do it, because nothing tastes quite like the original.
 
Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus
(2Tim 1:13                                                                                               
 
Dene Ward