Production time...

Amos is fired as my puppy dog.  He ate my deviled eggs, today, whilst I was getting some tea to go with my lunch.

I consoled myself by cooking up some bacon to add to my salad, the salad for which I had bought an avocado.  It was a very, very, very tasty salad.  Since I was cooking up some bacon, I plunged into making more deviled eggs, stock (from the bones I received in barter from Marie), a double batch of naan for Marie, because she is in a very busy spell between work and training sessions, a roasted acorn squash (donated because it was getting a tad ripe), and some lemon brownies (because the recipe that flashed across my computer screen was a relentless siren song).

I went ahead and posted the recipe for these Lemony Lemon Brownies, even though I basically failed at the glaze.  Follow the link to the recipe and you will notice the difference.  I need a master class on glaze making.

Still, they were tasty.  For one, Michelle LOVED it.  I think it is a good cross between a lemon bar and a true brownie.  It lacks the fudginess of brownies, but is not a blondie.  It also lacks the shortbreadness of lemon bars and is a bit less tart than a true lemon square.  Once I figure out how to make a glaze properly, these will most certainly be a staple in my larder.

The acorn squash is rather tasty, too, since I felt completed to taste a few bits as I was stripping off the peel.  I have yet to decide if I should just polish it off as a side to something or create another pasta dish with it.  I have enough applewood smoked bacon bits for tomorrow's salad and for some sort of pairing with the acorn squash.

For the stock, I tried something a tiny bit different.  Marie's mother had sent me a Christmas basket of cooking items, so I used the large flake smoked sea salt in the stock.  I must say, there is something immensely satisfying in pulling out a bag of vegetable scraps from your freezer and dumping them in the stock pot.  This time, I used the smoked sea salt, cracked black pepper, garlic, bay leaves, chicken bones (with a bit of meat and skin), onion, carrot, parsnip, broccoli stem, and asparagus stem.  Of course, I tossed a half a stick of butter in there for good measure.  The chicken carcass being smaller than the turkey, I ended up with five bottles of stock.

I would really, really, really like to make some beef broth next, so that I can use it on my next batch of stew.  I would, of course, need to drink some more of that wickedly delightful Snapple raspberry tea since all my glass bottles are now currently filled with vegetable and chicken stock.  I am just not all that sure how to obtain beef bones ... of if my weak mind might be able to endure the sight of cooking with them.

After all the food production, I was bloody exhausted.  Strange, too, given that I do not need to do any cooking for a long, long, long while.  My larder is overflowing.  It was so soothing, though, to be working in the kitchen.

I was also pleasantly surprised that I receive a small check from my old job, regarding the reimbursement from Blue Cross Blue Shield Care First.  I was dismayed to see the documentation provided included a copy of the check they receive last July and a spreadsheet of how the money was to be distributed to plan participants.  What irked me is that in the column next to my name, instead of PPO, which should have been there, was the phrase "opt-out," as if I had no health care, when I was on the PPO plan via COBRA coverage.  It makes me wonder, seeing the list of all the others marked "opt-out" if anyone in the company at all received their reimbursement or if the organization just kept the 2K+ for overhead.

It was very, very, very difficult for me to write asking for the other money due me and for the insurance reimbursement.  My counselor had wanted me to write the first letter two years ago.  It was two years of wanting to do so and two years being terrified to do so.  In both letters, I was pointing out a wrong and standing up for myself.  In both letters, the fear stemmed in large part to abusive behavior, to being bullied and thus, still, even now, cowed by fear and shame, still bent beneath the power those who acted inappropriately with me wielded.

In one of my international television shows, I saw the very best presentation of being ensnared in the power of another that has ever come my way.  It was an episode where a detective was trying to get a battered wife to testify against her husband, for the man had hurt others, too.  There were two scenes that stood out:

• In one, one of the other detectives was speaking derisively about the abuser, noting what a whimp he really was.  He questioned why the wife would be so ensnared by him. Very quickly the response was that it is the power that matters, not the one wielding it.  Power immobilizes, wounds, crushes, tears at the mind, body, and soul.  The vessel who wields it doesn't have to be a strong and mighty person.  The vessel who wields it merely knows how to do so.  Words, often, can be the most cruel, the most debilitating, the strongest of cages.  It is not the person wielding the power who matters, but the power itself.
• In the other scene, the detective was sitting with the battered wife and began telling her own story.  The man she dated for three years hurt her and even though he was hurting her, leaving him took three years.  The wife protested, saying that the detective was strong and smart ... had to be to do her job.  The detective agreed that she was strong and smart, but added that she was also very, very, very scared.

I was so very ... encouraged ... watching that episode.
And less alone.


Be gracious, O God, for man has trampled upon me;
Fighting all day long he oppresses me.
My foes have trampled upon me all day long,
For they are many who fight proudly against me.
When I am afraid,
I will put my trust in Thee.
In God, whose word I praise,
In God I have put my trust;
I shall not be afraid.
What can mere man do to me?
All day long they distort my words;
All their thoughts are against me for evil
They attach, they lurk,
They watch my steps,
As they have waiting to take my life.
Because of wickedness, cast them forth,
In anger put down the peoples, O God!

Thou hast taken account of my wanderings;
Put my tears in Thy bottle;
Are they not in Thy book?
Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;
This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
In the Lord, whose word I praise,
In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.
What can man to do me?
Thy vows are binding upon me, O God;
I will render thank offerings to Thee.
For Thou hast delivered my soul from death,
Indeed my feet from stumbling,
So that I may walk before God
In the light of the living.

~Psalm 56 (NASB 1977)

The actress portraying the battered wife did so beautifully.  You could see and hear and feel her shame, her fear, her despair.  It was amazing to watch her step away from that power long enough to speak a wrong.

I am afflicted and needy.

And I long to learn to trust in the Lord.

To declare This I know, that God is for me. unreservedly, confidently ... even in fear.

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!