Menu Plan Monday

Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie runs a weekly meal planning link fest. I've been meaning to do this for ages and Lo! a Monday with a bit of extra time appears. So here's our meal plan for this week. Anytime you see zucchini or eggplant, it's from my garden. *beams* Items that are in italics are already prepared (I try to cook double and freeze whenever possible.)

Monday (Labor Day)
Lunch: lentil-chorizo stew and chile cornbread
Dinner: burgers, sweet potato fries, fried zucchini and pickled asparagus

Tuesday
Spanish Beans and Rice (Slow-cooker)

Wednesday
South Beach meatloaf, mashed cauliflower and spinach salad

Thursday
Bulghur and lentil stuffed eggplant (Slow-cooker)

Friday
Zucchini slice

Saturday
Lunch: Spaghetti with wilted spinach
Dinner: Tamale pie

Sunday
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Tuna Casserole with Spinach

Shopping list: whole wheat buns, brown rice, lentils, eggs, ginger, onions, kidney beans, cornmeal, sour cream, 2 gallons milk, cauliflower

On hand in fridge or pantry: zucchini, spinach, pasta, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, tamari, garlic, eggplant, ground beef, bulghur, pinto beans, frozen corn, tuna, butter, chiles, sweet potatoes, red peppers, cheddar cheese, carrots, pine nuts, pecans, maple syrup, and spices

Can Food Be Simplified?

One of my goals as a radical steward is to cultivate a life of simplicity. I don't want to get bogged down with material possessions, over-scheduled with unnecessary activities, that sort of thing. I also don't want to be over-thinking every decision and spending hours on the internet researching other people's opinions and viewpoints.

That's why it's a bit ironic that this post on making sense of the food debates has taken me four days to put together. I'm trying to simplify here, not confuse myself further!

From organic vegetables and superfoods to modern agriculture and Federal oversight, from milk to meat and back again, food is a national conversation. Everyone has an opinion, but no one really agrees. There is some consensus on a few key points, however, and the laws of nature and science aren't being altered no matter how strongly people try!

1. Make food important, but strive for balance. Many Americans are actually malnourished even though our country is suffering from an obesity epidemic because processed foods are devoid of essential nutrients. The amount of food we eat, the way we grow it, and the trade relations we have with other countries affect people's lives on a global level. Food is important. We need to pay attention to it. But, we must not let it not become an obsession or a form of control. We must do the best we can in our individual situations, and let go of the rest. Neither the quest for perfect health nor the desire to promote a fairer standard of food production should ever overshadow our quest for holiness or our ability to create meaningful relationships with our fellow man.

2. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. This is Michael Pollan's advice and it is one of the best ways to ensure you are eating what God intended. "Food" means anything that is recognizable as such. Nothing with day-glo colors, like blue oatmeal, or things that are processed past resemblance to their original state, like corn syrup or soy protein granules. Don't overeat, or eat simply for something to do. Try a bread and water fast to determine how little we really need to eat in order to get through the day. If we feel the need to snack on something, we should make a cup of tea or get a glass or water, and offer up our hunger pangs for the less fortunate. Plants should form the foundation of our diet. Occasional meat is good (the sick, pregnant, the very young and the very old probably need meat every day,) some fish is beneficial, but we can get every single thing we need from the vegetable kingdom, with the addition of a few animal proteins like eggs.

3. Avoid additives and processed foods. We always seem to have a scapegoat to blame for our unhealthy conditions. First it was salt, then fat, then sugar, and now carbs. The truth is, all those things are bad for you in excess, but they are also all part of the natural foods God intended us to eat. This article on sugar does a great job discounting some of the myths and presenting the facts in a scientific and complete manner.

To summarize: your body breaks down the food you eat by extracting all usable vitamins and minerals and converting the rest into glucose, a simple sugar. Your liver then converts that glucose into energy or fat depending on your body's needs. Refined sugars and simple carbs, however, are already broken down into their simplest component and stripped of vitamins, so instead of nourishing your body, they are either converted directly into excess fat, or worse, quickly enter your bloodstream and mess with your blood sugar levels. The problem is not with sugar or starches, per se; it's with foods that have unhealthy amounts of these ingredients, or that are made from ingredients that have been overprocessed, stripped of their natural vitamins, minerals, and fiber and reduced to nothing more than empty calories. Besides being a ridiculous waste, it's incredibly unhealthy.

The biggest perpetrators of such food crimes? Packaged goods and ready-made meals. And these foods also tend to contain the largest amounts of trans fats because hydrogenation gives oils a longer shelf-life. One piece of advice I received years ago has made the most difference for me in my attempt to avoid sugar, additives and simple carbs: Shop the outside edge of the supermarket. On the edge is where you find meats, produce, and dairy items, which should make up the bulk of your diet. Enter the aisles only for goods in raw form (whole wheat flour rather than box mixes) or for canned goods that say "low sodium." Buy fresh whenever possible, make it at home rather than getting it from a store, and drink only milk, water or tea (and beneficial alcohols like red wine.)

I am very easily frustrated when faced with too many sides to explore. It's so easy to get lost and discouraged, but it doesn't have to be so complicated. Sometimes simplifying means turning off the outside noise and just getting back to what we know works. Cooking a meal for your family using whole, natural ingredients, and then sitting down together to eat. What could be simpler than that?

Photo credit.

Prayer and Fasting

I had the privilege of attending a talk by Ivan Dragicevic, one of the 6 Medjugorje visionaries, last Monday night. We had an hour of the Rosary, during which the Virgin Mary appeared to him up by the altar, then we had Mass followed by Ivan's talk on Mary's message.

Her message, as it always does, revolves around peace, love, and a call to prayer, sacrifice and deep devotion to God. That is what she has been asking for in just about every apparition in all the centuries. Ivan talked to us about the type of prayer she wants: nothing less than wholehearted, passionate, intimate conversations with God, who made Himself incarnate to draw us nearer to Him.

She has said that we should all be praying 3 hours a day. People tend to react with immediate horror whenever they hear this. In Church on Monday the congregation gasped. Three hours! Every day! Impossible!

I don't think it is. Ivan clarified that it doesn't all have to be at once, nor does it have to be quiet, contemplative prayer. Reading the Bible counts. Attending Mass counts. Corporal works of mercy count.

And because I'm a mother, I've compiled a list to illustrate how a typical mom might be able to reach that three hours in fairly simple and straightforward ways without taking too much time out of her busy day:

Daily Mass: 30 minutes (if you're lucky enough to get a particularly long-winded or slow-talking presider, this could bump up to 45)

Morning Offering: 5 minutes

Nightly meditation: 5 minutes

Various daily prayers (to St. Anthony for a lost item, to Jesus, Mary and Joseph for patience, to the Holy Spirit to guide a conversation, to the Archangel Raphael for safe car rides, etc.) 5 minutes

Reading Bible or Daily Meditation: 15 minutes

Rosary after kids are in bed: 15-30 minutes (1 1/2 hours if full 20 mysteries are prayed)

Cheerfully singing hymns while washing dishes: 15 minutes

Moved to tears listening to local Christian radio station while running errands: 15 minutes

Reading Letters of St. Augustine or A Mother's Rule of Life or Daily Catholic news on web: 15 minutes

Making meal for friend who just delivered a baby or sorting and delivering donation to Goodwill or knitting scarf for homeless or packaging books for overseas soldiers or volunteering at nursing home or delivering communion to the homebound, etc etc: 30 minutes

Rocking child to sleep singing slow, meditative hymns: 15 minutes

TOTAL: 3 hours

Other suggestions:

Reciting seven Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Bes while folding laundry/taking out garbage/waiting for schoolbus/emptying dishwasher/scrubbing bathtub/standing in checkout line/waiting on hold for customer service, etc.

Teaching children the name of a Saint and his/her patronage

Divine Mercy Chaplet or Chaplet to a Saint

Listening to Rosary on CD while driving

Confession

Participation in Parish organization (cleaning linens, baking host, St. Vincent de Paul, Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, etc.)

Fasting

This last one I'd like to expand upon a bit. The messages from Medjugorje are explicit in their call for fasting. Mary is asking us to fast twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays consuming only bread and water, and with the special intention for conversions (defined by Mary as anyone who has not felt the overpowering love of God in their lives.) Since Wendesday was Ash Wednesday and a day of fast anyway, I tried it.

I found it surprisingly easy. Not in the sense that it was fun, in any way enjoyable, or that I'm eager to do it again soon, but easy in the sense that I never felt unbearably hungry. I had thought, since bread and water is considerably stricter than the general Catholic guidelines for fasting (two small meals), that I would be doubled over in pain and nausea by the end of the day, desperate for nourishment.

On the contrary, the worst thing I experienced was a slight case of dry-mouth. My stomach barely rumbled. Like the time I gave up shoping for a week, the fast served to alert me to just how much excess food I consume in a day. It also brought home how often I eat just for the sake of eating. As my mother said when we discussed it today: "I know that I have all this food in my house. I have pecans in the pantry just waiting for me to eat them. Every single cuisine on Earth is available, from China to Argentina. It makes me want to eat." When we are surrounded by temptation, it makes it all the harder to resist.

Yet the truth is, our bodies don't NEED to eat three complete meals a day. We certainly don't need meat more than once a week, and unless we're digging a well or planning to raise up a barn, we certainly don't ever need "seconds."

So why do we eat so much? Well, because it's there. Studies have shown that people consume more food when they are served a large portion at a restaurant, regardless of how much they are paying for it. And if bread, condiments, appetizers and hearty beverages accompany the meal, people will eat those, too. (Interesting tidbit: 3-year-olds resist eating past the point of being full, 5-year-olds do not.)

Plus, food tastes good. We want to eat because we like the taste of things. That was mostly what I thought about during my fast when I was tempted by the smell of something. I thought about how good it would taste to chew it up and swallow it. My body was not sending me hunger signals, but my emotions were.

The hardest part of fasting is not the hunger. It's resisting temptation. Likewise, the hardest part of prayer is not the actual praying, but the setting time aside to do it. Whenever I begin the Rosary I feel such a sense of peace it makes me wonder why I put it off so often or get distracted by something else.

Discipline. That's the key to true spiritual fruit. This Lent, I hope to make myself and my desires smaller, while making God bigger. All Glory and Honor to You, Almighty Father, for ever and ever!

Peanut Butter Blues

I've been volunteering on Thursday mornings with Catholic Charities in my area. I like the work; I'm tutoring an immigrant woman from Sudan and visiting with an elderly lady (and trying to help her son find a job.) It's nothing earth shattering, but I like the people and I'm glad to be doing something concrete for others.

On my way home I always pass the same intersection, where there is usually a homeless man with a sign: "Anything will help, even a smile!"

I used to see homeless people all the time. My college town was full of them, as were the cities I lived in after graduating. It was common for me to pass three or four homeless people on my way to work every morning, and the same ones again when I went out to lunch or on my way home. So I got used to carrying dollars in my pocket and handing out leftovers after lunch. If I had nothing, I gave them at least the dignity of eye contact and a smile or a wave.

It bothers me exceedingly that I can give nothing to this homeless man. The first time I drove by him and saw the sign I had a bag of apples that one of the people I help had given me. So I rolled down the window and handed it to him. The second time I saw him, I had nothing but a smile, so I gave that and he waved and smiled back.

Well, last Thursday morning I was determined to give him something substantial, even though I couldn't give him any money. So I made him a lunch. I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, put in an apple, some carrot sticks, a piece of chocolate and a bottle of water. I even put a little encouraging note in the bag and set it on the front seat in preparation for quick handing out the passenger window.

He wasn't there.

I even circled around the block and went into a store to make sure I wasn't just early and had missed him. Nope, no one. Empty corner.

I could have cried, not only because I wanted to do something for him and had been thwarted, but because the incident served to highlight once again that I am operating under severe limitations. I am not free to help people when I see them. I have to be prepared to do good, I have to find creative ways to give, and, as in this case, it often means I can do nothing.

The crux of my problem, though, is a bit more personal. I hate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I only made one because it's the only kind of sandwich filling we had in the house. I never buy cold cuts (meat only twice a week doesn't allow for that, not to mention the expense and presence of preservatives.) But here I was, driving home utterly disappointed with this sack lunch that would go to waste if I didn't eat it. The sandwich wouldn't keep for a week, and I'd used the wrong kind of jam to serve it to my son (those of you with children will understand. "Mommy! This jelly has lumps!" and it's summarily rejected.)

So I had to eat it. Have I mentioned how I hate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? I had to swallow past my gag reflex a couple times and disguise the taste with the carrot sticks. Let me confess to you how stupid I felt offering up my difficulty eating it for the homeless man, who was likely sitting hungry somewhere at that very moment. But it really was a sacrifice for me to eat it.

And now I'm torn. Do I make another sack lunch for him next week? If I don't and I see him, I'll be kicking myself for days that I missed the opportunity to do something for him. But if I do and he's not there...I just REALLY don't want to eat another peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I should make him a lunch. Cardinal George eats sandwiches he doesn't like. St. Therese of Lisieux would probably go so far as to eat a PB&J every day just as she did the leftover food the other nuns rejected.

Meh. I really wish I could just hand him $5. If nothing else, I think this is why God has put this obstacle in my path. It's a hard lesson to learn, but the truth is that handing over a 5 spot won't do as much for my soul as choking down a sandwich I despise will.

Still, I really hope he's there next week.

Picture credit.

Unintentional Hiatus

I haven't posted in ages due to a combination of computer issues and Christmas-brain (you know, where everything is gingerbread and baby Jesus and celebrations and the idea of coming up with a post is just more work than you feel up to during a feast!)

But it's also because I haven't had any burning statements to make. I feel like I'm in a holding pattern, waiting for the go-ahead to move forward. Or maybe it's more like I'm under the tutelage of a very exacting ballet master who wants me to perfect the basic positions before I can move on to pointe. This is the boring, humdrum, repetitive part of obedience and it's leaving me a bit flat.

I'd like to say that I'm making good use of this time to read up on stewardship and research the Church's position on giving, tithing, obedience within a marriage and care for the poor, but I'm not. I'd love to say that I'm using it to perfect my skills as a mother so I can more easily adjust to having three (or four) when we finally do adopt, but that's not true either.

Mostly, I feel "meh." Like I'm going through the motions. I don't want to read about stewardship because it just frustrates me to see so clearly what I should be doing when I so obviously can't do it. I don't want to reflect on the sacrifices I'm making because I start to get resentful and wonder if they're ever going to end. I'm always working on motherhood and parenting, but now every failure, every setback, every lost temper and raised voice just illustrates how ill-equipped I am for the challenge of adoption.

It's strange that at the times when I most need to pray, I feel the least desire to. I know that focusing my energies on God, reading His word, and praying for the intercession of Mary and the Saints makes an amazing difference not only in the way I feel, but in what I am capable of achieving. The other day I spent some time nursing the baby and reading "The Art of Catholic Motherhood." I came out of that experience feeling uplifted. So why don't I do more of that? Why is my first inclination whenever I have a moment to do something meaningless and escapist like watch a reality show or surf the blogosphere?

Even planning my weekly menu annoys me. It shouldn't be so difficult for me to keep the weekly bill under $100. People live well on much, much less. So I feel like an idiot when I have to put back the block of cheddar cheese or serve my pasta primavera without sun-dried tomatoes because we can't afford them. I simultaneously resent the sacrifice and mock myself for the resentment. Sun dried tomatoes? Could there be a less essential ingredient to do without? What's worse, part of me feels that it's a pointless torture to even bother with it all. So I save $25 a week...it would take twenty years to match our debt at that rate. The simple fact is that my efforts to save and sacrifice aren't going to get us anywhere close to our goal. We have fixed expenses that comprise the bulk of our spending (mortgage, car payments, insurance, etc.) and outside those expenses we have very little wiggle room to actually save money toward our debt. We'll only achieve our goal through the generosity of others: my husband's bonuses at work, gifts from our parents, etc.

I don't mind being dependent upon others. We've been blessed with loving, giving parents on both sides. Their support does not chafe me. But then I wonder why I bother with anything. If I have no control over our finances, if my husband doesn't care about solidarity with the poor, and if the money I save goes no where, why not just get whatever I want at the grocery store?

More to the point: if these sacrifices don't help me and they don't help the poor, what good are they?

Well, they ARE good, inherently. It is right to sacrifice. Even if it doesn't feel good, even if I find it frustrating and difficult, it's still a good exercise for my soul. That's, to me, the most compelling reason to continue. It's only by action that we can train our minds and bodies to desire what's good for them. As far as helping the poor, well, that's relative. Does my going without sun-dried tomatoes physically feed the poor? No. But if it forces me to think about those who struggle to live within limited means, and if it increases my understanding of others' experiences, then that's better than blithely grabbing the jar off the shelf and tossing it in my basket without a second thought.

I've always tried to live under the axiom "Do what you can." Right now, I can make small sacrifices. I can say my prayers even when I don't feel like it. I can think about the poor. I can be silent when I want to scream "What is wrong with you! This is all total BS!" I can be patient. I can be hopeful. I can trust.

Even if that's all I can do, it's still something.

Red Robin's Siren Song

I cheated on Friday. We went out to Red Robin for lunch. No reason. In fact, many reasons NOT to go: I had food at home, my husband had brought a lunch to his office, and my kid was recovering from a stomach bug. But it was fun to have lunch together on the spur of the moment, and it was a nice family outing.

But as soon as I saw the picture of the Whiskey BBQ Burger, I was a goner. I tried to talk myself into a nice salad, a garden burger, and a cup of soup, but no go. I really really really wanted that burger.

And you know what? There was no one to stop me. No one to say, "But Tienne, you've committed yourself to eating only vegetarian meals when you eat out." Or, "Isn't it bad enough that you're eating out when you have food at home? Are you really going to compound it by ordering a meal that harms the earth, exploits farm workers and exacerbates the global food crisis?" My conscience did say all these things, but I squashed it and looked at the picture again. Everyone around me was eating their burgers. My son was getting a cheeseburger. My husband was getting a turkey burger with avocado and goat cheese. My daughter was sleeping, so she's exempt, but the point is, I was alone and surrounded by temptation.

So I fell. And man, was it a tasty burger. I'm beating myself up about it, now, of course. I know better. It's not like I just forgot about my pledge to forgo meat when dining out. It's not like I was at a party where they only served hot dogs and brats. It's not like someone took me out to a steakhouse to celebrate their promotion and there weren't any vegetarian options on the menu. I deliberately tossed aside my values and embraced the pleasure of the moment, for no other reason than that I wanted to.

Everyone sins, of course. This website chronicles my journey because that's what I'm on. I don't have mastery over this by any stretch of the imagination. What saddens me most, though, is how easy it was to ignore my convictions. There's no accountability in my efforts to take the poor with me. Except for this website, which is faceless and (let's be honest here) only as transparent I as choose it to be, no one would know if I lived perfectly according to the philosophies I espouse or if I turned my back on every single one of them.

Well, God would know. And I believe my pricking conscience is His way of letting me know that he knows, and that I ought to know better. But in the moment of temptation itself, I can too easily ignore His voice.

It drives home to me the importance of community and fellowship. I learned in college how easy it is to sink to the lowest common denominator, and how proud and happy those denominators are when you join them. Pursuing virtue leaves you mostly alone, mocked at best and often accused of being judgmental, closed minded, or intolerant, of forcing your beliefs on others or considering yourself superior.

It's just SO EASY to give in to consumerism and indulgence. From TV commercials to billboards to advertisements in newspapers and magazines, our entire society is aimed at getting us to buy something we don't need. There's always a sale on somewhere, always a special discount if you buy more (Get one in each color! Stock up and save! Buy in bulk for maximum value!), always a drink special to go with that appetizer that looks so appetizing. And did you save room for dessert? When we do gather the willpower to resist the thousands of suggestions around us, too often our companions look at us askance, or make us feel as though we're making a statement about them and their decisions.

My parents came to visit a couple weekends ago. While they were here, my mother insisted on taking me to the grocery store because she wasn't happy with the state of my fridge. I'd just been shopping and had plenty of food, but I didn't have a few things she considered staples, like raspberries, yogurt, and bottled water. When I reminded her that we were trying to live simply, she got hostile. "Who are you trying to beat, Tienne? People starving in wooden huts? Because you'll never match them, no matter how austere you make your life."

It was hard to get her to understand that this isn't a competition. The point of taking the poor with me is not to live in abject poverty, starving myself and my family because there are people in the world who don't have basic needs. The point is to turn a hard eye on my spending and ask myself, "Do I really need this?"

One of the main challenges is that my eye is so skewed. To me, it feels like a huge sacrifice to go out to eat and NOT get the whiskey BBQ burger with onion crisps and cheddar cheese. Never mind that an entire menu of delicious options has just been presented to me, any one of which would amply satisfy my hunger and serve as an indulgence. Then to increase the challenge, those closest to me (like my mother) often hinder rather than help my efforts. As hard as it is to ignore the siren song of advertising, it is even harder to ignore the well-meaning but misguided pressure of friends and family.

How do we respond when a friend writes or calls to talk excitedly about the new flat screen TV they've just bought? Or when our newly engaged relative waggles her ring-finger proudly? Or the woman sitting next to us in church has a pair of the most beautiful open-toed pumps we've ever seen? When those around us are focusing on the fad of the moment, it's all the more difficult to keep our eyes and our interest on what truly matters.

Now Christmas approaches, the beautiful holy-day when we commemorate God's greatest gift to us: Himself, made flesh to dwell among us. But likely the only place we'll hear anything about that is at Mass. The rest of the time our senses will be bombarded with the dreaded countdown -- Only 17 shopping days left till Christmas! -- along with more incarnations of Santa than any sane person can stand. Katerina Ivanovna has a great post on this at Civilization of Love that contains some excellent suggestions for simplifying the season.

In the meantime, I'm working on a system to strengthen my resolve and enable me to turn away from temptation when it presents itself. I find it easier to give extra than to sacrifice something I want, so I need to counter these petty indulgences by giving something up. In return for eating that burger at Red Robin on Friday, I ordered nothing but a drink when we went to the bar to watch the Michigan game on Saturday. That was hard, let me tell you. Especially when my husband got his lunch and offered me a bite (which he never does under normal circumstances! I think he felt bad for me.) And because my mom spent so much on us while she was here, I'm trying to cut my weekly grocery budget to $50 for the next month.

It's supposed to have a bit of a punitive effect. Hopefully, next time I'm tempted I'll think about what I'll have to give up if I indulge myself, and will have the courage and conviction to order the soup and salad instead.

My All for You, My God

In some ways, this money saving experiment is bringing me closer to my husband. When we first got married, we'd do everything together, including grocery shopping. Come Saturday, there we'd be at our local Safeway, me with the cart and him with the calculator.

Yes, you read that right. My penny-pincher brought a calculator with him every shopping trip so we could tally up our purchases and know before we got to the checkout line exactly how much we'd be spending.

I didn't get it. Not at all. My mother never did that. Even when my parents had two mortgages, a struggling business and a daughter in private high school, my mom still went to the most expensive grocery store and put whatever she wanted in her cart: papayas, red leaf lettuce, wild-caught salmon, imported Genoan salami. In fact, the grocery store she shopped at was so snooty they carried the bags out to your car for you.

When I was in college, I realized how naive I was in the ideas of price comparing or choosing an item that's on sale. My roommate and I took a trip to Meijers, where she happily put a generic brand of shampoo in her cart. "I love it when they have these," she smiled. I looked at her in utter confusion and she explained, "They take the formula of the name brand stuff and bottle it themselves to save you money."

I remember looking at her cart, then at the shelf, and reaching for the Pantene. She got annoyed with me. "Tienne, it's the SAME thing." I shook my head. "I don't want to risk it. I'll pay more for the real stuff."

So you can imagine that walking around the store with my calculator-toting husband was an alien experience for me. He taught me how to read the labels on the shelf. That "price per unit" thing? Wow! You can really tell which item is the cheapest. I'd never even looked at it before. If I needed canned tomatoes, I went and bought the Del Monte brand. Contadina might have been cheaper, but who cared?

My husband. And now that I've made the committment to keep our weekly food bill under $100, I care, too. It's been so much harder than I thought it would. Turns out that $106 bill I was getting didn't include running out for bananas, jam and milk midweek, or eating out at CiCi's Pizza with the kids, or deciding I wanted a bottle of wine for our dinner guests. I now carry a calculator with me to the grocery store and I am fastidious about recording every item that goes into my cart.

Some things I've discovered (which will no doubt be obvious to anyone who's ever been on a budget): Name brand stuff is ridiculously overpriced. I try to buy the store brand every time. I'm not letting go of my preference for organic, though. Luckily, my store has lots of organic items, including among their own line. I think I'd be able to buy alcohol if I didn't buy organic. The difference is amazing. Organic cheddar is $6.99. The Kraft brand is $2.39. Vegetables are the same way, often twice as much for the organic as for the conventional. But I know too much about our agricultural industry to be swayed by the price. When it's available, I always pick organic. I just have to save money elsewhere.

Meat is more expensive than beans. This is a big no-brainer, of course, but it really hammers home to me how much money we save by eating mostly vegetarian. This week I bought a family pack of 8 chicken thighs (cheaper than the breasts) for $7.41. That'll give us two meat-meals. An equivalent poundage of lentils would cost me $3.38, and let me tell you, 3 lbs of lentils would last for 8, maybe 9 meals. There's no way I could do this if we ate meat at every meal, as when we were first married.

Substitutions are your friend. I haven't had the money to buy chili powder for weeks now. I don't know when it's ever going to happen; a jar costs $6 and there's very little wiggle room in my weekly budget. So whenever a recipe calls for chili powder, I substitute a roasted, canned chipotle pepper. A can of chipotles in adobo sauce costs $.59 at the Albertsons and contains around 9 chipotles. One is more than enough to add flavor and spice to any Mexican dish I'm cooking, and they last forever in the freezer. Cheese is another expense where I've discovered ways to cut back. Ricotta is $7, but an equivalent amount of low fat cottage cheese is only $2.69. I'm sticking it into a veggie lasagna anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Make it at home whenever you can. The list of things I no longer buy at the store is growing each week, mainly because I don't have money to spend on prepared food and thus must prepare it myself. I make my own yogurt, mayonnaise, salsa, chocolate sauce, peanut butter, applesauce and breadcrumbs (you knew there was a use for the ends of bread loaves, right?) Really, I should make my own bread, but I have issues with yeast. For whatever reason, I can't seem to buy any that's still active, whether I try the refrigerated glass jar or the little packets.

Anyway, it's hard, but I'm learning a lot and doing well so far.

I'm not doing as well with my attitude. Simply put, I resent this. I want to buy wine. Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling. Sonoma Valley Chardonnay. Bella Rossi Chianti. I miss my wine. I want to buy goat cheese and fresh herbs and sun dried tomatoes packed in flavored olive oil. I miss the fun sides I used to put out with all my meals. If I made a lasagna, I'd have garlic bread and salad, too, and the salad would have two different kinds of lettuce and roasted pine nuts and golden raisins tossed in with it. Now we just have the lasagna.

I miss going through my cookbooks and being inspired by a picture and saying, "Oooh. I want to try that," then going to the store and getting everything it calls for. I miss having chips and dip to snack on during the week. I miss having whipped cream and pecans on hand to jazz up my desserts.

Nothing has changed between now and three weeks ago except that now these sufferings are designed to pay down our debt. Am I really so petty? When I choose a sacrifice, I do it with joy, but when it's imposed upon me I am resentful, complaining, sulky and depressed. Perhaps more than anything, God wants me to learn how to do joyfully what He wants. Perhaps this is so hard for me not because I'm giving up alcohol, but because I'm giving up control.

Well, sacrifice is not meant to be easy. What is it to say "Okay, God, my husband's out of town this weekend and I've got both these kids to myself, so tonight I'm going out for pizza. I'm going to eat this pizza for you, God, to glorify and praise you." If only God wanted us to eat pizza for Him! Darnit. I could do that easily.

Real sacrifice, true sacrifice, ought to be painful. If it's not difficult, we're not doing it right.

So I can take heart at least that I'm on the right path now. Because this is difficult. And painful. The reward in it isn't so much happiness and fulfillment as much as it's the satisfaction of knowing that I am obedient to God's will. It doesn't feel good, but I know it is good.

Still, I'm annoyed every time I have to deny myself something I want.

Less self. More God. That's what I need.

Picture credit.

An Embarassment of Riches

It's hard to say where I am...well, where we are in terms of unity in our marriage. I'm struggling to discern God's design for me. On the one hand, I feel so strongly called to take care of the poor, but on the other, I've already made a commitment to take care of my marriage. I can't help one at the expense of the other.

Last week I ran an experiment. My husband and I had both watched the 60 Minutes documentary on Darfur, and we discovered that we fundamentally disagreed as to whether there was money in our budget for a donation. Rather than argue about whether we could afford it, I asked him what we could sacrifice. After some thought, he replied that he didn't want to make any sacrifices right now.

"You're kidding, right?"

"I know my limitations," he replied.

I was at a loss. We've had this discussion so many times and never get anywhere with it. So I simply said, "I'll find the money." And we went to bed. As I lay there praying and thinking, wondering how I could find an extra $100 without having the family sacrifice anything, it occurred to me that I spend $106 every week on groceries. (I don't really know how that number comes about; it just happens to be the total every time the cashier rings me up.)

I wondered...could I go a whole week without grocery shopping? What did we have? There was ground beef in the freezer, a cornish hen from when I bought three and only two would fit in the crock pot at a time, some homemade chicken soup I'd frozen months ago, a head of broccoli, some green beans, 1/2 an eggplant, a red pepper or two, a bag of carrots, a couple onions, 6 eggs and plenty of rice, beans, condiments, pasta and spices. Would it last a week?

I realized right away I'd have to buy something. Every morning my husband has a bowl of cereal with banana, and every afternoon he has an apple with peanut butter. I'd have to buy milk, apples and peanut butter or he would definitely feel that he was sacrificing. And the point was to do something for Darfur without affecting my family. Ideally, I would come to him after a week and say, "I didn't grocery shop this week. We did okay, didn't we? How about we give the money we saved to Darfur?"

I don't know whether to characterize it as hard or not. It was different. Almost immediately, I started to run out of things. Chili powder. Butter. Flour. Onions. Sugar. Eggs. Tomatoes. We'd invited guests for dinner on Friday night, so I had to entertain in the middle of this whole experiment. Overall, it was a success -- we ate a balanced, healthy, satisfying meal every night and I provided my husband with lunch to take to work every day. We were never hungry. It wasn't until Monday when he ran out of cereal that I brought him in on the whole idea, and he agreed to eat oatmeal for three days until I next went to the store.

I did things I'd never done before, like grate up a broccoli stalk and add it to chicken broth for our lunch. Normally I just throw the stalks out. Instead of cheese and crackers for a midafternoon snack, I popped some corn kernels. I substituted for lots of things I didn't have and tried new recipes when my usual ones wouldn't work. The thing that struck me the most was how much of my time I spent worrying about food, and how diligent I was at conserving it. I sat down at the start of the week and took stock of everything we had to plan out the menu. It didn't allow for any deviation. Monday's meal was crock pot beef bourguignon with a handful of green beans and the remaining 1/2 bag of egg noodles. So I couldn't touch any of that until Monday, even though Sunday's dinner could have used it.

And in so many ways, God provided. I'd planned to attend a prayer rally at my church on Saturday night. They advertised a "light supper" in between the 5:30 Mass and the speaker, so I planned it into our week. No cooking Saturday night. We'd just make do with whatever they served. Hot dogs? Pasta salad? Cheese and fruit? I hoped it'd be enough to satisfy our family and count as a meal. To my astonished delight, the Indonesian community at our parish prepared a feast for us. We had skewered chicken with peanut satay sauce, beef and vegetable crepes, rice with sweet soy sauce, salad, meatball soup, and cupcakes for desert. Not just enough food...bountiful, delicious, remarkable food. I was so grateful to God I nearly cried.

We only made it through the week, of course, because we had so much food already in the house. I think more than anything, it turned out to be a statement about how blessed we are. Even when my fridge is empty, my cupboards are still full. If we had to, we could have gone on longer, but at that point we would definitely have been compromising the nutritional content of our dinners.

Yet the success of the week wasn't the whole point of the experiment. Overarching the entire thing was my hope that it would set up another dialogue with my husband about giving to charity and where that fits into our lives. On that front, the week was less than successful.

When we talked about it, my husband agreed we could give $100 to Darfur. I'm grateful for that, and encouraged by it. But I don't know where we go from here. It's not like any time I want to give to charity I can just stop grocery shopping for a week. Besides the fact that it requires considerable reserves (and the intervention of my parish's Indonesian community) my husband doesn't consider it "saved money." To him, there is no difference between spending $50 on a skirt and spending $40 on a skirt then giving $10 to charity. We're out $50. I can't argue with his math, obviously, because that's fact. But to me, if our budget allows $50 for clothing, then buying something on sale should allow us to spend the extra on something else. Charity, for instance.

Without taking paragraphs and paragraphs to detail our fruitless, circular discussions, I'll just say that my husband feels the only things we should be spending money on right now are necessary items. However, he and I disagree on what constitutes a necessary item. In the interest of unity, and for the sake of my marriage, I want to resolve this in a way that makes both of us happy. I know we are a partnership, and therefore I can't force him to do something he doesn't want to do, but is it right for him to prevent me from the exercise of my faith?

Because that's what this is. God calls all of us to care for the poor. Stewardship is as much a requirement of my faith as Mass attendance and adherence to the doctrines of the Church. I don't know what the middle ground may be, but I know in my heart that it's not right for me to simply give up. I'm praying about this, asking God to help me discern what is pride and what is truth, for Mary and St. Elizabeth of Hungary to intercede for me, for Christ (who showed unflagging love and consideration for the poor while he was on Earth) to show me His way, and for the Holy Spirit to guide my words. I trust that God will find a way and give me the strength to follow it.

Solidarity Without Spending

I enjoy giving to charity; in fact, I'd like to do more because there are so many amazing organizations out there doing all sorts of wonderful things. But Take the Poor With You isn't really about throwing money at the problem (although that helps, no mistake.) The main thing I'm interested in doing is changing my lifestyle and the way I think, the way I blithely go through my day surrounded by wealth and comfort and hardly even stop to recognize my blessings, let alone truly appreciate them.

So I've been trying out ways of living that take the poor with me. Today I shortened my shower. This is a big thing for me, because I'm always cold. Something about my circulation is off, I don't know, but my feet and hands are always freezing and I'm generally the first one in a room to put on a sweater or make a cup of tea. So the joy of a nice hot shower in the morning is an indulgence I've always looked forward to. Nothing else really warms me the way a shower does, nothing else dissolves my back pain and limbers the stiffness of sleeping all night curled around a nursing baby. I could happily spend 20 minutes just enjoying my shower (providing the kids are happy, of course.)

But water's one of our most precious resources. Social scientists are predicting that within 50 years we'll be viewing water like we view oil today, complete with violent conflicts over access and supply. In Darfur, women leave the safety of their camps every day for water, knowing they will be raped. Yet they go anyway, because they must.

In light of that, indulging myself in a long, hot hower just seems too selfish and irresponsible. True solidarity would probably be to stop showering altogether, sponge bathe myself in a tub of rainwater, or shower in cold water. But I'm not willing to go that far at this point. However, I can use less water. I can shorten my shower. I can pray for Darfur and for all refugees and victims of rape.

I've also been limiting myself to vegetarian entrees when I go out to eat, and when I do our grocery shopping, I buy only sustainable foods. At home we only cook meat twice a week (which really saves on our grocery bills, let me tell ya.) Ordering the vegetarian option at a restaurant helps me honor the poor in several ways:

1. It is a sacrifice for me to turn away from the plank-grilled salmon or turkey bacon club sandwich I really want. I can offer up this sacrifice for people who are hungry.

2. While the main problems our food supply creates are with factory farming as a method, and not with the raising and slaughter of animals per se, the vegetarian option has less cruelty, oppression and waste associated with it.

3. It's almost always cheaper, and considerably so. The money I save can be donated to organizations that help migrant workers, provide support to those injured at work, or promote small, local farms.

The last thing I'm working on is a strictly personal effort. Right now, my husband is at our home in Colorado studying for the bar while I am in northern Michigan with his family, giving him space and quiet. I miss him. A lot. I'm also tired of being the sole person responsible for the kids' routine: I feed them, I entertain them, I dress them, I read the stories, give the baths, put them to bed, etc. My husband has spent the last two months either at work, at class, or studying, and though I get to talk to him every day, we haven't had the chance for any real conversations and he just doesn't have any time to help with the kids. It's not OH GOOD GRACIOUS THIS HUGE BURDEN or anything, but it's exhausting and I really really really want a break. I also really really really want to see my husband again and have the opportunity to talk with him and reconnect.

Whenever we discuss the situation, he always mentions how much worse things would be if he were in Iraq right now, instead of safe and comfortable at home. It really humbles me to think about the servicemen and women around the world who have left their families and put their lives on the line for our country. The justification of their sacrifice is neither here nor there; the point is they're making one. A big one. So whenever I miss him, I say a prayer for the women who are missing their husbands and worrying about their safety. Whenever I just don't feel like cajoling more green beans into the stomach of my 4 year old, I pray for those moms left as single mothers while their husbands are away for years at a time. Whenever my 10-month old does something new and I wish my husband were here to see it, I pray for those fathers and mothers who miss years of their kids' lives (first steps, births, first teeth, first smiles, first days of school, graduations, etc.)

If awareness is my goal, this really achieves it.

Indulging my Laziness

It's too easy to go out to eat in this country. The food is good, the service is quick, and it's relatively cheap. In our town of 30,0000 people there are almost a hundred take outs, restaurants, fast food places and eateries. And I'm always craving something I can't make very well myself, like a good Indian curry or a salty lamb saag. We have the disposable income to eat out occasionally, and we certainly don't go to overpriced gourmet restaurants where it's more important to be seen eating there than to actually enjoy the food.

But cooking a meal at home has to be one of the easiest ways to take the poor with you, especially because there's so much more to it than the simple economics of saving money.

The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving. Over 4 million will die this year.

To translate this to my family, it would mean that my husband eats three meals a day, snacks when he wants to, and has chocolate cake for dessert. I would get lunch every day. My kids would be starving. Knowing that no decent man would allow his wife and kids to go hungry while he stuffed himself every day, how can we indulge ourselves knowing that 2/3 of the world are in need?

And the problem is growing. Bread for the World reports that 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago.

Photographer Peter Menzel and author-journalist Faith D'Alusio have highlighted this disparity in their beautifully photographed and informative book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. When compared to the family of five in a refugee camp in Chad who live off five pounds of millet and a jar of peanut oil per week, my fully stocked pantry, fridge full of food and fifty-item grocery list seem ridiculously extravagant.

And I think that's the point. If there isn't a need to eat out, then doing so is an extravagance -- a treat that by definition should be a rarity. Wanting to order in a pizza just because I don't feel like cooking is almost a slap in the face to those people who stand in line for hours to get a bag of rice.

So is there ever a justification for eating out? I think so. Meals are celebrations, occasions for people to gather together and appreciate the bounty of the Earth. Cooking is an art form, and done well, it can literally enhance every aspect of our being. We receive nourishment and fulfillment through our pleasure. Eating at a restaurant is an act of appreciation that gives us the opportunity to further the cook's art. And it's inherently enjoyable.

In fact, I think it's one of the fundamental rights of human beings -- the right to enjoy an abundance of food and social interaction within our communities. Of course, there's many people who can't eat out because they're starving, or poor, or because their community is at war and it isn't safe to leave their homes. People in areas of famine do not enjoy an abundance of food; they can barely imagine the idea of leaving a home filled with good things to eat and paying extra money for someone else to cook and serve us.

If we eat out, let it be for the right reasons. Let it be to fully appreciate the blessings we have been given and the delight of a varied Earth. And let's take the poor with us. For every meal we eat outside our home, donate half what we spend to a charity providing food to the needy. For those of us who eat out on a monthly basis, consider Bread for the World's monthly giving program Bakers Dozen.

Most importantly, when we say grace before our meal, think of those who will never know the satisfaction of a full belly, or the security that comes from having the liberty to say "I don't feel like cooking tonight. Let's get a pizza."