SABBATH SNAPSHOT : culinary with a li-TEA-rary readabili-TEA

Nowadays, I'm one of "those people" who would rather read their way thru a cookbook----rather than eat my way through it. I love looking at the pictures as well. Think Screen Doors and Sweet Tea---a book of tales as well as recipes. Just reading the intro had me in the Delta listening to blues, browsing at Square Books in Oxford and chatting with the McCartys---you know, Lee and Pup of Mississippi Mud "pottery" fame! If  the author, Martha Fosse discussed presentation, she might frame it in terms such as "showing out." Her book (2010) was as southern as kudu and a delightful read........but it's already back at the library......as I don't buy cookbooks anymore, I just check them out.

I already have a large home collection that could use some weeding.

In years past, I was drawn to cookbooks that doubled as travelogues. It's how I found many "out of the way" inns and B&Bs in North Carolina and quaint tea rooms in England, as well as The Ritz. All were included in my travel planning and those cookbooks conjure up great memories.....just no dishes.

This week I checked out Ina Garten's (THE Barefoot Contessa) latest cookbook, make it ahead. My "foodie" son and his wife actually cook from her books. Her premise here was to offer recipes for any season of the year that were actually better when made ahead.

Made ahead....just in case "your FedEx delivery of Pernigotti cocoa powder got held up in a snowstorm in Memphis and arrived a day late." (p 11) I don't know about you, but my cocoa says Hershey's and it's even available at "my neighborhood" Kroger. 

Ina tells on herself occasionally---even thinking and admitting, "her husband fell in love with her because of the boxes of brownies she sent him while he was in college." (p.186)

There were tips with funny quips, beautiful glossy photos and even a recipe for your best friend----your dog that it is. It was a fun way to while away the hours, with a cuppa tea on a chilly fall day as hubby had a migraine and I needed to be quiet. 

SABBATH SNAPSHOT: writabili-TEA

Melanie Benjamin certainly has writability as is shown in her recently published, The Aviator's Wife. This historical fiction is based on the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, herself known for writability in her classic, Gift from the Sea.

Benjamin's easy, yet informative read, gives much insight into the once shy daughter of a US ambassador and her very complicated marriage to Charles Lindbergh, once the "darling" of our nation. It tells of that time in our country's history which my parents knew all about. I, not so much----thus my interest in the book.

Well-written. Yes.....but, with it came disclosures of fears and struggles that Mrs. Lindbergh kept from prying eyes. Supposedly she and Charles carefully edited her diaries near the end of his life so.....it probably wasn't the perfect little marriage, which was the public's perception. 

Ms Benjamin says The Aviator's Wife is primarily the story of a deeply intelligent woman. A woman of resilience. A woman who lived in the shadow of her husband.

As historical fiction, apart from the well-known actual people, events and locales presented....all else are used fictitiously by the author. The kidnapping and murder of their 20 month old son, Lindbergh's heroic flight of 1927, infidelity, other children of Charles as later DNA evidence proved, his comments interpreted as anti-semitic during the prelude of WWII, and his 1953 Pulitzer Prize winning, The Spirit of St. Louis are all documented events.

The author includes these facts but then weaves in the emotional aspect of this mystifying marriage in order to tell Anne's story. Fiction and reality blurred, but the story is told from adventures in flying as her husband's only crew to praying as she finally began to write, lingering over words as she searched for imagery.....trying to look at the world through her own goggles, not his.

Words of truth or fiction---as written by the author:

• What do you want to do? Marry a hero. (Lucky Lindy was America's hero.) 
• I would always be looking for that proud glance; that feeling of belonging, of knowing who I was and that I mattered, for the rest of my life. 
• Always the image of the of a child and a birthday cake with one candle....."No Anne. We need to forget." 
• To my children, I was just mom. That was all. And before that, I had been Charles wife, the bereaved mother of a slain child. That was all. 
• He spent much of his time working on some engine or another....not emotions; something he could understand. 
• When he was home, the air in the house was so impenetrable with tension....had to retreat to breathe. 
• Marriage breeds its own special brand of loneliness.

One with writability provides us with a cuppa readabili-TEA---though sometimes we must read with care if we hope to extract God's lessons from a book with the cultural reality of our times!

SABBATH SNAPSHOT: Readabili-TEA

Max Lucado is a best-selling author amassing  over 80 million books sold. Why? Readabili-TEA! He is the king of readability. Not shallow books but books that can be easily read and understood and yet still linger in our minds. Worthy of pondering for life applications.

Friend Charlotte recently recommended Traveling Light, an "old" (2001) Lucado book. She knew I was knee- deep in lesson prep on three of the Psalms, one of which is Psalm 23.
As I often do with a new work of non-fiction, I read the conclusion or author's notes first. (I could blog for a week on those gems.) Then, I scan the table of contents and often turn right to a chapter.....one I "need," one I am "drawn to" or one that just "catches my eye." This perusal was no different, though eventually I got around to reading chapter one which offered this wisdom.

• For the sake of those you love, travel light. 
• For the sake of  the God you love, travel light.
• For the sake of your own joy, travel light.

Those nuggets alone had me thinking, on a personal level, all week.
Hubby and I have different traveling styles. When we physically travel, especially by air, he packs lots of bags---at least in the days of "free" checked bags. He also is more likely to pack last minute. I, on the other hand, decide my "light" wardrobe, make a packing list and check off items as I put them in the suitcase. Of course, if I'm missing something, I've learned that he probably has it stuffed somewhere in his bag.
With hubby as a travel companion, I can leave my luggage unattended, knowing that he won't fill it with an explosive, as the airport seems to constantly announce. He pulls my rollerboard, when I tire out. He stows my carry-on in those overhead bins so that they don't shift during the flight and fall out injuring me or others. At baggage claim he's good at identifying my bag and grabbing it off the carousel. Even with his bags, he almost always ends up carrying LOTS of my baggage.
But......when it comes to emotional baggage, he travels light whereas my mind is too often filled to capacity. This baggage can't be carried by hubby-----or others, it's all mine. I need to put it down, setting it at the foot of the cross and allowing the Lord to lay claim to it on my behalf.

The sub-title says it all.
Releasing the Burdens You were Never Meant to Bear. The Promise of Psalm 23.

As Lucado put it....."the bags we gather are not made of leather; they're made of burdens. The suitcase of guilt. The trunk of discontent. A backpack of anxiety and a hanging bag of grief. Add on a briefcase of perfectionism, an overnight bag of loneliness and a duffel bag of fear. No wonder we're so tired at the end of the day."
What's your chapter of choice? There's "Readabili-TEA" at its best in each one.