Berry Experiments

I should be revising a portfolio paper right now. I promised my committee chair I'd send her a complete draft by the end of the month--which is Monday. And I promised my study buddies I'd have a draft of it to workshop tomorrow. But here's the thing: I've been working like a dog all week, and my brain is fried. I need a break from academic writing. So I decided to make myself some treats.

Plus, I wanted to try my hand at the step-by-step cooking/baking photo blog post genre.

See, it was my turn last Saturday to do the grocery shopping, and I love berries. And they were on sale. So I bought a lot of them. I mean A LOT. So on Sunday, I made a pie. A chocolate uber-berry no-bake non-dairy cheesecake.* Mmmm-MM! It was delicious, and by far the most attractive pie I've ever made. Not that that's saying much--I'm pretty new to the pie-making business.

But it didn't use very many berries. I still had a lot of berries. And you know, fresh fruit doesn't last forever. So I made some chocolate covered strawberries. 

Chocolate covered strawberries are easy (and also tasty). I wanted to try something different. I still had tons of raspberries, so I decided to make some chocolate raspberry cups. I put some melted white chocolate at the bottom of a mini-muffin pan, put two raspberries in each, and then I poured some melted semi-sweet chocolate over the top. Later, it occurred to me that I might have trouble getting the chocolate out of the pan, because I didn't use liners or anything. But I poked at their edges with a knife and they popped right out. 

And they were DELICIOUS. 

Except there was too much chocolate. 

I know, right? I can't believe I'd say that either, but it's true. There was too much chocolate. They were hard to bite into, and the raspberry-chocolate ratio wasn't right. Well, we ate them anyway. Mostly I ate them. But I did share some with my roommates.

Even after completing this highly educational experiment, I still had a lot of berries. I could have just eaten them, but I had bigger ideas. I planned further experiments for my remaining test subjects, but didn't carry them out until tonight, spurred by the fact that my brain was beginning to dribble out of my ears from all that academic writing, and those berries weren't going to keep forever.

I decided to ditch the muffin pan. I dropped a bit of white chocolate in rows on a wax-paper covered cutting board and put a berry on top of each. In retrospect, maybe I should have left some just like this, because look how pretty! Or maybe I could have melted the chocolate to an even thinner consistency and just drizzled some delicately over the top. But who am I kidding? I'm not really the delicate type.

I wanted them completely covered in chocolate. I figured that it would get really messy if I tried to roll them in chocolate and then put them back on the paper. I also figured I could just pour chocolate over the top of them.  

That sort of worked. But I could tell that I was going to end up with a "too much chocolate" problem again. Also, it wasn't looking very pretty. I decided to roll them after all, and then drop them back onto the wax paper.

Just as I predicted, it was messy. Overall though, I think they're slightly better looking than the "dribble chocolate over the top" models. And they certainly have a more reasonable berry-chocolate ratio. When I finished making my twelve white-chocolate-enhanced berries, even though I'd been snacking on the raw ingredients as I worked, I still had a few more raspberries left. So I just rolled those in chocolate too. Might as well.

Messy, but DELICIOUS. I plan to conduct follow-up experiments to improve my methodology and satisfy my need for chocolate and distractions from doing actual work.

*Chocolate Uber-berry No-bake Non-dairy Cheesecake Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Sliced strawberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Any other berries you want

1 8-oz package of plain Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

2 C thawed non-dairy whipped topping

3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 C (1/2 stick) margarine, softened

1/2 C sugar

1 graham cracker crust

Directions:

In a microwave-safe bowl, heat chocolate chips on MEDIUM for 1 minute. Stir. If needed, heat in additional 30-second increments on medium until melted and smooth.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese, margarine, and sugar on medium speed until creamy. Gradually add whipped topping and chocolate, mixing on low speed until well blended. Spoon into crust.

Arrange berries on top of the pie any way you want. Chill in refrigerator until firm (about two hours) before serving.

Pepper Potts: Pepperpot!

Pepper Potts: Pepperpot! 

That is all.

Photoshop courtesy of my friend Mark Laffan. 

Thanks for indulging my incredibly dorky sense of humor, man!

Growing Up, and Growing Up Again

I just read "The Real Reason Why Grown-Ups Love Young-Adult Fantasy Books" over at one of my favorite blogs, io9. The author, Marie Rutoski (herself a writer of YA fantasy), suggests that the most powerful element of YA Fantasy is the essence of change which is inherent in the experience of youth. I think she's on to something. Puberty is perhaps the most archetypal, embodied change that all of us experience, and it's one that continues to bewilder us. It's only natural we'd attempt to make sense of such profound transformation through stories.

Rutoski notes the odd structure of some coming-of-age stories, such as C.S. Lewis's Pevensie children, who grow up in Narnia, are transformed back into children when they return to England, and there have to grow up again. It occurred to me that this twice-growing-up might be semi-autobiographical. You see, Lewis was an atheist, and it was "fairy stories", as he called them--and an encounter as an adult with one fairy story in particular (Phantastes, by George MacDonald), that first "baptized [his] imagination" and started him on the path to conversion. You can read more about his conversion in his books, Surprised by Joy and The Great Divorce. At the close of The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader', Lucy is heartbroken by the thought of never seeing the Great Lion, Aslan again:

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” 

It's apparent that Lewis himself believed that he had been drawn to the world of fairy stories so that he might encounter in some of them what he called "holiness," so that, eventually, he could recognize its original in Christianity. So, having abandoned Christianity as a child, he grew up in the world of Fantasy, and returned to Christianity as an adult, becoming "as a little child" in the faith, before growing into one of its greatest apologists.

I also recall a conversation I had with my oldest brother, years ago, when his children were very young. He said that when he graduated college, he felt like he was finally a grown up. But when he got married, he realized that he still had a lot of growing up to do. And when he had children, he felt that he was only then really starting to grow up.

Last year, I fell in love for the first time in my life. I'm in my thirties, and I thought I might have been in love once or twice before, but it had seemed like a pale thing--not at all like what others said being in love was like. I had thought that what poets and lovers called "love" must just be exaggerated, or that I just wasn't the sort of person who could feel it, until it really happened, and though I had a hard time describing it myself, there was just no mistaking it. And I discovered that I still have a lot of growing up to do, because when it comes to love, with all its joy, intensity, exhilaration, silliness, messiness, patience, hurt, forgiving, and learning to be an "Us" instead of a "Me", I'm like a little child. That first love made me glad, and it made me grow, even after the relationship itself was over. Every time we open our hearts, we grow--the more we open our hearts, the more we grow. I still have a lot of growing to do.

Two weeks ago, my youngest brother got married. He's just a couple of years younger than me, and it's been a privilege to grow up with him. In many ways, because of the physical challenges our family has faced, we had to "grow up" faster than many children do. He has been very responsible toward his family for as long as I can remember. But maturity is a pattern woven of many threads, and some are longer than others. I've admired the man my brother has been for many years, but as he stood next to his new wife, I saw a man I'd never seen before, and with a heart full of sisterly pride, I thought "Now he's really grown up." Then my oldest brother's words echoed in my memory, and my second thought was "No, this is just the beginning of really growing up."

I don't think we ever stop growing up. All life is change, is transformation. Adolescence and young adulthood may be the most tangible stage in the process, but for all its "firsts", it's by no means the most profound. The end of all our "growing up", after all, is to become as our Father in Heaven is. Jesus taught that we must become "as little children," humble and teachable, if we are to grow into the kinds of beings who can inherit His kingdom, and this, I think, is a process we must repeat again and again, because every time we think we've finally grown up, we discover we still have much more growing to do. The sorrows, hurts, griefs, and shames of mortal life--those are growing pains. But for all its awkwardness and agonies, youth, with all the revelations of first experiences, is also often a period of ecstatic joy. So, I'm looking forward to growing up, and growing up again.

Redwood Forest, May 2010. 

That's my brother who just got married, 

looking at a tree several hundred years old, 

which still has plenty of growing up to do.

Oreo Cookies: A Review

I've written a few blog posts lately that will never see the light of day. Well, one of them might, eventually, when I figure out just how much of my soul I can stand to bare in a blog that, while actually read by a tiny handful of people, could potentially be read by anyone. Or until I figure out how to couch what I want to say in a way that doesn't reveal so much of my soul (which might be a lost cause).

Meanwhile, I recently discovered that Oreo cookies have proliferated a whole bunch of flavors, so I'm going to post a frivolous review.*

Last year I decided I was eating too much junk food, so I convinced my roommate (with whom I share groceries) to go on a "candy fast" with me. The rule was, we could eat goodies, but only if we made them ourselves. The plan worked well; within about a month and a half I'd lost most of my taste for pre-packaged sweets. Of course then the holidays happened, and we went back to eating store-bought goodies, though not nearly as much. Anyway, as I said, I lost my taste for most junk food. But not Oreos. Because Oreos are awesome.

I haven't tried all the new flavors, but here is a list of all the ones I have tried, from least to most favorite.

Birthday Cake Oreos

These ones have the normal chocolate cookies, and the cream filling has rainbow spots of food coloring, like the sprinkles in a birthday cake. I guess the filling is supposed to taste like cake, too. I'm not sure. This variety of Oreo is just gross. I didn't even finish the one cookie I tried.

Strawberry Milkshake Oreos

Awesome in theory, right? I mean, strawberries and chocolate were practically made for each other! Sadly, not awesome in practice. Maybe it's because my candy fast killed my sweet tooth, but the free sample I tried grossed me out. Seriously, it made my teeth hurt, it was so sweet. Also, the strawberry flavoring didn't really taste like strawberries. So much wasted potential.

Peanut Butter Oreos

Sorry, PB lovers. I like peanut butter as much as anyone, but peanut butter flavored Oreo filling is just not the same. On the other hand, dipping an Oreo in peanut butter is something I ought to try sometime, now that I think about it.

Heads or Tails Triple Stuf Oreos

The Heads or Tails variety of Oreo has one chocolate cookie and one vanilla cookie. The Triple Stuf variety has even more filling than the regular Heads or Tails, which, like all the other non-classics, has as much filling as a regular Double Stuf. But Triple Stuff is overkill; it is just too much filling. I felt kind of gross after eating just one.

Neapolitan Triple Double Oreos

This cookie is like a fusion between the Strawberry Milkshake Oreo, the Chocolate Oreo, and the Heads or Tails Oreo (see below). It has three vanilla cookies, with one layer of strawberry cream and one layer of chocolate cream. The problem with this cookie is, it's too big. Also, like I said, the strawberry flavoring isn't so great. But there is less of it, so it's better than its cousin. Once again, a cookie that just doesn't quite live up to its potential. I'm not sorry I bought a bag, but not likely to buy them again.

Raspberry Oreo Fudge Cremes

These Oreos have a thin chocolate wafer, a thin layer of raspberry cream filling, and are coated in chocolate fudge. If there is any fruit better with chocolate than strawberries, it's raspberries. Having tasted the strawberry milkshake variety, I was skeptical, but ultimately could not resist the lure of raspberries and chocolate. Sure enough, these cookies were overly sweet and incredibly rich. However, I had an idea inspired by the tragic effects on chocolate of Arizona's ridiculous summer heat: I put the rest of the bag in the freezer. These cookies are much better frozen. Almost worth buying again, maybe. Or maybe not. After all, with so many flavors to choose, why go for something less than totally awesome?

Classic Oreos

The original, non-double stuf variety is perhaps not that exciting, but still a very creditable cookie, and I would not snub it at a party.

Double Stuf Oreos

The second-oldest variety of Oreo is better than its older brother. Always a welcome sight at a party table or picnic.

Heads or Tails Oreos

And now we're down to the top three. With a decent amount of filling and both chocolate and vanilla cookies, this baby can't go wrong, especially if you dunk it in your cookie-complementing beverage of choice.

Chocolate Oreos

How do you make one of the greatest cookies of all time even better? Make the filling chocolate. Honestly, I don't know why it took Nabisco so long to go from regular Double Stuf to Chocolate. Chocolate cookies, with chocolate filling, dipped in chocolate (soy) milk makes a teriffic trifecta of chocolatey goodness.

Mint Oreos

The only thing better than Chocolate Oreos. It's the perfect blend of crunchy, creamy, chocolatey, cool mint awesomeness. I don't buy them often because it's too easy to consume half the bag without realizing it.

*Disclaimer: Neither I, nor anyone I know, works for Nabisco, or owns Nabisco stock, or has anything to gain financially from Nabisco. However, if Nabisco would like to send me free Oreos, I would not say no.

Independence Day

It's Independence Day, and most of my family are up in Utah today, having the annual Robinson 4th of July Picnic at a park near my grandma's home. It's been a tradition for as long as I can remember, and I've been there most years. But because of work, I couldn't make it this year. So while my extended family are barbecuing, eating tons of watermelon, playing Oh Heck and Settlers of Catan and Boggle, and the younger ones are splashing around in the creek, I'm sitting at my computer in Arizona (because it's too hot to go outside) thinking about what Independence Day means to me personally.

It's the birthday of the United States. It means parades and picnics and fireworks,  patriotic songs and speeches, wearing red, white, and blue and eating cakes decorated to look like the American flag. It's a celebration of American culture, from the exalted to the ordinary (but mostly the ordinary). Yet Independence Day isn't just about America--at least, not for me, and I believe it's true of most Americans. Independence Day is a celebration of liberty--an abstract concept, built in our individual and collective consciousness through the repetition of words, ideas, images, and experiences.

It began (the holiday, though certainly not the idea) with the now-immortal words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Liberty is not only a matter of good government, nor only a secular, philosophical, or humanistic principle, but a sacred principle that constitutes both a right and a duty, both to maintain it, and to use it wisely. The Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and other scriptures from many religious traditions, affirm that liberty is God-given and essential.

I love my country. I cherish the freedoms I enjoy as a citizen of the United States, though I have to admit, most of the time I simply take them for granted. I didn't have to sacrifice my life's blood for them--the hardest things I have to do (so far) to maintain them is to study principles and current issues, talk (and sometimes argue) about them, and vote. I don't love everything my country does, and I worry deeply sometimes about various directions it's going. But I believe in what Jefferson said, and I believe that despite its faults, our system of government is still capable of fostering liberty, justice and prosperity on a scale almost unique in human history.

I love this land--especially the west, where I've spent most of my life. The endless canyons of the Wasatch mountains in northern Utah, the magnificent red rocks of southern Utah; the cool, high desert of the Snake River valley in Idaho;  the rolling wheat-topped hills of the Palouse in Washington, which, in late summer, when the wind blows, look like a great golden ocean; and the strange brown beauty of Arizona that I'm only beginning to know. There's so much space out here, it's no wonder we Americans tend to dream big. I haven't ever traveled abroad, though I hope to, but I see much that is admirable and good about many other countries, and I appreciate the love my foreign friends have for their native lands. I love America not only because of the principles it stands for (however imperfectly), but also simply because it's mine. I'd rather live here than anywhere else.

I was going to write more--about culture and people and faith and family; this post was going to be really ambitious, but it's taken a surprisingly long time for me to write this much. The picnic in Utah is almost certainly over, and meanwhile my stomach is growling. It's time to go barbecue something.

How to Solve a Problem Like a Gorilla

Last week when I was at Hogle Zoo with Nancy, we saw this gorilla. When we first got there, he was banging that piece of pipe against the wall, then occasionally looking into it, or sticking his fingers in it, before banging it against the wall some more. At first we couldn't figure out what was going on, and as another woman walked off I heard her say to her companion, "Let's get out of here. This is too depressing." But as my friend and I kept watching it became clear that the gorilla wasn't acting out of frustration. There was something edible stuck inside the pipe (I overheard somebody say peanut butter, but it looked like bits of apple to me), and by banging it against the wall, he was able to knock some of it loose and eat it.

After a while, though, when it no longer seemed to be working, the gorilla looked around himself, picked up that sheet you see at his feet, twisted it up, and shoved it into the end of the pipe. But the twist of sheet was too thick to go in far enough to get to the food. That's when things got really interesting. The gorilla shook out the sheet, grabbed a corner of it in his teeth, and tore a smaller length of sheet off, then twisted this smaller piece of fabric, and pushed it back into the pipe. This time, the improvised pipe cleaner was too small, and Nancy and I began speculating about what he would try next, when a zoo keeper called him into a different part of the habitat, so we never got to see whether he eventually would have figured out how to get the rest of his snack.

Even so, it was a fascinating, eye-opening experience for us. I knew gorillas were among the smartest of animals, and besides being capable of learning rudimentary sign language, have been known to use tools both in the wild and in captivity, but I had no idea they were such good problem solvers. It made me think about other highly intelligent animals, like dolphins and corvids, and how some experts have argued that such animals deserve rights as "non-human persons". I'm still not sure how I feel about that, but the line between human and animal intelligence does seem blurrier than it used to.

I don't know how well this guy's behavior compares to wild gorillas, but it was quite impressive anyway. In fact, I wish more people would be as creative and persistent at solving their problems as this gorilla was. I'm not disparaging my fellow humans' intelligence: I'm sure that, faced with a similar challenge, the average person would have come up with a solution on the first try, with very little difficulty. What impressed me about the gorilla--and what I myself sometimes forget--is that when his solution no longer worked, he tried a different method, and when that method didn't work, rather than just giving up or trying something else entirely, he reflected on what was wrong with his current method and modified it. Sometimes, we need a completely different solution, and sometimes we only need to tweak a solution we already have. But mostly, we just need to keep trying.

Portraits of the Savior

Tonight I had the privilege of hearing Howard Lyon speak about his art. Lyon's commercial work has been primarily in the world of fantasy illustrations, RPGs, and video game art direction. He is also, like me, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he has painted a number of religious works, including the portrait of Christ above, titled "Light of the World."

Brother Lyon spoke about how important it is to him that his portraits be as accurate as possible--he uses friends and family members as models in much of his work. When painting the Savior, however, verisimilitude presents a challenge because no one really knows what Jesus looked like, and there are so many different representations of him already, in an incredible range of styles. If he were to ask a chapel full of people which painting of Christ was their favorite, he said, he would likely get at least twenty different answers. Because of these things, it's very difficult to create a portrait of Christ that will feel "accurate" to everyone. In painting "Light of the World," then, Brother Lyon decided that he would focus on accurately representing the way the Savior made him feel. 

That got me thinking about my own favorite portrait of Jesus, and by extension, those of others. I wondered what our favorite representations of Jesus might say about the Savior makes us feel, how we feel about the Savior. It has struck me in the past how within the LDS church (and probably in cultures generally) over time different paintings of Jesus seem to go in and out of popularity, and how that might reflect or influence on a cultural level what our personal preferences might reflect on an individual level. That might be an interesting research project for another time, but for now I just want to share a few of my favorite pictures of Jesus and meditate a little bit, and ask my readers to meditate, on how these representations of Christ reflect aspects of our relationship with Christ.

"Christ and the Rich Young Ruler" by Heinrich Hoffman. 

Under US Copyright law, this work is in the public domain.

The image above is Heinrich Hoffman’s “Christ and the Rich Young Ruler”. It's been my favorite portrait of Jesus for many years, and a copy of it hangs on my bedroom wall. The story comes from Mark 10:17–25, in which an earnest young man asks Christ what he must do to inherit eternal life. In the discourse that follows, we learn that this young man has scrupulously kept all the commandments throughout his life. Jesus tells him that the only thing he still needs to do is to give all his worldly possessions to the poor, and "take up the cross, and follow me." The young man leaves sorrowfully, and passes out of the record--we never learn whether or not he was ultimately willing to follow Christ.

Whenever I hear this story or see this painting, I'm reminded of another story, from the Book of Mormon. In Alma chapter 22, we read of a missionary named Aaron, who went to preach among the Lamanites, his hereditary enemies. In the course of time he meets with the king of the Lamanites, who, after being taught about Christ, asks Aaron, just as the rich young man asked Jesus, what he must do to inherit eternal life. When Aaron tells him that he must repent and call upon God in faith, the king offers this prayer:

"O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee."

My love for Hoffman's portrait is partly aesthetic. Though he wasn't a Pre-Raphaelite, it bears a similarity of style, and that style has always appealed to me. I love the warmth of the colors, the way the lines suggest gentle movement, as Christ beckons the youth to follow him. Christ's expression is one of profound compassion. Perhaps, also, I love it because it represents a powerful teaching moment. When I see it, I'm moved to ask myself what I wouldn't give to know God.

Another favorite is "Christ in Red Robe" by Minerva Teichert. Teichert is among my favorite LDS artists. Her style is rather unlike that of most other LDS painters, who tend more toward realism. She's also the only really prominent woman artist in the church that I know of, and her subjects often feature women, as in this painting of Christ, in which you can see two women reaching toward Christ at his second coming.

Walter Rane is another of my favorite LDS artists. His painting, "Jehovah Creates the Earth," really moves me in its depiction of Christ's majesty and power.

"Jesus the Christ" by Del Parson

Owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

May be used for personal, noncommercial use 

This last painting, by Del Parson, isn't really one of my favorites (though I do like it), but I feel I should include it because it is arguably the portrait of Christ most commonly associated with the LDS church since 1983, which is about as far back as my memory can stretch. It's certainly the picture of Jesus I recall seeing the most as a child. There's even a Mormon urban legend about it, but I won't go into that (except to say that, not surprisingly, it isn't true). This painting is definitely part of my instinctive image of the Savior.

Do a Google image search of "Christ" and you will see an enormous range of images; from downright kitschy to some of the greatest works in the history of art; you will see Him depicted in attitudes of torment, sublimity, serenity, and even mirth; in periods of His life from infancy to the cross; and while most portraits of Christ look distinctly European, if you dig a little further you will see a wider range of ethnicity represented. Ultimately, however, it matters much less how we represent Jesus in our art than how we come to reflect His image in our own countenance.