I mean it. Stop reading and never come back.    

 So now that we’ve gotten rid of the light-weights, and only us serious eaters are left, here goes.    

Zingermans     

Here's my beautiful breakfast from a trip to the Roadhouse with my husband. Ham, beans, eggs, and fry bread.

Zingermans is a community of food-related businesses in Ann Arbor. Not as earthy-crunchy as most of the city, it is a FABULOUS organization. There’s a deli, restaurant, bake house, creamery, coffee company, catering business and mail order company. They literally have some of the best foods in the world. And it is all amazingly delicious.     

They also have some of the best service you can imagine. Ari Wienzwieg, one of the founders and managing partners can usually be found refilling water glasses at the restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights. You can get a free sample of anything. Seriously anything.     

This is a closeup of the fry bread. What is fry bread, you ask? It is fantastic bread fried in bacon grease. It is also proof that God loves me and wants me to be happy.

One of the best experiences I had with them was at my bachelorette party. Not coincidentally, it ended at Zingerman’s Roadhouse (their restaurant). That night they were out of my favorite kind of pie.     

Chocolate Chess Pie. It tastes like you started to mix up brownies and got all the good butter and chocolate and sugar, but didn’t yet temper it with flour and then poured it into a pie shell. To die for.    

But I digress.     

There was no chocolate chess pie. So there I am in all my feather-boa and tiara-wearing glory asking for chocolate chess pie before we’ve even ordered dinner because this pie is SO good and only available seasonally at the Roadhouse. Our server said they were out. A serious damper on the evening. When the waiter noticed my crestfallen visage, he said he’d see what he could do. He returned in a few minutes, found out how many folks in our party wanted the pie and promised it would be there by the time we wanted dessert.    

Beautiful orange juice.

  Turns out one of the staff members drove several miles to Zingerman’s Bakehouse, got Chocolate Chess Pie and drove back to get it to us by dessert.    

And by the way, the pie was amazing.     

Check back next week for another one of my favorite things.    

Here's the plate belonging to my husband, B-zilla. eggs, toast (He didn't know about fry bread yet, so you can't fault him for getting regular toast), sausage, bacon, and corned beef hash. You can see that B-Zilla fully appreciates his breakfast meats. If you look at his t-shirt you can also see that he was cool in high school.

  In the mean time, I’d love to hear about your favorite things.   

Oh, and be sure to check out www.zingermans.com or better yet, head to one of their locations in Ann Arbor.  Just bring some cash and elastic-waist pants.   

I am an organizer and get it done kind of person.  I am good at getting things done.  And though I pray every day, I almost never pray for things I want.  I don’t pray for the future.  When I pray for me, I pray small.  Help me to get through a fight with my husband.  Help me to finish this project at work.  I can handle the rest – don’t worry I have a plan and I’ll get it done.

I pray for other people. I pray for my husband, my friends, my family, lots of people, I even pray for God to make me better.  I pray He will make me a better wife, daughter, sister, friend, employee, servant, Christian, etc.  I just don’t pray for things that I want.   The truth is that God wants us to tell Him the desires of our heart.  He wants us to tell him all about our lives including our hopes and dreams and wants.    He wants to know that I want to serve people and he wants me to be open to big possibilities.  God has big plans for my life, but if I refuse to give Him all of me, He’ll only accomplish small things through me.  I need to give God more of myself and let him do big things.

I have some hopes and dreams for my life.  I think I’ll spend some time tonight giving  Him more of me and humbly asking for his help. 

Maybe you could, too.

I work in the employment office of a not-for-profit cultural organization in SouthEast Michigan.  The same Michigan whose unemployment rate is estimated to be about 20%.  Truthfully, we’ve had more jobs than most businesses in the area this year, but our organization is busiest in the summer and has very few jobs in the fall or winter.  Right now we essentially have no jobs to offer anyone.

What’s surprising is that this week, in this bleak economic climate, God showed me a ray of hope.  Her name is Nancy.

I met Nancy just over a year ago.  Nancy heard about jobs at our organization through a local Catholic soup kitchen.  She was in a very tough spot.  Nancy was essentially homeless, dependent on men who had their own agenda and was addicted to drugs.  But she wanted a job and she wanted a job with us.  Unfortunately, our organization is a public trust and we have an obligation to keep guests of our organization safe.  Which means that we cannot hire people currently suffering from addiction.  Nancy took the rejection pretty hard.  She had been trying to get her life together and was having quite a struggle.  I told Nancy, as I tell all applicants, that if she was interested she could reapply in a year.  Nancy was one of hundreds of people with whom I’ve shared bad news over the past year.

What makes Nancy different is that she has continued to fight.  A week after I gave Nancy the bad news I have given so many in the last year or two, she got into a rehab program.  Nancy kicked her addiction and has been clean for the last year.  It only took one look at Nancy to know she was telling the truth.  Her cheeks were full and rosy, her hair was clean and recently cut.  She looked so healthy.  She has worked hard for the last year to get a job.

SouthEast Michigan is going through a tough time.  Lots of people are out of work.  Lots of people need help.  Nancy helped me to remember that despite the harsh conditions, there is still hope here.  There are still people fighting to make their lives better.

Nancy helps me to have faith and to remember to help and pray for those who are struggling.  Congratulations Nancy, and thank you.

I didn’t mean to be a snob about fats. In fact I come from humble fat beginnings. My mother has used vegetable shortening all my life. Granted, it was usually for greasing cooking sheets and 9 by 13 pans, but it was a staple in my home as a child. However, living in a home where my mom was an avid baker, I didn’t spend much time in the kitchen myself. So my culinary journey really began in my early twenties on a coal burning range.

Yes, I said coal. Summers in college I worked on an 1880s farm at a local historical village. This was where I really learned to cook. And in the 1880s there was no vegetable shortening and no vegetable oil. Lard and butter are used in baking.

As I moved out on my own, I began to use olive and canola oils, but my fat of choice has always been butter. It’s expensive, but so delicious. And truthfully, I never thought about my fat choices. I always have butter on hand – you never know when a grilled-cheese-and-tomato-soup urge will strike. I might as well use that for greasing or pie crust or any other fat needs. My love of butter and insecurities with less natural forms of fat never came up. Until last week.

My husband’s birthday was last week. So I wanted to make him a pie. (I made him werewolf cupcakes for his birthday party the weekend before, but we’ll discuss those in another post.) My husband isn’t a huge dessert fan, but he loves Dutch apple pie. A blog I enjoy had an amazing recipe for the pie and recommended a specific pie crust. It claimed the crust was flaky and delicious and that it comes out perfect every time. Sounds incredible, no?

There’s only one hitch. The pie contains vegetable shortening.

I was taken aback. Vegetable shortening? But don’t they understand? It isn’t from nature. You can’t cut open a vegetable and find shortening. You can’t squeeze a vegetable and get shortening. It’s created in a lab. So I thought I’ll just use butter instead. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Forget them.

So I read through the recipe just before I went to the store to get ingredients. And then I saw it. “You must use Crisco, not butter. Butter simply will not work.” GASP! Butter will not work? But it has to work! I love butter! But wait, this is not just any pie. It’s a birthday pie. It has to work. I don’t want substandard crust.

Then I pictured myself in the grocery store. Pulling the vegetable shortening off the shelf. Placing it in my cart. People would see me. They would know I use inferior fats. They would think that I was not smart enough to know that EVERYTHING tastes better with butter. I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up. And even if I could get through the humiliating grocery store experience, it would be in my cupboard. How would I ever use up a whole container? I certainly wouldn’t be using it in other recipes. It would just lurk in my pantry cupboard mocking me each time I opened it. I hate being wasteful so I know I wouldn’t throw it away. I would just curse it and remember my humiliation.

No, I could not buy vegetable shortening. So what was I to do? Then I thought of the flakiest pie crust I have ever made. It was called Pate Brisee. It was beautiful. Delicious. And it took FOREVER to make. Did I mention I started all of this at about 6 PM? So now I’ve been deliberating for about 15 minutes and I still have to get to the store, make pie crust, peel, core, and cut apples, make crumb topping and bake the pie. No time for the fancy pie crust.

I had to rely on my trusty old pie crust recipe. It is always good, has always served me well. No reason not to make it again, right? It will be fine.

Then again, this is a birthday pie. Fine won’t exactly cut it.

So I thought perhaps there’s something about the way you make the crust that makes it so special. So I read through the instructions again. This pie crust calls for freezing. That’s right. Freezing. Should I make my trusty old recipe and freeze it? But I want my birthday pie to be great. What’s a girl to do?

And then I remembered Susan. Susan is a dear friend, a huge food lover, and has used this trusty old pie crust recipe many times. So I called her up. “Susan, do you know anything about this freezing pie crust business? Have you ever tried it with the basic recipe?” Susan is always interested in a food conundrum. Unfortunately, almost all of Susan’s cooking comes from 19th century cookbooks. That would be cookbooks from the time before refrigeration. Blast! Susan definitely has not frozen pie crust. Not any pie crust. But Susan is a food lover and a critical thinker. So Susan says, well what does the freezing do? How long do you freeze it? The recipe said to freeze it for 20 minutes or longer. So it might be just a faster chill than the refrigerator. Chilling pie crust is good. That’s normal and it is always good for a crust. And you know what? The pate brisee called for freezing, too. Freezing – there must be something to this. So with reassurances from Susan I decided to make my normal pie crust and freeze it while I prepped the apples and crumb crust. So I went to the store and came home to make my crust. The freezing made it stiffer, but that helped in rolling. The rest of the pie went swimmingly. (Well except for that one part when I forgot to set the timer, but thankfully we were watching a DVD and could tell from the movie how long the pie had been in!)

And you know what? It turned out the best my trusty old recipe ever has. So though I have uncovered an ugly shortening prejudice, I did make a beautiful and delicious pie. Which was, of course, the whole point. Happy Birthday, Brian!

My trustee old pie crust recipe is as follows:
For two crusts
½ cup butter (and I do mean butter)
2 cups flour
Dash salt
Enough water to make it stick

Combine flour and salt. Cut in butter. (I actually do it with the two knives – I learned to cook in the 1880s-but a pastry blender will work fine.) Add water ¼ cup at a time and mix until the dough sticks without leftover flour at the bottom of the bowl. In the past I just rolled out the dough at this point. This time I froze the dough for about 30 minutes before rolling.

God bless and happy baking!

Here's the scruptious apple pie. It's half eaten because I wanted you to see more of the crust. Not because I forgot to take a picture before we ate it. Um, yeah, that's it.