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Rent Party at Charming House

When a realtor describes a house as charming, we have four words of advice: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! Our house is charming. It is possibly the oldest house in town. The new part was built in 1845 to be the hotel for the railroad when it came through. The last owner was an Irish woodworker. He did some lovely work on the trim. He made a nice back door and beautiful window over the kitchen sink. Why he used single pane glass is beyond me. He restored the hardware to period. He did level the floor in one of the rooms. He made it into one house out of three tiny apartments. (sort of) It still had three electric meters with two wire, knob and tube and old romex to much of the house.

The oil burner was on its last. The old iron pipes to the upstairs bathroom were mostly occluded. The drains weren’t much better, but the switch plates had fairies and waterlilies on them. The wood trim in the kitchen has charming little crosses drilled in it. I have basically replaced the heat system, the plumbing and the electrical service. I am working on rewiring, bit by bit, sorting out the mess. I won’t even start on the shape of the barn. But they say the value of real estate is mainly location. It is a great location.

We were rebuilding the barn to make the ministry and the business more efficient. Then I got sick. That messed everything up. There have been a series of setbacks. Bishop Thomas really wants to see a team of college kids come here to help finish the barn. I don’t know how that is going to happen. Bethann lost her job last summer. We have to pay for Cobra health insurance out of pocket. That takes more than her Unemployment Compensation. We had the court case against the city to keep the ministry going. that put the business on hold and hurt the business. We were both sick around Christmas, so that hurt the business. I was very sick last month, so that hurt the business again. We are on the verge of being able to make some major progress in helping the homeless in Philadelphia, if we had a basic facility there and could be full time working at that, instead of being distracted by the icon business. At the same time, we are on the verge of possibly losing our house, losing our current base of operations, and joining the ranks of the homeless ourselves.

So we are making an appeal.

We are having a rent party this Saturday evening, March 16, starting at 6:30. Since it is Cheesefare Sunday next week, we will be serving vegetarian chili, “Tender Hearted Shepherd’s Pie” (vegan), some cheese and veggies, chips and dip, dessert, etc. The $10 cover charge includes the food and soft drinks. Beer and wine will be available for additional donations. If you want to play an instrument to add to the festivities, please make it unplugged. Kevin Paige is bringing his guitar and his keyboard and his great talents to make music. We are hoping that the Ackers will favor us with some music as well. We are clearing out the furniture, so if you want to dance, you may.

We live at:
27 North Front St. (in the middle of beautiful downtown)
Souderton, PA 18964

Call or email to let us know if you plan to attend, so we know how much food and drink to prepare.
phone: 267:497-0267
cranford@shoutforjoy.net (If you can’t attend, but want to help, you can Paypal gifts to this email. If it is designated as a gift from one Paypal account to another, neither one is charged fees. Thanks! God bless you!)

It’s a cheap date for a good cause. We are going to try to have green beer in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Hey, I was tickled that the first one to RSVP to say that he was coming was Philly rock legend Kenn Kweder! Please come join the fun.

Rent Party

We organized a “rent party” last week. I have been wanting to do this for some time. It is a practice that comes out of 1920s Harlem in New York City. Fats Waller and James P. Johnson used rent parties to help get by. When someone was going to come up short on their rent, they would throw a party to raise the rent. You clear the furniture out of the main room, invite all your friends and neighbors. Tell them to invite all their friends and neighbors. Charge a cover charge at the door. Provide some food. Have some musician friends play and sing for their supper and free drinks. Have some cheap beer and wine available for more contributions to the cause. This is where line dancing was invented. The most famous of these is the Electric Slide. These parties would be so crowded that, in order to dance, you had to synchronize. It was only later that Nashville expropriated it to turn the Electric Slide into country line dancing. It was a good way to have some fun on a Friday or Saturday night; for less money than at a bar or nightclub, with people you knew, while helping someone out of a tight spot.

Hard times are here again. But unlike during the Great Depression, most of us are unaware of one another’s situations. We are used to being anesthetized by the internet and by cable TV and by constant, on demand entertainment, infotainment, news and propaganda. We have been conditioned to think that anything that is not packaged and branded and sold to us is inferior, and possibly suspect. We get upset about the statistics we see on whatever “news” outlet we prefer, and we will argue about politics that ultimately will benefit the rich regardless of which party is in power, because, let’s face it, they’re all rich and out of touch with any personal sense of neighbors in need. A lot of people on the right are screaming that government is not the answer. A lot of people on the left are crying that the government is too slow to respond. Yet most, on both left and right, just continue to holler at each other while we could actually be doing something to address the suffering and the poverty about which we all say we are concerned.

A rent party is the perfect blend of free enterprise spirit and socialist concern! It’s a cheap date with live entertainment, good, home-cooked food, spirits, laughter, and friendship. Or you can choose to give more with the expectation that when you are short, the others will come to your aid. Another thing I want to say is that there is no shame in coming up short some times. “Events conspire” as they say. Kids get sick. Hours at work get cut back. Utility prices change. Oil and gas prices change. Appliances break or wear out. Expected Christmas bonuses are not given or are miserly. There are dozens of nickel and dimey things that can get a household behind the 8 ball before you can say, “Bob’s your uncle!” Then there are the salesmen and bankers who can paint a rosier picture of the future to get one to finance things one shouldn’t and acquire more debt than one should. Then there is student loan debt. When people are working hard and still not able to make ends meet, there is no shame.

We had a great time. The duo of Kevin Paige, who teaches music at Clemmer Music in Harleysville, PA, and Jeff Bonnet, who usually is part of a classic rock cover band “Out of Touch”, provided most of the entertainment. They were joined on some of the numbers by Dr. Raymond Acker, known to some as Deacon Herman, who also did some solos on guitar and vocal, both originals and some by Bob Dylan. His two sons did a beautiful medley from The Lord of the Rings acapella. April made a leafy salad, rice and beans, veggies and dip, chips and salsa, and coffee. Bethann made chicken breast, potatoes and peppers, orzo and spinach, pigs in a blanket, and wacky cake. Uncle John tended bar with a box of Merlot, a box of Chardonnay, a case of PBR, a case of Icehouse, and a mixed case of Mike’s Hard. We bought way too much alcohol. We have lots leftover. I guess we need to have another party. Thankfully, somebody bought some of the leftovers.

Unfortunately, it was a foggy night, so a number of people did not feel confident to travel. We charged $10 cover and $3 suggested donation for beer or wine or hard lemonade. We had a great time! We raised about $700 to help a young couple with their mortgage. Everyone said we should definitely do this again.

I hope the idea catches on. We could use more live music in our homes. We could use more joy and happiness. We could use more helping one another in hard times.

“What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?”

That was the question Nick Lowe asked in his song made popular by Elvis Costello. It is a serious question that needs to be pressed especially hard to professing Christians these days. Jesus is proclaimed as the Prince of Peace! At Christmas we sing songs of “glad tidings of peace and good will among men.” Of course, in recent years, with the rightward turn of many in the pulpit, it has been stressed that “a more accurate translation of the Greek would be ‘peace to men of good will.'” I don’t know how this revision sits with Jesus’ message of turning the other cheek and going the second mile and forgiving those who have wronged you 70 times seven times in a day. I really don’t think he was worried we were going to be overzealous in our peacemaking. I wonder what the original Aramaic said. I’m sticking with the Christmas carol and the King James Version on this one, and the testimony of the whole direction of God’s word and Jesus’ ministry.

God came into the world not just to bring peace to good people. It’s a good thing, because none of us are that good. Christ is our peace, not only with God, but to bring peace to the nations:

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” (Ephesians 2:14-18)

The first petition of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom of the Orthodox Church is “For the peace from above, and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.” This is foundational, because the Scripture says “God does not hear the prayers of sinners.” The second petition where our real work as a kingdom of priests starts is: “For the peace of the whole world; for the good estate of the holy churches of God, and for the union of all mankind, let us pray to the Lord.”

What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding, indeed!? We pray for them, right there at the beginning of every Liturgy: the peace part is obvious; love: when the churches are in good order, they are sharing the love of God through good works and breaking down walls of discrimination and ethnic and national hatred; and bringing all to unity in mutual respect and equality under God.

So why are so many of my Christian brothers and sisters so nationalistic and promoting the use of assault weapons to overthrow a government that might make you buy insurance for your employees? Why are so many of them racist? Why are so many talking of secession and stirring up anger and hatred just because their candidate didn’t win an election? Why do so many people think its OK to follow a bitter, atheist, immoral, hypocritical Ayn Rand as a moral leader in economics and totally ignore the teachings of Moses, the Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles? Or divorce them, by saying one is for private life and the other is for public life? How very De Peche Mode of you? You have your “own personal Jesus” but He has nothing to say about how we conduct civic life? The slave holders of the 19th century would solidly agree with you. It was the abolitionists who held that Jesus and the Prophets were going to call the nations to account, that dragged this country, kicking and screaming, into the modern age.

We need to revisit the Scriptures to unearth our sense of justice. We have lost our way. We have left Christianity and become Americans only. We have bought into the myth of the rugged individual. We think that if we can choose wisely, and get the right education, and land the right job, or invent the right gizmo, we can end up on top. Reality check. America now has the second lowest chance of upward mobility after England. Our middle class is disappearing at an alarming rate. Our income disparity between employers and workers is many times that of Mexico’s. That wall we are building will soon be keeping us in, if we do not do something quickly to correct things.

American Christianity has been very pietistic and individualistic to the point that modern evangelicalism is so disembodied as to be gnostic. Christianity’s roots, however, are not so. Hebrew did not have separate words for just and right or justice and righteousness. The singular and the corporate or the personal and the societal were so intertwined. The Bible is not just concerned about personal morality; it is concerned about social responsibility. God is not just going to judge individuals for their personal stewardship. He is going to judge the nations for their economic justice: their treatment of the poor. Read the Prophets. They still apply. Jesus did not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Our righteousness is to exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, not mimic Rome.

We will examine the tithes of the Mosaic Law. Yes. There were more than one. We will look at the sabbath years, the gleaning rules and the Jubilee, to see a pattern of second chances, economic redistribution, and social justice, that God was setting forth as a pattern for the nations. We will see how God reinforced this message through the captivity and the warnings of the prophets to the nations. It was no accident that Jesus used the Jubilee song of Isaiah to introduce his earthly ministry. It was also not surprising that the entrenched political powers immediately wanted to stone him for preaching that kind of radical redistribution. St. James preached economic equality, as did St. Paul. We will include a few quotes from the Fathers and some examples from the Byzantine Empire. The point is not to push a particular party’s agenda. The point is to get people to think about economic justice and social justice in a more Christian way and bring that to the debate. We need to do like the old preacher told us to do: “Quit your meanness!”

New Front Door

Well, just three and a half years after I started it, the new front door has been installed. Hopefully, it won’t take me that long to finish the outdoor trim. There were some design changes made prior to, and during, manufacture, from the original design. We decided to abandon the idea of an operable window. There are enough windows that open, already. I also went with matching trim around the window, sanded flush. The three ash panels ended up being three different widths. I should claim some grand aesthetic reason for this. The truth is that I goofed when I cut the first panel, so I had to figure out how to salvage the situation, using the remaining materials. I do like the new look, better, though.

We also decided to go with reproduction, hammered, black hardware. Bethann and I shopped at Knobs and Knockers at Peddler’s Village on one of my few good days the summer before last and each, independently, selected this lockset. It is a simple two handle, thumb lever latch with a separate deadbolt. They matched the lock to our current key. We ordered 3 heavy duty, 4-1/2″, black, ball-bearing hinges. (Even the store owner’s son was admiring them, when I picked them up.) We remembered to buy a matching black, hammered wreath hook.

During the course of building this door, I learned how to use many new tools. I have never had access to such an array of tools, or to such a patient teacher. John Haggerty rescued me more times than I can count on this project. I not only learned how to properly put a door together, but why they are done this way. Don’t ask me to name most of these tools. I only know most of their names “in Elvish” as John says. He interprets pretty well, though.

For this door, I joined and planed the wood myself. John has a widebelt sander where you can feed boards through it to get them to get to a uniform thickness. That was exciting and dusty and loud. After I assembled the door, I routered the inset for the lite. I used a cool corner chisel to clip the corners. I needed to clean up a little smoother and deeper than the router bit would go into the corner, so I used a two handed knobber-do to get out the remaining scraps of wood. I think it’s a rabbet router plane. John will correct me. I will post a photo. I siliconed the insulated glass, laid it in the opening. I fastened purpleheart sticks to hold it in place. Then I sanded the whole door on a big table with a 15′ long sandpaper belt over it, known as a stroke sander. I then trimmed the stiles; those are the uprights on the door. Then I sanded it with ever finer grits with a palm sander.

I started to varnish the exterior side with water-based Varathane spar varnish and a terrible thing happened. It reacted with the purpleheart. It got gummy and bled gray onto the ash panels. I grabbed a paper towel and tried to get as much of it up as I could. Then I grabbed rags. John grabbed shellac and cut it by 50% with alcohol. I primed the exterior of the door with that. Then I varnished the purpleheart with four coats of Varathane. Then we scraped the ash panels with a rectangular piece of steel with sharpened edges, and varnished the ash panels. I flipped the door over and varnished the interior side with three coats of an interior, water based varnish.

The door is all beautiful. Now comes the scary part: surgery. I learned how to use the knobber-do, otherwise known as a line scribe. For that matter, I learned how to use a mallet and a chisel. At least, I learned how to use it a little bit better. I did end up splitting the front of my door at my lockset recess. You really need to have your wits about you when you are cutting your door for your hardware and understand how things go together. I walked back and forth several times between the shop and our house, measuring doorhandle heights and hinge placement.

Before making any cuts on the opening side of the door, it needed to be beveled. If there is no bevel, it can’t open, or you would have to leave a huge gap. To make the bevel, I got to use the “Awsesome Tool 2″ otherwise known as the electric bevel plane. Set the tool for two degrees. Zip. Zip. And the bevel is done! Kwikset makes a tool for drilling holes for locksets. It is good for just about everyone they make and most of the ones any one else makes. You choose what your backset is for you door handle and your deadbolt are. Set the tool accordingly. tighten it to the door. It is self-centering. You use your 2-1/8″ hole saw from each side of the door and then your 15/16” hole saw through the edge of the door, before removing the jig. Easy as pie!

A door this beautiful needed a mailbox to go with it. From the scraps, I made a mailbox. It is not quite as finely crafted. I had to tell John to not watch at times. I just wanted to get it done. It does the job. I think it is quite beautiful.

“Guys Night In” Avocado Surprise

Once a month, usually a Tuesday, a bunch of ladies, mostly from St. Philip, go out to dinner somewhere together. This practice started on the occasion of Bethann’s birthday two years ago. I had had a terrible staph infection on my neck and reactions to medications to treat it. Another lady had lost her husband in October. It had been a pretty grim time. A friend decided it would be a good time to have a good time. So a bunch of them took Bethann out to dinner. They had such a good time, they decided to do it again the next month, etc. It is now a regular event: Ladies’ Night Out.

So I got the idea to have a couple of the guys over to our house to make manly meals and watch manly movies while the ladies went out. We have watched “Monty Python’s: The Holy Grail”, “Napoleon Dynamite”, “Hannah”, “The Man Who Would Be King”, The Grammy Awards, a Leonard Cohen concert, a Bob Dylan documentary, etc. We have eaten “turtle burgers” (recipe by Southern Culture on the Skids), hobo hotdogs, veal steaks, stir fry and corn dogs. One night we ignited a tiny bit of bootleg, Greek Raki to prove that it was well over 50% alcohol. I concocted this recipe for one of those nights. It was a hit. I made it for Bethann and Hilary later. They loved it, too. This is especially amazing, because Hilary says she doesn’t like avocados or feta and it contains both. I told her they cancel each other out. She said they must, because she claimed the leftovers for her lunch.

Ingredients:

about 1-1/4 pound 80% lean ground beef
a small onion, chopped
a handful of chopped green & red peppers
a handful of baby bella mushrooms
a large handful of frozen corn
2 avocados peeled and cubed
salt
granulated garlic
mixed peppercorn grind
Greek oregano
cilantro
a generous handful of feta cheese

In a large skillet, fry up the hamburger and the chopped onion. If there is a lot of fat; drain some of it. Add the peppers, mushrooms and corn. Add the spices. Be liberal with the cilantro. It’s good for you. Stir and cook them until the peppers start to get a bit juicy, but not mushy. Add the avocados. Cover and let them get warm. Top with the feta and serve.

Enjoy!

Hot Vegetable Ice Cream

Tonight, just about every ingredient for tonight’s meal was found on sale. The main course, fresh leg of lamb, was on drastic markdown, 55% off, or $2.60/pound. I put the lamb in the agate roaster, uncovered, into the oven at about 3pm at 325 degrees. Then I peeled and cubed two medium sized eggplants and two avocados. I cut up one large, green pepper and about two handfuls of white mushrooms. I tossed these with olive oil on a large, sided, cookie sheet. Then I took a head of garlic; peeled the cloves, cut them in half or thirds and distributed them on the sheet. I scattered cilantro and salt over the mixture. Then I twisted the mixed peppercorn grinder over it. At 4pm, I put it into the oven on a shelf over the leg of lamb.

Hilary had made salads for us earlier and put them in the fridge. Bethann got home a little after 5pm. We had a sumptuous, low carb feast!

If you have never used avocados in cooking, you have been missing out. They do not bring a very strong flavor of their own, but they multiply and spread the flavors that they come in contact with and add a rich creamy texture. The pleasure factor of this dish was that it was like eating hot, vegetable ice cream.

Churchtown Supply Co.

Last Friday, John Haggerty and I headed off to retrieve a painting from a friend in Greensburg, PA. On the way, we stopped by Churchtown Supply Co. on Route 23, 2049 Main St., Narvon, PA, 17555, to pick up some enamelware dishes that I had asked them to set aside. Bethann and I bought each other burgundy and cream speckle and moss green and cream speckle dishes for Christmas and had asked for that from everyone else in the family, as well. Lydia and April had not gotten their money to their Aunt Susan in time for her trip to Churchtown Supply, so they were going to get us a gift certificate to the Washington House instead. It turned out that Churchtown Supply didn’t have enough of our colors on hand to make their contribution useful at the time. But the Washington House was closed the day of Christmas Eve, so they could not get the gift certificate.

I called Churchtown Supply. After several attempts, I spoke to Nancy on Wednesday, Dec. 28. She had just received a new shipment of our colors of enamelware and would set aside the plates and bowls that I requested for me to pick up on Friday morning.

Churchtown Supply Co. looks like your typical, main street hardware store from the 1960s or 70s. It is a bit unusual in that it is just on a ribbon of road with houses and churches strung out alongside of it and a lush valley falling out immediately behind it. You park diagonal nose in, like they do out in Kansas. You walk in and Barry and Nancy invite you to help yourself to coffee and cookies from a folding table, where you can also pick up your free wildlife calendar. The place is comfortably lit, with most of the light provided naturally by the plate glass windows across the front, facing south toward Main St.

I had them tally up the pieces that I had them set aside for me, to see what the damages were; then I shopped for some more pieces to complete the collection. We got to talking. I asked them how they managed to only be open Tuesday through Saturday 8am to noon, and that I was envious. Barry said they had worked for 30 or 38 years for 90 hours a week so this was comp time. He had had some health issues and now Nancy is battling breast cancer, so it’s about what they can handle. They said, “It’s something to do. It pays the utilities and the taxes.”

John, Barry, Nancy and I spent some time swapping stories about the pros and cons of dealing with customers. We had a very nice time. I intend to go back and get more dishes. I encourage any of you to patronize their place, as well. They are hard working folks who could use a break. Their shop is about 4 .3 miles west of Morgantown on Rte. 23.

Tell them Cranford sent you.

An MRI for My Birthday

Each birthday marks the passing of another year into the tomb of time. It means I am another year closer to my death and during the year I have passed through the anniversary of that death. I don’t mean to be morbid. It’s just a realistic view of the brevity and frailty of this life. I turned 56 yesterday. That’s only 14 more Christmases until I’m 70, a man’s allotted time on earth. Any way you calculate it, the road ahead is a whole lot shorter than the road already traveled.

It’s a frightening prospect when one is confronted with one’s own mortality. It forces one to take stock and, hopefully, prepare in such a way that one’s death is a smooth and joyful passing. But this is not just about me. I have too many unfinished projects. There are the unfilled icon orders. There is my messy, indecipherable office. There is the unfinished barn, the unpainted windows, the gas boiler that arrived yesterday, the electrical wiring that needs sorting out, the grandchildren that need guidance and love, the rain garden that needs to be completed, the homeless people who need to be fed and clothed. Then there are all the people; my wife and family and others whom I love and who love me. There are countless reasons to not embrace my mortality. Yet it stares back at me from the mirror and I am keenly aware I am on the waning not the waxing side of life.

So, for my 56th birthday, I got an MRI of my brain. I had experienced several severe, lengthy migraines with strange aura and stroke-like symptoms. As I was waiting to hear the results of my MRI, I sat on the front step of our house on Front St. in Souderton. It was a beautiful, clear day. The spring flowers were giving way to the summer flowers. I saw a man walking on the sidewalk on the far side of Chestnut St. downhill from us. His image vanished for about three feet, then reappeared, continuing to walk. The scenery suffered no interruption. It was much like a continuity flaw in stop motion animation. So I called this aura “Gumby vision”. Soon after this, my phone rang. It was the radiologist from Grand View Hospital. He told me that the MRI indicated that I had had three little strokes on the right side of my brain. I should arrange for someone to bring me to the hospital to be admitted for further study.

Faux Mashed Potatoes?

I read an article in the Reader’s Digest about a better approach to nutrition and weight management about a new book by Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat – And What to Do About It. He advocates a modified Atkins style diet which limits carbohydrates, but does not limit fiber, protein and fat. It is an especially good approach to managing diabetes and, as it turns out, reduces blood pressure and improves cardiovascular health. In one of the sidebars, was an example of a day’s possible food intake. One of the items on his dinner menu was “faux mashed potatoes” made from cauliflower, sour cream and bacon. Well I have been looking for more recipes that are diabetic friendly, so I bought two heads of cauliflower at Produce Junction. Then I Googled “faux mashed potatoes.” Several recipes came up. I chose one, then looked at the ingredients that we had and used it as a very loose guide. I think I am discovering how my mom, B.J., really cooked. She would always deflect when she got raves on her cooking, with “If you can read, you can cook.” But anyone who followed the same recipe she said she had used would not come up with anything quite like she had made. She collected cookbooks like crazy. I think she would mine them for ideas, then get creative with the ingredients she had available. I’m discovering that good cooking is less like science and more like jazz.

The advantages of substituting cauliflower for potatoes are that you end up with a much lower carb intake and you raise your intake of dietary fiber and cruciferous vegetables. Of course, it’s hard to eat healthy if it isn’t tasty. All of us loved this. Hilary even told me that I could make that again! So here is my recipe for mashed cauliflower. You can follow it or read it, then improvise.

Ingredients:

2 small heads of cauliflower (~6-1/2″ across)
~ 1/2 cup celery root diced to 1/4″ cubes
4 Tablespoon butter
~ 1/2 cup sour cream
~ 1/2 cup milk (more or less depending on how wet you like your mashies)
1/4 teaspoon Vegesal (or your preferred seasoning)

Directions:

Cut up the cauliflower into ~ 1″ pieces including the stems, but not any green leaves. Dice the celery root. Boil the cauliflower and celery root for about 20 minutes (until fork tender). Drain them in a colander, pressing down with a small plate or bowl to extract more of the water. Throw it all into a food processor along with the butter, sour cream and Vegesal. Process it until it is fairly smooth. Leaving the processor on, add some of the milk. Test it for consistency and flavor. Add more milk and/or seasoning and chop it in until it meets your desired consistency and flavor. Serve.

Enjoy! It will serve six to eight. The leftovers microwave nicely.

Okra Fritters

Since the Produce Junction opened up near us, I have become a produce addict. Maybe that would be better said: a “Junction junky”? Two weeks ago, I discovered okra. I had heard of okra, especially in a Bill Smithers song: “I’ve got okra, enough to choke ya, but I’ve got no love today!” But had never experienced it up close and personal before. I purchased some and included it in the soup for the homeless men on the street. The next week, I got more and used a bunch in the turkey vegetable gumbo for the street and used some in a hamburger, noodle, veggie soup for us. They were both terrific! Don’t ask for the recipe. I didn’t follow one and I can’t recall what all I put into them.

I got to thinking, with Great Lent coming, about how to make lenten food with fewer carbohydrates for diabetics. I really like falafels, but they are pure carbs. Check out the nutritional benefits of okra. They are a great source of vitamins A, C and K, as well as antioxidants and fiber. Okra is sticky and very nutritious, so I thought I would experiment. What resulted was not exactly falafel-like, but edible and tasty nonetheless. Here’s the recipe (as near as I can remember it from last night):

Ingredients:

about 1 pound of 3 to 4 inch okra
1 15 oz. can of garbanzo beans, drained
about 3 inches of celery root at about 1-1/4″ diameter
about 1/2 cup flour
one head of garlic, cloves peeled
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
5 twists of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of parsley flakes
olive oil

Wash the okra. Throw all of the ingredients except the oil into a food processor and run it until they are thoroughly chopped and mixed and you have sticky greenish glop. Heat up 1/4″ to 1/2″ of olive oil in a large skillet. Use a tablespoon or two to scoop and plop the mixture into the hot oil. Fry one side, then turn and flatten them to fry the other. Fry them until you see more brown than green.

Enjoy!