What's for Breakfast?

Yesterday we had oatmeal for breakfast; today we had oatmeal pancakes. Now that's good!

When we make our hot cereal we mix Scottish Oats with regular (not quick cooking) whole oats, and add a couple of extra goodies, such as Chia seeds (pricey but very healthy and available in the gluten-free section of your market), coconut, raisins or dried cranberries, chopped nuts or blueberries. It's always tasty.

But the real reason we make oatmeal is for the pancakes the next day! And here's how we make those:

Oatmeal Pancakes

2 c leftover cooked oatmeal

2 eggs

2 T oil

1 c rice flour

2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1 - 1 1/2 c milk or milk substitute

Warm the leftover oatmeal in the microwave for about a minute. Stir in the eggs and oil until they are mixed well. Combine dry ingredients and stir them into the oatmeal mixture. Add milk, according to desired consistency. Cook on preheated skillet. Makes 14 4-inch pancakes.

Here's another of our favorite pancake recipes:

Banana Pancakes

4 eggs

3 T oil

2/3 c milk or milk substitute

1 1/3 c rice or barley flour

4 t baking powder

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

Beat eggs with electric mixer for 2 minutes until frothy. Add oil and milk. Mix together dry ingredients and add to egg mixture until well blended. Stir in bananas. Cook on hot griddle. Makes about 12 pancakes.

Waiting for Favorable Conditions?

Today C.S. Lewis reminds me to get to work:

There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.

Quoted from Elizabeth R Skoglund's book, Found Faithful, page 263

Actor David Suchet

Maybe you already knew this, but I just learned that David Suchet, the British actor who plays Hercule Poirot, is a follower of Jesus! You can hear him on Haven Today, reading the story of Zaccheus from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

Suchet came to Christ when he was forty, twenty-three years ago, but has only made his faith known publicly in the past couple of years. If you'd like to listen to an interview between David Suchet and Charles Morris from Haven Today, click here. He shares his testimony clearly, from the heart. It was a real joy to hear his story.

Interlude

The new glasses are ready. A trip to Costco on a Saturday afternoon doesn't seem like a lot of fun, but we need those glasses. Entering, our eyes scan the mammoth warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with bargains too good to pass up. Saturday -- the best day of the week to sample crab cocktail on sesame crackers, microwave pizza, an exotic new dessert. We don't need a tent and we've just stocked up on light bulbs, so we move to the optical department, take a number, and watch the crowds as we wait. Flatbed carts loaded with appliances, lawn furniture and slabs of meat roll past us toward the front door. Tired children whine and a few young adults discuss their evening plans. A family pushing two large carts jockeys into a checkout line. "We just came in for diapers," the mom sheepishly confesses to the clerk.

And then we hear it. Slowly it penetrates our consciousness and we are aware of music -- not twangy country western or syrupy love songs piped through the store, but gentle, quiet music. We stop watching people and begin to listen. "Do you hear it?" "I think so. Where is it coming from?"

We turn. Behind us, under the wall-mounted tires, is a display of grand pianos. No one is playing them; still, we hear music. Moving closer to investigate, we see the keys of a player piano moving up and down. The chaos of Costco fades as we listen to the song programmed into this piano:

In this very room,

there's quite enough love for all of us,

and in this very room,

there's quite enough joy for all of us.

And there's quite enough hope,

and quite enough power

to chase away any gloom.

For Jesus, Lord Jesus,

is in this very room.

In this Very Room by Ron Harris. If you are interested in knowing the story behind the song, check out Ron Harris's website here.

Sing Praise!

At breakfast this morning Tom told me about the book he is reading, a thriller in which the powers of evil are overcome when songs of pure worship and praise are offered to the Lord.

There is scriptural precedence for this. 2 Chronicles 20:1-30 tells of the dire circumstances facing the people of Judah when armies from three nations joined together and attacked them. King Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast and sought the Lord. He ended his prayer with these words, "For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you" (12). We read in verse 17 that they were told, "Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you." The next morning "Jehosaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: 'Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.' As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah and they were defeated" (21-22). It is a marvelous passage which have blessed me again and again the last couple of years. I encourage you to take some time to read and meditate on the promises and presence of God in these verses.

When we sing, and especially when we praise, we are focusing on God. All our problems, no matter how overwhelming, lose their hold on us as we shift our focus to God Himself. We sing praises to God because He is worthy. And when we praise, our faith is strengthened; our hearts are encouraged; joy replaces fear.

The other day on a radio call-in show, the host asked a caller how she got through a very difficult period of her life. "I sang songs of praise," she responded. You can listen to Russ Taft sing about the power of praise in his song, Praise the Lord.

May your day be filled with songs of praise!

What's for Lunch?

Have you noticed the good price on cucumbers and tomatoes these days? How about turning them into sandwiches for lunch?

Cucumber/Tomato Sandwiches

Spread two pieces of pumpernickel or rye bread* with cream cheese or a wedge of Laughing Cow. Layer one piece with slices of peeled cucumber, then a layer of tomato slices. Sprinkle with dill weed and top with the other piece of bread.

Along with some grapes, a few black bean corn chips and the baked pears from the September 28 blog, you have a tasty lunch.

Even though Fall is here, I recommend a tall glass of ice tea to accompany this lunch. Here's our secret for making perfect ice tea. We use 4 bags of store-brand black tea and one bag of Celestial Seasonings Raspberry Ice Tea in a 3-quart pitcher of cold water and let it set in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Enjoy your lunch!

*I'm wheat-free so I can eat these breads. But if you are gluten-free, you'll want to substitute the bread for something like Pumpernickel Bread by Gluten Free Life or EnerG's Onion Crackers. Either should be available at your local health food store.

Fun with Names

When we lived in Western New York, we went to Fillmore to see the dentist and to Wellsville to see the doctor. We are grateful we did not need the services of the Amigone Funeral Home!

The dentist is my brother-in-law, Dan Kauffman, who goes by the name Dr D.K. Always up for a laugh, his office phone number is 567-4242 (567-haha). And guess what "ha" means in Japanese? It means "tooth."

Rather convoluted, but it's all true!

These are aptronyms (also called aptonyms). I've always been interested in them but didn't know there was a word for them till our local paper, The Herald, began running a weekly column of people who are aptly named for their jobs, including a county Superior Court judge named Ellen Fair and an accountant at a meat packing plant, whose name is Janet Moo.

I'm tall, at least by Japanese standards (5'10"), and nearly every day during my three years in Japan someone would see me for the first time and remark about my height. I can tell you it's not always easy to be gracious when someone points out something that you know all too well. So I was impressed that all eleven featured so far in The Herald's column seemed comfortable with their names and the reactions they get upon meeting someone new.

Got some good aptronyms of your own? I invite you to send them to me; one day I'll print a list of them in the blog.

And if you're in the mood for reading more about aptronyms now, check out this link at BuzzWord.