Mark Bittman's Bouillabaisse

A no-frills recipe to cap off the summer.

Sunday Dialogues: Ashes to Beauty

There is beauty in the harvest and in the anticipation of rebirth. -autumn

For God to help me feel Him filling up my heart, He has to break the bars I've built to protect it. Each bar that breaks exposes my heart, making it vulnerable to cracking. I am much more aware of the new crack left by a broken bar than the ones that form gradually over time. I wait and watch as He fills it, just like He's done with all the other cracks I've forgotten about. I take notice and feel His sufficient power. While He continues to expose my heart, He also makes it vulnerable enough to soften. 

New York Minute

Sunday morning, en route to Sarabeth's Central Park South.

One day. 

An apartment on the upper east side, near the hospitals - one of which I'll be working at, with pediatric and immigrant populations. The credentials of a registered dietitian and Spanish medical interpreter. Lazy Saturday mornings spent in Central Park, after stopping by a greenmarket. A corgi and an Australian/German shepherd mix I've adopted (it'll all be just for a few years, because the dogs need more space). The peak of day spent lounging at a restaurant with outdoor seating, the perfect spot to fabricate intricate narratives of the people you watch. Running around the city, taking photos of strangers, because there are too many personalities to pass by. Sunset runs over a bridge. Somehow, I'll still end up in bed by midnight...

One day!

S'mores Mousse Cups

This isn't so bad for you, I promise! It's important to go all out and enjoy treats as they are, but I've found myself gravitating towards this healthy-ish version, too. It's just that good. 

Scripture Search: To The Bone (A Biblical Approach to Body Positivity)

She looks back at you in silence. The outline of her ribcage protrudes, the skin hugging her shoulders and collarbones is taut. Her dark brown eyes and pursed lips, usually small, now look bigger on her thinned face. Your eyes trace the frame of her faint cheekbones, sliding down her jaw and turning sharply as it narrows into a point. Scanning back up her face slowly, you notice the shadows under her eyes.

You blink. Her legs. Twig-like, chicken legs. A pale brown bruise is patched on her inner right knee from the way her bony left knee weighs down on it as she sleeps, fetal position. You don’t recognize her, the girl staring at you. Yet despite this state of weakness, despite finally seeing yourself as the person reflected in the mirror, you feel strong. Empowered.

...

Middle Eastern Spiced Carrots with Yogurt and Pistachios

If you aren't aware, I study nutrition and dietetics. I'm at a children's hospital for the summer, and recently, I had the opportunity to observe a few feeding evaluations - what are they? 

If you've watched a cop show or are familiar with marketing, you might know of one-way mirrored observation rooms (you know, during interrogation or focus group scenes). The same room is used in a feeding evaluation, where the patient being observed is in the room, exposed to foods they like and foods they may have issues with. With a pediatric population, parents tend to be in the room with them, while the clinicians stand behind the glass window and watch how the patient reacts to the foods. Do they eat it? What faces are they making? Is the food visually overwhelming? Is there a common characteristic across the foods avoided? Does the patient have an aversion to texture?

surrender

not according to my time, God, but Yours. 

for your plans are greater. Your timing. more intentional. 

the stories you craft are far more beautiful. 

than anything I could ever dream of.

the sun also rises

“In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

The Met Cloisters

His Kingdom Come: Stuffed and Starved (Overview)

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10

The food system hits close to home for me. While I had been exposed to some of its injustices in the past, my spring semester's public health nutrition class gave me the opportunity to learn more deeply about the complexity and wide-reach of food.

What we eat is intimately connected to our agriculture, which has tremendous impacts on ecological balance, immigration, animal/human rights, environmental toxicity, and politics. What we produce inevitably influences our grocery stores, our physical and financial access to food, the foodservice industry, international trade, transportation, culture, health and nutrition. What's produced but not consumed transforms to issues related to food waste.

Thinking about the problems caused by our broken food system is crippling, and this paralysis extends to all of the social justice issues our world faces. Children have been cruelly ripped apart from their parents. My hometown is currently divided on a proposal to introduce armed police officers to public schools. My university faced violence, open and repeated acts of intolerance, and tragic death this past year. Last summer, I met cancer patients who struggled with their disease, other chronic illnesses, emotional pain, food insecurity, and immigration issues -all at once.

One day in class, my Spanish professor initiated a spontaneous, class-long discussion about the discrimination our campus was facing. Before we left with heavy hearts, he looked at each of us squarely and said, "Chicos, no sean complacientes." Don't be complacent.

But what can we do in addition to praying? What actions can we take right now?

French Cream Soda

Sunday Dialogues: Your Gift is a Provision

We're all gifted in one way or another. You may be an athlete, a musician, a friend who can listen like no other. Sharing these gifts may seem more straightforward: volunteer as a soccer coach, teach kids how to play an instrument, share your time with others who need a shoulder to cry on.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chunk Pancakes (Vegan)

Is it possible to have forgotten how good pancakes taste?!

On that same note, I've also forgotten how much fun it is to take and edit photos. Racing against natural laws of chemistry when snapping photos while the butter melted off of the hot pancakes was quite the scene. I had to add countless pats of butter and pour more syrup than a 5 year old just to get the shots. In the end, the top pancake was reluctantly tossed - after all, they have to remain a healthy-ish recipe, right?

Ithaca Through the Seasons: Spring 2018

Can you believe I only picked up my camera twice this semester?!

In my defense, our winter was too long. The first few warm days in late April sent half the school to bask in the sun on the slope. We had been eagerly anticipating the sun's return. As if by magic, every tree blossomed overnight, and campus became one big, pink, floral wonderland. The warmer weather always brings about a palpable change in energy, and despite all of the end-of-the-semester deadlines and exams, we all feel less stressed out. It's so nice when everyone's in a good mood! I took advantage of every second I had to be outdoors, whether it was eating lunch on the Ag Quad, doing homework by a little garden (where I watched a cannibalistic squirrel in horror), running and hiking my favorite trails, or just sitting and thinking - being cooped up indoors for nearly 6 months changes you!

We ask each other all winter long why we're hunkered down in Ithaca. Spring reminds us why.

Stockholm, Sweden (Video)

Sunday Dialogues: Life is a Highway

As wonderful as school is, there's a handful of things that I miss terribly when I'm here: baking, my piano, and driving.

Contemporary Copenhagen (Copenhagen Pt II)

As I write this, I sit in a garden, in beautiful 80*F weather, surrounded by the chirps of birds and the smell of blooming flowers on a highly coveted campus in upstate NY. Days like this, I'm reminded especially of how fortunate I am to be where I am, to have had the experiences I've had. As someone who likes to compare, I find it easy to be jealous. There's countless ways to become discontent. It's easy to wish for someone else's circumstances and to become hardened by where your situation falls short. There's a lot to wish for, but oh-my-word has God provided above and beyond, and I'm really lucky to have gone on this trip with my family last summer.

I'm closing off this series with our final photos from a two-day stay in Copenhagen, Denmark. I hope you've enjoyed these stories and photos over the course of the year. It's been exciting to look back and have memories triggered as I edit photos. These blogposts have given me excuses to flip back through journals and remember the funny things my friends and family said.

Danish Royalty (Copenhagen Pt I)

Botanisk Have

Farewell in Fredericia

The sweetest moment of all.