Author: simchajfisher

What’s for supper? Vol. 405: Where I been

Happy Friday! It has been AGES since I’ve done a What’s For Supper. Sorry! First it was the day after Thanksgiving, and I just couldn’t bear to talk about food; then the next Friday I had hernia surgery so I wrote myself a doctor’s note to skip it; and then it was a week after surgery, and I hadn’t cooked anything, so didn’t have anything to say; and now it is two weeks after, and I have been so successful at allowing myself to rest and recover, I have sadly forgotten how to do that wording thing. The writing. Not to mention the cooking. 

HOWEVER, it is Friday! Happy Friday from behind a pile of Amazon and Etsy boxes. I ordered almost everything online this year (frequently reminding the children that, as they open their presents, they should keep in mind that, while their mother was shopping, she went through a whole bottle of opioids). Last night, Damien and I unboxed everything and checked it against my list.

Result: I only seem to have ordered one present twice, and accidentally thrown away a different one. This is pretty good, considering the volume! So I reordered the lost one with priority shipping and a pleading note to the seller, and Damien is going out this afternoon and filling in the gaps (because once we saw everything all piled up, it became evident that — oh, you know. We needed to rectify certain inequities. He is also buying presents for the dog and the cat, who will absolutely notice and be very hurt if they don’t get presents. And yes, he ordered special Christmas treat worms for the turtle, who will not notice if he doesn’t get a treat, but we still feel that the Incarnation is for turtles, too, in some way. Anyway, he’s getting worms. 

Sophia put up the Christmas lights inside and out, Elijah did the grocery shopping, and the older kids took turns picking kids up from school, and everyone has been cooking and cleaning and keeping the household ticking along very nicely while I just lolled. And truly, just as important and doing all the huge amount of work he did, Damien has also been tirelessly reminding me that I have to rest and I’m not being lazy or making a big deal out of nothing, and that nobody is mad at me for recuperating. I only needed to hear it 46,000 times. Maybe a couple more.

So I mostly just lurked about and showed up for meals that other people made. One such meal was Benny’s birthday, and she requested Damien’s magnificent lasagna from the Deadspin recipe

and a “dirt and worms” dessert, which she made herself, for her actual birthday. Then next week we had her party with friends, which featured a fire and hot chocolate bar outside, lots of giggling, and a parakeet cake. 

I did look up tutorials on how to make parakeets out of gum paste, and then Benny and I made some very serviceable parakeet shapes, with their beady little eyes and weird little lumpy beaks and puffy necks and everything. Then we started decorating them with melted candy melts, and this is where things went a little off the rails. 

Still clearly parakeets, but with a little dash of “you poor dear, what happened?”

I also decided it would be fun and easy to do one of those moves where you melt chocolate and use a piping bag to swirl it around on an acetate cake collar, and then just wrap it around the cake and peel the collar away, and voila, you have 

look, first you downgrade your mental image from an airy filigreed bird cage encircling the two birds, to a just sort of fancy maybe sort of bramble-like backdrop design. Then you walk away for a little bit, take some deep breaths, face reality, and get to work salvaging all the bits that broke off, and sticking them into the cake randomly so it looks like a couple of parakeets are . . . I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re being on a cake, with things sticking out. Benny made a bunch of green hearts and added sprinkles and she was happy, which is what matters. We had fun making weird birds together. 

The next day was my birthday, my FIFTIETH, when it turned out my heart’s desire was for Damien to bring home McDonald’s. Most of the adult kids came over, and Clara made some lovely key lime pies, and it was absolutely swell. 

The last couple of days, I have been actually hoisting myself out of bed in the morning, and even cooking a bit. Yesterday we had pork spiedies

which were a little bland, but fine. While I was hacking up pork, I went ahead and made a second dinner: Carnitas and beans and rice. Looks promising. 

I wrapped that up and we’ll have it on Saturday, which promises to be a bustling busy day, so it will be nice to have dinner squared away. I absolutely loathe cleaning raw meat off cutting boards and knives, so only having to do it once for two meals was irresistible. 

Today I’m going to make sabanekh bil hummus (spinach and chickpea stew) from this Saveur recipe, and serve it with store-bought pita. 

It’s easy and so savory and tasty. Damien likes it, too, and he’s not generally a big chickpea fan. 

I have not done one single speck of Christmas baking, except for a bake sale back in November. I might get ingredients for buckeyes, which are no-bake treats (it’s just basically peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar mushed into dough and then rolled into little balls, then dipped in melted chocolate). Most definitely something the kids can do basically on their own, as you can see from this pic from a few years ago

and maybe some more sugar cookies to decorate, because after school today the kids will finally be on vacation. Here is my recipe for dough that you don’t have to chill, and that keeps its shape when you bake it. 

Jump to Recipe

We have a set of star cookie cutters in graduated sizes, which you can double up (I mean make two of each size), ice them, and then stack them to make a tree, IF YOU WANT. 

If you want to pose like this for every single photo, there is not much I can do about that, apparently. 

I don’t honestly have a lot of Christmas baking specialties — just pretty standard stuff. On Christmas morning, we have cinnamon buns, bacon, OJ, egg nog, and fruit, and on Christmas evening, we get Chinese takeout (except for one kid whose relationship with Chinese food was permanently tainted by a stomach bug, so she gets a sandwich from Jersey Mike’s).

I think I settled on Alton Brown’s recipe for cinnamon rolls, because they’re meant to be made the night before and then baked in the morning. But I’m not locked in, if anyone has a suggestion for a better recipe!

And then Hanukkah starts on Christmas evening! So at some point I will probably make potato latkes, maybe sufganiyot, maybe rugelach! 

If I don’t manage to post anything in time, I wish you all, every last one of you, even the mean Russian bots, but especially people who need someone to care for them, and people who have been wearing themselves out caring for other people, a warm and good and holy last days of Advent, and a Christmas day of peace and joy with our favorite baby boy. I love yez all. 

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pork spiedies (can use marinade for shish kebob)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup veg or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup red or white wine vinegar
  • 4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup fresh mint, chopped
  • 8-10 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4-5 lbs boneless pork, cubed
  • peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, cut into chunks

Instructions

  1. Mix together all marinade ingredients. 

    Mix up with cubed pork, cover, and marinate for several hours or overnight. 

    Best cooked over hot coals on the grill on skewers with vegetables. Can also spread in a shallow pan with veg and broil under a hot broiler.

    Serve in sandwiches or with rice. 

 

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Carnitas (very slightly altered from John Herreid's recipe)

Ingredients

  • large hunk pork (butt or shoulder, but can get away with loin)
  • 2 oranges, quartered
  • 2-3 cinnamon sticks
  • 4-5 bay leaves
  • salt, pepper, oregano
  • 1 cup oil
  • 1 can Coke

Instructions

  1. Cut the pork into chunks and season them heavily with salt, pepper, and oregano.

  2. Put them in a heavy pot with the cup of oil, the Coke, the quartered orange, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves

  3. Simmer, uncovered, for at least two hours

  4. Remove the orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves

  5. Turn up the heat and continue cooking the meat until it darkens and becomes very tender and crisp on the outside

  6. Remove the meat and shred it. Serve on tortillas.

 

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No-fail no-chill sugar cookies

Basic "blank canvas"sugar cookies that hold their shape for cutting and decorating. No refrigeration necessary. They don't puff up when you bake them, and they stay soft under the icing. You can ice them with a very basic icing of confectioner's sugar and milk. Let decorated cookies dry for several hours, and they will be firm enough to stack.

Servings 24 large cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1-2 tsp vanilla and/or almond extract. (You could also make these into lemon cookies)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 cups flour

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350.

  2. Cream together butter and sugar in mixer until smooth.

  3. Add egg and extracts.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar and mix until smooth.

  6. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch. Cut cookies.

  7. Bake on ungreased baking sheets for 6-8 minutes. Don't let them brown. They may look slightly underbaked, but they firm up after you take them out of the oven, so let them sit in the pan for a bit before transferring to a cooling rack.

  8. Let them cool completely before decorating!

The bio-children of God

We are adopted children of God. What can that mean? 

Let me tell you first about a little apple tree I planted. One year, before it could even blossom, caterpillars came and devoured every leaf. I did my best to rescue it, but it was no good. Too much had been eaten.

But the next spring, to my delight, green shoots came up from the ground in that same spot, and they were raring to go. The tree came back, and I was so proud of its tenacity. It grew fast, leafed out and even made some buds.

And that is when I came to see it was not really the same tree. The tree I planted really did get eaten, and this tree was sprouting from the rootstock to which a graft of a different variety had been added. What I was seeing and caring for was some kind of ancestor resurrected from dormancy, a stubborn bud from a different, heartier rootstock. It is a crab apple, or possibly a plum, obviously very hearty, which is why it was used as a root stock. The tree I planted really is gone.

But it is also not gone; it’s here. There is a tree growing there because I planted a tree there. It’s alive because I tended it, even after it looked like it was dead. Maybe next year it will have fruit. It is not the tree I had planted, but it also is. It is there in its current form because the caterpillars ate it up.

There are a lot of places this story could go next. You are thinking, perhaps, of Advent, and Jesus as the bud on the stump of Jesse that grew in the dead of winter, when half-spent was the night. Or maybe you are thinking that the Lord has his plan all along and in his goodness will bring new green shoots out of adversity.

Those are good thoughts! I am thinking, though, about Pescha-Malke, in Vilnius, 1838.

She is my great-great-great grandmother on my mother’s side, and I just found out she exists. I knew, of course, that I had an ancestor of that generation, because, well, here I am. But I didn’t know a name or a face. But my brother turned up the name together with this photo: A dapper man with a baby on his lap, surrounded by two women, two little girls and a boy. Which one is Pesche-Malke? Maybe the one who looks like my grandmother, with her familiar amused expression, hooded eyes and broad hands. And the little girl by her side looks like two of my sisters and several of my nieces.

In the sibling chat, we speculated about which one was Pescha-Malke, a name that appears to mean “Daughter of G-d; Queen.” Anyone who might know this photo is long dead. It is the internet that has witlessly, obediently connected and preserved these old faces and names; and then my brother searched and brought them to light.

But they weren’t really ever lost; they were in the rootstock, which continues to bud.

We can recognize that little, half-formed family smile; and we recognize the thyroid problems, which still flourish. Genetics is real. Heritage is real. It stays alive under the surface, whether anyone’s keeping track of it or not, until someone brings it to light, in one form or another.

I have been thinking, then, about what it means to be someone’s child, and what it means to be an adopted child. Does genetics matter, or does it not? Is it important, or does it just feel that way?

Adopted children seem to think so. Bodies matter, not only at the moment of conception but in ways that do not manifest themselves for years. As you grow, no matter where you are, you continue to “match” where you came from, biologically. And the synchronicity with your roots continues to assert itself more as you get older. It’s true for everyone, adopted or not.

Not long ago, I looked in the mirror, and there she was: my grandmother. I had no idea the old gal was in there. Who knows what had to fall away or be chewed up, in order for her face to come to light.

God knows the people in my family photo were only a decade or so away from being set upon by a ravening swarm that devoured and destroyed. (You’ll notice my family doesn’t live in Vilnius anymore.) But the rootstock endured. The tree that’s growing now is the same tree that was originally planted.

Well, it is the same tree and it isn’t. It is something new, and it is something very old.

I am talking about everybody, now: Everybody who is an adopted child of God, which is all humankind. We are from the same rootstock as our Father, and we aren’t.

To be an adopted child of God means a lot of things…Read the rest of my latest for America Magazine. 

It’s probably not demons

A while back, I wrote about how unfortunate it is that we often waste the time and energy of priests, asking them to do things that lots of other people could do. A priest once told me that this is the hardest part of his job, the non-priest stuff. It’s not that he thinks he’s too good to do office work or manual labour or show up at a BBQ; it’s just that he knows there are things that only a priest can do, and he wishes more people would ask him for those things.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a related phenomenon; people asking priests to do things that not only other people can do, but that priests really aren’t qualified to do. This happens a lot in Catholic online groups…someone will ask for advice, and several people respond, “Go to a priest.”

They frequently tell people seek marriage counselling from a priest, rather than from a marriage counsellor. Some priests may happen to be trained or especially gifted in this field, but most truly are not. It’s not a question of holiness; it’s just that counselling and therapy are specialised fields, and you can’t just show up and be holy, and expect good results, any more than you’d expect a holy priest to be able to give you good advice when your lymphatic system isn’t working well, or your vision is poor. There may very well be some overlap with spiritual matters, but that doesn’t mean a priest is the best person to go to. And a good priest will know this and say so to the person who requests this kind of help from them.

More and more often; and this coincides with an alarming rise in the fascination with “celebrity exorcists,” I see Catholics encouraging others to go to priests when someone is clearly suffering from a mental health crisis. A common example; a worried mother posts in a social media group for Catholics, saying her child has always been difficult, but there has been a recent, extreme escalation of erratic or violent behavior, and the child isn’t responding to any normal interventions, and she doesn’t know what to do.

The last time I saw this scenario, no fewer than 20 other moms told her to run to a priest and request an exorcism. Sounds like demons! Go to a priest.

Let me be clear: this is negligent parenting…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

image source (Creative Commons)

Untamed territory: The iconogrphy of Emanuel Burke

“Iconography is not a science, where you follow the formula and someone has an encounter with God,” said artist Emanuel Burke.

“That’s not the way it works.”

Burke ought to know. The 33-year-old artist, who works under the pseudonym Alypius, recently saw one of his icons of Jesus shared on social media.

But far from encountering God, dozens of viewers jeered at his work and called him a fake Christian who was trying to undermine the Church. He had depicted Christ with large eyes and a small head, rather than with the prominent brow that often signifies wisdom in icons.

Burke, who is a convert to and a seminarian in the Eastern Orthodox church, found it especially discouraging to face personal attacks from his fellow believers. But he tried his best to respond with humility and a kind of radical acceptance.

“We long to be right in an argument, not to be perceived a certain way. But there’s a lot to be gained from being a fool, from being slandered and misunderstood,” he said. “I don’t know how that will shake out for me and for others, but in the end, it’ll be blessed.”

An art teacher at Canongate Catholic High School in Arden, North Carolina, Burke knows some of his icons are unusual and don’t conform to every standard of the art form. Though he doesn’t have any formal training in fine art, he’s very familiar with the traditions that dictate the spiritual significance of color, shapes and gestures in Eastern iconography. But he said these traditions have developed over time and are not as inviolable as some might believe.

“They are not dogmatics, in the same way as the Trinity or the hypostatic union or something like that is,” he said.

Burke rejects the idea, popular in some circles, that “if it doesn’t look like it was painted in the 9th century, it’s not an icon.” In fact, he thinks an icon that strives primarily to look like it is ancient fails in what iconography is intended to do.

“The thing about iconography is it’s always contemporary. It’s not supposed to be stuck in the past,” he said.

Instead, it is intended to speak to, and to be received by, the people who will actually encounter it.

Contemporary — but not modern

There’s a vast divide between the modern understanding and the ancient Christian understanding of art, Burke said, and he didn’t immediately grasp that difference. As a result, his first icons were a clumsy blend of traditional imagery and modern sensibilities. He ended up sanding down his first attempt to show the face of Christ and painting over it.

“The telltale sign (of a modern understanding of art) is the overemphasis on individualism. ‘This is the way I see things or how I feel about it,’” he said.

Then each viewer brings his or her subjective interpretation to the work, and it becomes even more individualized and fragmented in meaning, he said. “Whereas with the approach of a Byzantine or Orthodox iconographer, we do this with the mind of the Church. It’s never about me or another individual in a very rigid sense,” he said.

The artist is involved by necessity because he, too, is venerating the icon even as he paints it. Burke speaks of the work of painting as a work of self-discernment.

“But I don’t see myself as the only participant,” he said.

The viewer is just as important, and in a sense, the work is incomplete until it has been beheld. The face of Christ that got Burke so much unwelcome attention online was the 21st installment in a series he undertook during Advent, which the Orthodox treat as a “Little Lent.” As a discipline, he tried — but did not quite manage — to make an image of the face of Christ every day for the 40 days leading up to Christmas.

Some of the images were painted with egg tempera; some were etchings done while he was experimenting with a cold wax technique, which uses a combination of paste and paint. He also works in ballpoint pen or even with Procreate, the digital painting app. He sees the value in making digital art that’s easy to edit and share, though he’s more drawn to the “very human” natural and tactile materials of egg tempera.

Burke admires some of the new styles of icons being produced in the Eastern Orthodox churches, especially in Ukraine. He likes their bold colors and use of geometric shapes. But he doesn’t like everything new he sees. Some innovations in modern iconography go further afield than he’s comfortable with. However, he doesn’t feel that he’s qualified to say that they’ve gone too far.

“These things get worked out over time. The openness to do something that’s a bit different helps move things away from that sort of robotic, printing-press approach to religious art,” he said.

Journey into untamed territory

Burke recently watched “Stalker,” a 1979 Soviet sci-fi film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It deals with a man who’s gone into “a wilderness that has been taken over with the modern innovations that were brought on by the Soviet Union.” He said that the film suggests that the experience of God is like this: It’s wild and untamed territory, and “not always a pleasant experience,” but sometimes a necessary one.

Burke himself was somewhat shaken when he first encountered the faith he now hopes to serve as a priest. He and his wife were raised Southern Baptist, although his wife, who was born in Thailand, also has early memories of practicing Buddhism. They were “freaked out” when they attended their first Divine Liturgy….Read the rest of my latest artist profile for Our Sunday Visitor. 

Tension and balance: The sculpture of Christopher Alles

Christopher Alles, aged 33, is the father of five kids under the age of five, including triplet girls aged 2. So you might think he was describing his home life when he said it’s “everything everywhere all at once.”

But he was actually speaking about art and how to understand it.

“You have multiple things going on at the same time, and it takes a while to get comfortable managing them: Composition, representation, abstract form, the expressiveness of the character. You have to be juggling everything at the same time,” he said.

The New York-based sculptor sometimes feels the magnitude of that “everything everywhere all at once” task on a cosmic scale, especially when he’s carving; and it’s an experience he finds immensely satisfying.

“You’re taking something that’s meaningless and incoherent, and bringing order, separating things,” he said.

He describes forming a sculpted foot, first separating it from the base of the statue, then forming the front and sides of the foot like simple walls that gradually take on definition and meaning.

“It’s like God separating the land and the water. You’re making distinctions. Gradually things come together,” he said.

But if Alles shares in God’s creative process, he’s definitely not omniscient like God, or totally in control of what he’s making.

“As you go along, things change and emerge. You feel like you’re not in charge,” he said.

There is a mysterious element to making art, and even as he proceeds along the thoughtful and laborious process from making sketches, to miniature clay figures, to full-size armatured clay sculptures, to mold, to final cast poured in resin and marble, he’s sometimes surprised at how various elements work themselves out.

He points to a recent secular commission, “Apollo and Daphne,” a startlingly explosive figurative piece that seems to fly out from a central point suspended in the air, rather than from the ground.

“The composition was just playing around. The sort of geometric form of angles and lines just sort of emerged; it was spontaneous,” he said.

It invites the viewer to feel, rather than just see, the tension between the energies of the covetous god and the hapless nymph, who becomes rooted in the earth as a tree to escape his assault.

But Alles focuses mainly on sacred art, and he recognizes that another thing that’s out of his control is what the viewer actually sees.

“It’s hard, as an artist, to see your own work in the way other people see it,” said Alles. “Other people read things into my work that I didn’t see.”

Alles recalls a statue of St. Joseph with the young Jesus…Read the rest of my latest artist profile for Our Sunday Visitor. 

Image: Photo courtesy of Chris Alles 

Kitchen rosary winner! And a discount code for The Woodshop At Avalon

I’m happy to announce that the winner of the Kitchen Rosary from The Woodshop at Avalon is Kim Pepper! Her name was chosen randomly from everyone who entered. Thanks to everyone who entered, and thanks to The Woodshop At Avalon for sponsoring this giveaway!

If you didn’t win, you can still order one of their beautiful abacus-style kitchen rosaries

and while you’re at it, use the 10% discount code: Enter in SMALLS24 when you check out, and you will get 10% off. The code is good until Dec. 7, 2024.

Dec. 7 is also the last day to order custom goods, so check it out! They make a variety of handcrafted goods for your Catholic home or office, for babies, and for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium. A very popular item right now is the simple but clever prayer card holder, which is only $9.99. 

This size fits on most windowsills, and you can just pop in a prayer card to display the saint of the day, or keep a memorial card in it, etc. It even has storage, so the cards you’re not using won’t get lost or wrecked. You can have it engraved with “ora pro nobis” or “pray for us,” and it comes in three different finishes and two sizes. You can also order four beeswax votive candles directly from the site. 

Don’t forget to use your discount code! Yay, small business! 

 

 

A giveaway from The Woodshop At Avalon!

It’s Small Business Saturday, and I want to introduce you to a new-to-me store: The Woodshop At Avalon. This is a family-run business and I really like their simple, dignified goods that are designed to work with everyday Catholic living.
I have a DISCOUNT CODE and a GIVEAWAY! 

First, let’s take a look at what they make: 

 

Much better than letting them float around in the bottom of your purse indefinitely, which in my current system. These would make nice stocking stuffers, or little gifts for any Catholic. 
 

I have my eye on this lovely rustic icon shrine

made of unfinished cedar, with room for candles or a small statue inside. 

They also have a number of goods for kids and babies, like this teething rattle 

and engraved goods, like these custom etched wooden plaques, with your choice of words: 

They also make Catechesis of the Good Shepherd materials and they specialize in custom work, so if you have something special in mind, get in touch. 

They offer an especially custom cool service: They can use wood from objects with sentimental value and turn them into a new goods — for instance, “an old, but beloved, piano” was upcycled to craft “a gorgeous frame from a PHD certificate and an ornate shelf featuring a series of the piano keys.” 

Note: For custom orders for Christmas, please be sure to order by December 7!

One more very cool item (but there are more at the shop, so check it out!): This Tenebrae Hearse Candle Holder 

Very cool way to observe Tenebrae in Lent. It comes in walnut, cherry, or a combination. 

The discount code! Enter in SMALLS24 when you check out, and you will get 10% off. The code is good until Dec. 7, 2024.

Now for the giveaway! Yay, I love a giveaway! The Woodshop At Avalon is giving away one of their pretty handmade cherrywood kitchen abacus-style rosaries. 

 

When daily life is full of hands-on tasks, it can be hard to find the time to sit down and pray. And when we somehow manage it, an interruption often makes us lose our place and grow discouraged in the practice. This abacus-style rosary can sit on your kitchen counter or the window sill above the sink to help you keep your heart focused even as your hands are going every direction. It helps us realize the goal of making all our daily work into a prayer. Or it can hang at eye level for children who might wish to say a Hail Mary in the middle of their play, contributing to a family rosary for a shared intention. However you choose to place it in your home, we hope it is a reminder of our Blessed Mother’s ceaseless intercession on behalf of your family.

I love the idea of people passing through and adding a Hail Mary or two to the collective family rosary. A great habit to pick up during Advent. 

This piece is priced at $45.99, but to take us up to the beginning of Advent, the folks at The Woodshop At Avalon are giving away one as a gift to one random winner. Here is how to enter the drawing: 

-Sign up for their mailing list (click here, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and enter you email address)

and/or

-Share a link to their store or one of their items on your social media

and/or

-Share this blog post on social media 

and/or

-Do something else helpful to spread the word about this business!

You can do any or all of these things to earn entries. For each thing you do, leave a comment on this post (not on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, but right here, on my site!). So if you do two things, please leave two separate comments; etc. This is using the honor system, because I know you are all honorable people and I am really fed up with Rafflecopter.

The contest will be open Saturday and Sunday, and I will use a random number selector to choose a winner on Monday morning. 

Good luck! And if you order, don’t forget to use the discount code SMALLS24. It is good until Dec. 7, 2024.

 
 
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

50 gifts our ten kids loved: The 2024 list!

The time has come! It’s the 2024 Christmas present idea list. These are items we actually bought and enjoyed. I think this is the tenth year I’ve written this list up. I deeply wish I had also kept track of the things the kids give each other, because some of them are absolutely brilliant. But this is a start. 
 
Here is the master list compiling the first eight years of recommended gifts, organized by kind. and here is last year’s list with another 50 or so. I’m sorry, I’m lazy and haven’t consolidated everything yet. Still, hundreds of ideas. Most from Amazon, some from Etsy, some from misc. The monster list has present ideas for babies on up; the other lists are for kids age 8 or 9 or so on up. 
 

 


This year, we became fascinated by paper marbling videos, and I bought this kit on a whim so we could try it at home. Caveat: You have to prepare the ink mixture and then wait six hours before using it, so plan accordingly.  But once it was ready to go, it was fun and easy and satisfying. 
 
 
Just a cheapsky little fidget toy, but it has a million little articulation points and is fun to handle. Comes in several colors, and people are selling lots of different 3D printed animals and creatures. 
 

Mastermind/Codebreaker game

I myself hunted down the version with the bearded evil genius seated in a swivel chair and tenting his fingers while his glamorous companion in a futuristic white dress gazes inscrutably at the camera, but YOU can just get the normal version, which is the same in a more boring box.  This game takes about ten minutes to play. One person sets up four colored pegs behind a little shield, and the other person has to guess what they are by setting up four pegs of their own on their own side. The first person responds with up to four coded pegs: Black for “right color, right position,” and white for “right color, wrong position.” That’s it. It’s mostly logic, but a little bit of psychology, too. 

Perler beads! Still!
 

and peg boards to make your designs on. I bought these to take with us on vacation, and the teenagers used them all week long, making up all kinds of goofy designs. I think this is the only thing I’ve actually ironed in the last decade. 
 
 
Just a young feller. Decent detail for the price. Maybe you know someone who would appreciate getting a netsuke. 
 
 
 

There are, in this world, Hawaiian shirts with every possible thing printed on them. Perhaps your household has a tomato lover in it, who would enjoy this shirt. 

Fishing magnet

I actually got this for myself, because I like magnets. It comes on a lonnnnnnng cord, and gloves to help you keep your grip. I haven’t found anything in the water yet (I got a little spooked out, to be honest, dragging that thing in the dark water; but I’ll be braver next time), but there are plenty of things to be found on land. Magnets! How do they work! 

 
In all these years, I have still never sat down and watched a full episode of Teen Titans, but all my kids will gather together and watch it and laugh, so how bad could it be? 
 
 

I’m not defending this. I’m just saying, if you have a kid who would like a Sonic the Hedgehog Official Cookbook, here it is!

monster paw slippers

I like these because those silly novelty slippers always leave you with chilly bare ankles. But these make your ankles monstrous! Delightful. 

 
This is a dog toy, not a kid toy, but I’m mentioning it because our super gnawer has been super gnawing on this for a solid year, and it’s still in one piece. 
 
 
You definitely know someone who would needs this on their desk. And if you want to roll up a $20 bill and stuff it in the secret compartment, you can do that, too!
 

astronaut nebula projector

Cute little projector. Stands up and has a number of different colors and settings, and the projection covers a large area. 

and bird food

An attractive little bird feeder for a decent price. 

 

Important book for the comic artist! 
 
 
There are many, many wax stamp sealing sets in lots of styles and vibes. Kids are sending letters again, aren’t they? I don’t know. 
 
 
 
As described. Meow!
 
 

More wax sealing supplies! Somebody needs to put this stuff in order, my goodness. 

 

A classic for anyone interested in animation. 
 
 
Batman! Batmen! Batmani!
And to save your puzzle so you can store it away and work on it later: 
 
 
 
As advertised. Soft and reasonably well-made. 
 
 
Wrap yourself in the many faces of the original loverboy of Tokyo: Godzilla. 
 
 
This is fun and works well. It makes little fish-shaped waffles with a space inside, so you can fill them with whatever, Nutella or bean paste or ice cream or whatever you like. 
 
 
Enormous, comfy, soft, and durable. And yes, the cover is removable and washable if someone gets never mind what all over it. Comes in many colors. 
 
 

Another animation must-have. 

 
Floating monster eyeballs! These come in many colors and varieties. 
 

robot hand game control holder 

 
The store we got this from doesn’t seem to be open anymore, but it’s a neat idea, and there are several other styles made by various other people. It holds your game controller or remote (or whatever you want), and you can mount it on the wall or set it on your desk. 
 
A solid Miyzaki collection you can find for under $50 in many places. Nothing like a boxed set!
 
This is kinda dumb, but you can have any photo printed on a pillowcase that’s covered with those sequins that you can flip. You know what I mean. Those flippy sequins with the secret picture underneath, but it’s some silly picture that you chose! Comes in several colors. Make sure you order a pillow insert, not just the pillowcase. 
 

A nicely-designed game for kids more oriented to storytelling than strategy. 

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

I actually love this game. It’s so stupid but lots of fun, and it’s quick and portable. It’s also a game where younger kids actually have an advantage over adults, because their reflexes are faster. 

 
 
Pretty little Greek-looking earrings. 
 

The Odd Giraffe Earrings

Laser cut wooden or acrylic earrings in bright, cute designs. I can’t share the specific earrings we bought, although we’ve bought several over the years, because she’s always turning out new designs. All our Odd Giraffe earrings always fetch lots of compliments, and the customer service goes above and beyond.  

 

Cherry skull earrings

The perfect earrings for that one kid. I definitely didn’t secretly want them for myself. 

And that’s it! If I think of more, I’ll add them to the list. Don’t forget to check out the monster list. Happy shopping! 

 
 
 
 
 

Handy kitchen substitutes, just don’t tell your grandmother

Ah, Thanksgiving, when everyone’s kitchen goes into overdrive, turning out goodies and sweets to keep the nation’s tummies merry and bright.

But sooner or later, every busy baker and clever cook is bound to hit a snag: The recipe calls for an ingredient you simply don’t have. You thought the bottle of vanilla was fresh, but it’s almost empty. You could have sworn the carton was full, but only one or two eggs remain. What to do?

You could send your husband to the convenience store to get gouged. Everyone enjoys that, especially Yogi, who is doing the gouging. (This is not racist. His name is Yogi and boy does he gouge.) Or, you could put on your thinking toque and rustle up a substitute.

A substitute! Good kitchen sense means thinking on your feet, and substitutes are the backbone of baking, unless you are, in fact, cooking a backbone, and you are out of backbone. Then you’re out of luck. 

Here are some of my most-used kitchen substitutions:

Short on eggs? Substitute 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce for each egg you’re missing. Or you could swap in half a mashed banana. Just don’t think too hard about why it’s okay to use banana, which is stuffed with sucrose, but the substitution guides always specify unsweetened applesauce. Baking is a science, okay? And science means you shut up. If you don’t have apples or bananas or eggs, you could always use arrowroot powder. I won’t tell you how much, because we all know you don’t have arrowroot powder. Dude, you don’t even have eggs. 

Recipe calls for buttermilk but you’re fresh out? The next best thing is a scant cup of regular milk with a tablespoon of vinegar stirred in. Let it sit for five minutes before stirring, to give the ghost of your grandmother a chance to sidle in and make that sucking noise she makes when you did something stupid; then continue cooking as normal. *kshhh*

Sour cream and yogurt are very often interchangeable, so feel free to swap them in and out. In and out! You could even use cottage cheese. In and out, up and down, side-side-side-side-side! You could even try mayonnaise, as long as there are enough other strong ingredients to mask the flavor. Few people know this, but mayonnaise is actually made of cheese. A dairy product, if you will. Yes it is. Why is it cheese-colored, then? 

Recipe calls for unsalted butter, but all you have is salted? Get over yourself. No one cares. What is this for, cookies? Your cookies are rubbery little wrinkled dough puddles with hair in them. Gray hair. People are buying them at the bake sale solely to remove them from public view. The salt ratio being marginally out of balance is not what’s going to make or break your project, bunky. 

Springform pan gone missing? Try taking a normal pan and lining it with tinfoil, then putting little pebbles from the stream all along the inside. Crimp the tinfoil along the top end and fashion little vents with a melon baller, then pour the batter over that with a wry little twisting motion of the wrist while looking in the other direction and pretending not to notice what is happening. It won’t do anything, but at least you could try. Try putting your husband’s car keys in there. Put Meow Mix, see if I care.

A little low on flour? Try this trick: Slowly tear the pages out of your most infuriating cookbook with all the precious details about a frugal but free-spirited childhood in Soho, and stuff them into the food processor. Add a little truffle oil, pulse two or three times, and boom. You’ll have an excuse to go to the Salvation Army and pick yourself out a new food processor. While you’re out, you can get some flour. 

Lost your will to live? Try eating, instead. 

Hope this helps, and happy baking! *kshhh*

Three years later, Voris is sorry, but the lawsuit isn’t over

By Damien Fisher

It took more than three years of litigation and the destruction of a right-wing Catholic news outlet, but New Hampshire’s Rev. Georges de Laire finally got Gary Michael Voris to say he’s sorry.

Voris settled the federal defamation lawsuit de Laire brought in 2021 over articles based on the reporting of nomadic canon lawyer and erstwhile Voris confidante Marc Balestrieri.

The apology Voris finally offered came this summer, after his online news outfit, Church Militant, shut down and his non-profit, Saint Michael’s Media, paid $500,000 to de Laire.

“I offer my full and genuine apology to Fr. de Laire for any hurt or emotional distress he suffered as a result of a news article titled ‘New Hampshire Vicar Changes Dogma Into Heresy’ on the St. Michael’s Media website churchmilitant.com on January 17, 2019,” Voris wrote in his apology letter.

Suzanne Elovecky, de Laire’s attorney, said Voris’ apology came with a “substantial” monetary payment to de Laire. Elovecky called the settlement a “complete victory” over Voris.

“It’s a good thing for Fr. de Laire and really shows Voris was on his heels,” Elovecky.

The lawsuit isn’t done, though, as Balestrieri’s end of the case remains unresolved. Already deemed liable for defaulting in the lawsuit, Balestrieri is currently trying to get out of paying damages to de Laire. The priest wants Balestrieri to pay at least $100,000, according to court records. 

Marc Balestrieri

Voris’ outlet published videos and articles starting in January of 2019 calling de Laire ‘emotionally unstable,’ stating de Laire is incompetent, and implying he’s corrupt, according to the lawsuit. The articles came in response to the Roman Catholic Diocese of New Hampshire disciplining the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a fringe traditionalist group with a compound in rural Richmond, New Hampshire. At the time, de Laire was the judicial vicar for the diocese and the front man for dealing with the Slaves. 

Voris initially took credit for the article and kept secret that Balestrieri was the true author. Additionally, at the time the original article came out, Balestrieri was involved in the Slave’s canon law defense. Both Voris and Louis Villarubbia, the Slaves leader also known as Brother Andre Marie, claimed they had no knowledge of Balestrieri’s conflict of interest. 

Voris placed a large chunk of the blame for the articles on his failure to properly vet Balestrieri’s work. 

“As CEO of St. Michael’s Media and Church Militant.com, I did not ensure the proper vetting the article as I should have. Mr. Balestrieri did not substantiate, and has not substantiated in the lawsuit, his claims regarding Father de Laire by identifying sources. Prior to publication, SMM should have questioned this lack of substantiation, and should have assessed Mr. Balistieiri’s and his story’s objectivity. I did not ensure that SMM did so,” Voris wrote. 

Court records show Voris worked to keep Balestrieri’s identity secret for months after the lawsuit was filed. After Balestrieri’s connection came to light, Voris supplied him with an interest-free $65,000 loan as Balestrieri dodged process servers. Balestrieri was finally ruled in default and liable for the defamation for failing to respond to the lawsuit. 

As the case moved closer to a fall, 2023 trial, court records show de Laire’s team learned Voris and his Church Militant staff had been hiding evidence sought in discovery, including messages with Balestrieri. Balestrieri then made a surprise appearance at a June, 2023 hearing in the United States District Court in Concord seeking to get out from under the default judgement. 

Weeks before, Balestrieri denied to Villarubbia that he had written the original article. At the June hearing, Balestreiri agreed to sit for a deposition scheduled for July, 2023 during which he was likely to repeat that denial under oath. However, court records show the day of the June hearing, Voris sent Balestreiri a text message warning.

“Marc – you are committing perjury. You know you wrote that article. What you don’t know is this morning we found proof – your digital fingerprints – all totally documented – on that article. Remember the email address – TomMoore@Churchmilitant.com.? We have all the receipts. You go through with this and we will rain down on you publicly. You are a liar, and a Welch,” Voris wrote.

Balestrieri cancelled his deposition 24 hours before it was to start, and again disappeared from the scene for a time. 

From this point on, Church Militant and Voris were headed for disaster. Three defense lawyers quit the case, more evidence that had been withheld was found, Voris was fired for violating Church Militant’s “morality clause” via a gay sex scandal, and Church Militant ran out of money. In February, the outlet agreed to settle with de Laire for half a million dollars before it went dark in April.

Voris has since resurfaced with a MAGA-flavored Catholic news website called Souls and Liberty based in Houston, Texas.

Balestrieri also reappeared this month, filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the legal theory he cannot be sued in New Hampshire for defamation since he never went to New Hampshire when writing the article, and the article was published by Church Militant’s Ferndale, Michigan office.

***

Image: Still from interview in which Voris argues CBS should lose its license for violating journalistic standards