YOU GUYS!!!! [updated with corrections]

Boy, we had to wait forever to spill the beans, but I’m very, very pleased to announce that

YOU CAN PRE-ORDER THE BOOK ON AMAZON!!!

What book? you ask.  The book that SIMCHA WROTE?

No, don’t be silly.  I can barely get up the energy to come up with a subordinate clause these days, never mind a whole book.

I did, however, write a chapter!

I dibsed the one on motherhood, since it will be years before my kids are old enough to get up the courage to express how misguided I was and how horribly I warped them with my stupid ideas about motherhood, and maybe the world will come to an end before I have to deal with it.

The book is

Style, Sex, and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter

 and I am genuinely thrilled about the line-up of contributors!

Firstaball, it was conceived and edited by the astonishing Hallie Lord of Betty Beguiles.   Now check out the list of writers she assembled.  [NOTE:  This is the corrected list.  Sorry for the mix-up!]

Introduction and Afterward by Hallie Lord

and chapters by: Jennifer Fulwiler

 Karen Edmisten

Me!

Rachel Balducci

Annie Mitchell

Rebecca Teti

Hallie Lord

Betty Duffy

Danielle Bean

Barbara Nicolosi

I almost feel silly linking to these writers’ websites, because surely you already have them bookmarked.

Here’s the official summary:

In Style, Sex, and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter, ten of the top Catholic female writers come together to offer tips, encouragement, and a bit of humor for their sisters in the trenches of daily life. From the difficulties of fitting in prayer time to the impact that lots of babies have on intimacy to the unique challenges of the single life, each author digs deep into the issues that real Catholic women think about. With the tone of a group of gals gathered around a bottle of wine, it is sure to be a hit with all Catholic women, whether they need practical tips in areas in which they struggle, words of encouragement, or just a bit of entertainment after a long day.

Did I mention that

you can pre-order the book,

and that it will be coming out in March of 2012?

It’s published by Our Sunday Visitor Press.  Thank you, Hallie, for including me in this project.

Twofer Costumes for the Conflicted Catholic Family

All right, there’s not actually any way I can pass off this styrofoam replica of a golden fertility idol

meant to resemble this one from Raiders of the Lost Ark

as remotely suitable for an All Saints’ Day party.  It does hold special meaning for me, though, because as I studied the above photo intently while jabbing at a ball of styrofoam with a spoon, I noted the exact moment when I began to freak out about giving birth.  (Yes, I censored the model I made, for reasons other than running out of styrofoam.  It’s for my 7-year old son, who asks enough questions as it is.)

Here’s a tip for you:  it’s harder than you’d think to make a golden idol out of styrofoam, tin foil, spray paint, duct tape, and a spoon.  But the boy is happy.

Anyway, for others who are still hunting for a way to send their kids trick-or-treating AND to an All Saints’ Day party, I have the solution.

Porn Addiction, Documented

Today you can see my interview with Sean Finnegan, director of the award-winning documentary Out Of the Darkness.  

The film wasn’t what I expected:  they didn’t try to make it interesting by showing censored or fleeting images of porn; and it wasn’t a tirade or a doom-and-gloom litany of devastating statistics.  Instead, it shows the human side of pornography, with interviews with a former porn star and a former porn addict, among others.  Good stuff, keeps your attention.  I would especially recommend it for youth groups and men’s groups, or for anyone who thinks porn is kind of no big deal.

A big fat lady just sat on my hat (again)

(This post is a rerun from last year, posted mainly because maybe you want to make some suppli.  We do!)

—————————-

So, we celebrate Columbus Day here.  As I’ll be rehashing in the Register tomorrow, it’s not because I think he was a perfect man (there was only one of those.  We get His day off school, too), or because I think that his achievement brought unmitigated blessings to mankind.  Still and all, I’m glad to be on this continent, I’m glad to have a three-day weekend, and I love me some eye-talian food.

On the menu is bruschetta with various disgusting toppings that the kids won’t eat, mwa ha ha ha ha hahh (that was the sound of me contemplating eating it all myself), some kind of antipasto with intimidating salami, damp cheeses, muscular olives, and those awful marinated vegetables I can’t get enough of, bread sticks and probably spaghetti for the kids, probably mussels or something, suppli, cannoli with cherries and shaved chocolate, and Italian ices.  It’s possible that some wine might leap into the shopping cart all by itself, too.

As you can see, this is a pretty Americanized Italian feast.  That’s just my way of sticking it to l’uomo.  Take that, Columbus!  If you’re such a hero, how come we’re not eating . . . well, I tried and tried to think of some kind of authentic Italian food which sounds gross, but I really couldn’t.  Maybe something with, like, ox brains or something?  The worst thing I had to eat in Rome was rabbit, and that was only kind of awful because we thought it was chicken, until we realized the legs were bending the wrong way.  Oh, and there were some kind of snack food that was exactly like biodegradable packing peanuts.  Those weren’t very good — or filling, which was terribly important for a student who was living on about 70 cents a day.

Anyway, here is my recipe for suppli, which is what we had for lunch most days in Rome (one semester in college).  They cost 800 – 1,000 lire each, a few years before they switched –sniff sniff– to the Euro.  Normally, I wouldn’t touch a recipe with a secondary recipe in it, but this one is worth it, believe me!

(photo source)

SUPPLI

2 eggs

2 cups risotto (see recipe below)

4 oz. mozzarella in 1/2-inch cubes

3/4 cup bread crumbs

oil for frying

tomato sauce, if you like

Beat eggs lightly until just combined.

Add risotto and stir thoroughly, but do not mash rice.

If you want tomato sauce (this is how they were served in Rome), add it now – just enough to make it tomato-y, without thinning the mixture.

Form a ball about the size of a golf ball, make a little dent in it, stick a cube of cheese in the dent, and then add on another golf-ball sized lump of the rice mixture.  Form it all into a smooth egg shape.  Roll the whole thing in bread crumbs.  Do this until you use up all the rice mixture.

Refrigerate the balls for 30 minutes if you can, to make them easier to fry.

Heat oil to 375 degrees; preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Fry 4 or 5 balls at a time, about 5 minutes until they are golden brown.  The cheese inside should be melted.

Drain on paper towels, and keep the suppli warm in the oven while you are frying the rest — but these should be served pretty soon.

 

Risotto recipe:

7 cups chicken stock

4 Tbs butter

1/2 cup finely chopped onions

2 cups raw white rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

4 Tbs soft butter

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Set chicken stock to simmer in a pot.

In a large pan, melt 4 Tbs. butter – cook onions until soft but not brown.

Stir in raw rice and cook 1-2 minutes until the grains glisten and are opaque.

Pour in the wine and boil until wine is absorbed.

Add 2 cups of simmering stock and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally until the liquid is almost absorbed.

Add 2 more cups of stock and cook until absorbed.

If the rice is not tender by this point, keep adding 1/2 cups of stock until it is tender.

Gently stir in the 4 Tbs soft butter and the grated cheese with a fork.

I came by it honestly.

It has come to my attention that I — I! — am the proud winner in The Crescat’s final year of her deliberately unpresitgious Cannonball Awards.  Here are the winners:

Best Blog by a Religious: Fr. Longenecker’s Standing on My Head

Best Political Blog: Adrienne’s Catholic Corner

More Catholic Than the Pope: Real Catholic TV

Best Armchair Theologian:Little Catholic Bubble

Best Visual Treat: Betty Beguiles

Most Church Militant: It’s a tie! Defend Us in Battle, and Cleansing Fire

Best New Kid on the Block: Heart For God

Best Blog by a Heretic: Bad Vestments

Best Under Appreciated Blog: Barefoot & Pregnant

Best Spiritual Treat: Blessed is the Kingdom

Bat Shit Crazy: I Have to Sit Down

Best Potpourri of Popery: Shoved to Them

Snarkiest Catholic Blog: Acts of the Apostasy

Most Hifreakinlarious: another tie! Acts of the Apostasy and The Ironic Catholic

Blog that Needs to be Updated More Often: Recovering Dissident Catholic

Yes, that’s right, I came in first, with a disturbingly wide lead, in the “Bat Shit Crazy” category.

I’m not going to argue.  All I can say is that if you knew my family, you’d know where it came from.  Case in point: a recent Facebook conversation, for which I laboriously learned how to take a screen shot (you press the “screen shot” button).

Click on the image to enlarge and behold . . . the bat shit craziness.

Anyway, many thanks to the fabulous Crescat, who could have won a fair number of these awards herself, if she weren’t too cool, and too busy moving to her new headquarters.  Don’t forget to check out her new art blog, too.

And shall not loveliness be loved forever?

For show and tell yesterday, my daughter brought in these pictures:

Our dear little Shrimpy at 28 weeks, due December 9!

I won! We won! Everybody won!

Thanks so much, everyone, if you voted for me for “Funniest Blog” in the Catholic New Media Awards — I won!  I’ve been putting off announcing it because I felt a sudden, overbearing pressure to be, well, the funniest blog.  But when I sat down at the keyboard and was like, “Come on, brain!  Joke!” my brain was all, “Oh, um, ahhh!  Wocka WOCKA!”  My husband laughed, but I wasn’t sure I could put it across.

Anyway, lots of excellent choices were made:

The National Catholic Register won Best Overall Catholic Website and Best Group Blog!

Hallie Lord won Most Entertaining Blog for Betty Beguiles!

Jen Fulwiler won Everything for Most Everything Everything in the world — and I voted for her, darn it, because she’s that good!(Specifically, Conversion Diary won Best Blog By a Woman, Best Written Blog, Most Spiritual Blog, People’s Choice, Tallest Catholic Blogger, Fastest Catholic Typist, Nicest Catholic Teeth, and Most Insidious Subliminal Messages On a Catholic Blog, If You Read It Backwards While Stoned.)

The Anchoress, The Crescat, Creative Minority Report, Bad Catholic, That Strangest of Wars, and The Ironic Catholic are also favorites of mine which won awards from New Catholic Media.  Do check them out — that is, after all, the purpose of these awards:  to encourage people to read good stuff they may have missed.*

I spent all morning pushing to get a super secret project done (more details soon!), and then I went to the post-hurricane beach with the kids for several hours, in an effort to forget that people are still mad — mad! — at me for saying that Thomas Kinkade should be taken out and slowly beheaded with blunt sporks because of all the baby ducklings I hear he’s been torturing, or whatever it was I apparently said.  Then I made supper.

Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you is that I left someone off, or messed up all the links again, I’m just tired.  And if you sent me congratulations and I forgot to respond, I’m sorry — I’m just tired.  I know, we’re all tired.  We’re all Tiredest Catholic Bloggers.  We win!

*That’s to answer the implied question of my 12-year-old daughter, who just said, “Oh, you won?  And you won . . . a picture of a trophy?  Okay.”

Nose Newts

1.  Vote for me in the Catholic New Media Awards!  Voting closes Friday, August 26.  You have to register (that’s how they make sure people only vote once — you know how sneaky Catholics are), but it’s very fast and easy, and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped me achieve something about which Vox Nova,in a statement entirely devoid of envy, snobbery, or tear-stained, puppy-kicking denial, says, “The absurdity of such awards should be self-evident.”

2. Vote for the National Catholic Register for best group blog!  Because, come on, it isthe best group blog.  Oh, and Best Overall Catholic Website, too!  Vote!  There are many other excellent blogs and podcasts worthy of your vote, too, but since I already voted, I can’t seem to see the list anymore.

3. Register Radio is coming!  Register Radio is coming!  This 30-minute program will launch on September 2, and will include all sorts of things:  news, interviews, Catholic views on entertainment and the media, and a “top blogger” spot, following up on whatever people got the most het up about in the last week.  I’ll have more information soon about how and when to listen.

4.  We finally received the replacement part for the broken kitchen faucet.  It wasn’t the worst thing in the world to fill a bucket with water from the bathtub and lug it into the kitchen in order to do dishes or clean anything, and then rinse soapy pots and pans off in the bathtub, and run the shower to get the coffee stains out of the bath toys that didn’t get put away, and constantly hear, “GET OUT OF DA BAFFWOOM, I’M FIRSTY AND I NEED A DWINK!!!!” and stuff.  For two weeks.  But I sure didn’t like it.

3.  I gots plenty more to say about Thomas Kinkade, but right now I’m so tired, I’m  having trouble completing the second half of blinking (the opening-my-eyes-again part).  Hope to follow up soon, but in the mean time, let me say that his work qualifies as shite entirely on its own merits — has nothing to do with Kinkade’s personal success or popularity, or with his personal loathsome behavior.  It’s all about the painting.  I’m willing to forgive people who enjoy his work, but I’m not willing to agree that there’s nothing to forgive.

6.  I just noticed that I numbered these paragraphs “1, 2, 3, 4, 3″ and “6.”

Seven Decorating Tips from House Horrible Magazine

We’ve had a lot of doctor’s appointments lately, so I’ve been reading a lot of dumb magazines.  My favorite features are the ones that show some enviable tableau from someone’s home, and then glibly explains how to achieve this effect.

I don’t mean to promote envy, but it occurs to me that my house is full of uncommon little scenes which you may or may not want to recreate in your own home, depending on how much crack you’re smoking.  And so I present:

Seven Quick Ways To Spruce Down Your Home

–1–

AMERICAN PRIMITIVE MEETS PRIMITIVE SCREWHEAD

This effect can be achieved by allowing your teenage daughter to be the only one in the house with her own bedroom — the trade-off being that her room is the one everyone else has to tramp through on their way to their own rooms.  Her only recourse will be to hang a sheet in front of the most sacrosanct part of her living quarters, and to make that sheet as threatening as possible.  To prep for this project, expose your child to inappropriate movies and heavy doses of sarcasm at an early age.

–2–

AT HOME WITH CHROME

These gorgeous gold footprint stencils adorning the back steps simply scream, “Yes, yes, spray paint anything you like, just let me finish this post!”  Or maybe that was me screaming.

–3–

TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL

This fin de siècle vignette captures the very moment when our family made its last stab at homeschooling, and then gave up and just taught the kids poker.  For an edgy touch, someone seems to have taken a bite out of the bulletin board.

–4–

I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THIS IS

You can achieve this effect by leaving the camera lying around unguarded.

–5–

SHOCK AND AWWWW

Classic trompe l’oeil:  to the untrained eye, it may appear that Mama went to the bathroom for a couple of minutes or an hour or two, and the little ones got into the paper plates and glue.  But in fact, what you’re really seeing here is:  “I make a fwower for you, Mama!”

–6–

NO SURFACE LEFT UN-GODZILLA’D

A progressive approach to decorating, with a twofold purpose:  one, to encourage creativity in your children; and two, to give parents plenty of practice rehearsing the phrase:  “He’s going to grow out of it at some point, right?”

–7–

NEVERENDING PARTY

You’ve heard of shabby chic?  This is happy bleak.  Tie festive balloons to your mailbox every time a kid has a birthday.  Never get around to untying them.  Feel shame daily.

Well, that’s it.  Now you know how you, too, can have . . . House Horrible.  Don’t forget to check out Conversion Diary for everyone else’s Seven Quick Takes!

Good Writing Is Not a Luxury

If there’s one thing that drives me bonkers (and there are actually about 53,429 things and counting), it’s when someone assumes that his own talent, hobby, or vocation is a moral issue for everyone else.  For instance, the women who loves decorating and cleaning and arranging is convinced that every wife and mother has a moral duty to put the beauty of her home over all other pursuits.  Or the guy who has conquered sloth and gluttony through serial triathalons is sure that the sedentary college professor is sinning because he doesn’t work out much.

Not so, hot shots.  God may be calling you to work out your salvation through one particular area of interest, but that doesn’t mean He’s calling everyone to the same thing.  Everyone has a vocation, a skill to develop for the service of God — but these skills vary as much as, of course, people do themselves.

Well, you can judge for yourself if I’m guilty of the same hobby-as-moral-imperative fallacy here when I say that it’s very important for Catholics to learn how to write.