Some fragmented thoughts on the life and work of a faithful Catholic advocate for justice and the odd, beloved concoction known as strawberry-pretzel salad
I loved your interview with Sister Jeannine Gramick. She seemed so hopeful in spite of what is swirling around us regarding the political climate. As someone in their 60s, it was nice to read this interview and dream of what I can still be doing to support marginalized peoples. And the pretzel salad…..my grandmother made this for special occasions! Thank you for your blog.
Thank you for sharing your conversation with Sister Gramick. Her life inspires me and helps me to stay hopeful, and I need quite a bit of both of those things these days.
I, like you, I am not a big fan of strawberry pretzel salad. I didn’t grow up eating a lot of things made with Jell-O so as an adult recipes with Jell-O are not appealing to me at all. But I did recently create a dessert recipe that tickled me to no end and I’m thinking about making again soon. It’s a double dark chocolate brownie recipe with mint extract and sprinkled with peppermint schnapps after it’s baked. Did I just say sprinkled? What I really meant was doused! I happen to love making homemade brownies with half of the sugar the recipe calls for and then adding either rum or bourbon to make them a little extra special.  And sometimes I will soak 2 cups of toasted walnuts with some sort of booze overnight, strain them, and then throw them in the brownie batter the next day.  It’s surprising how much liquid the walnuts will absorb so they make the dessert a ‘for adults only dessert’. Basically, I like boozy brownies of any kind, so that’s what I’ve been creating these days. (Well, I am going to be making baklava and spanakopita today because I’m in a Greek mood today but that’s another story).
Random question for you: how can I find out when you’ll be preaching at Crosspoint a week or two in advance? There are a few of us in my area that would like to ride over to Raleigh to hear you in person and say hello. We just need more than a day to pull that together.
Thank you for sharing this! I might just have to make some kind of boozy brownie for my husband for his birthday... I don't do much chocolate, but he loves brownies.
Re: Crosspointe, one of the things that I appreciate is that they de-emphasize who is preaching on what weekend, because the church doesn't want it to be about the person so much as it is about the communal experience of worship. There are four of us who are on the teaching team, and everyone brings something different and beautiful to their sermons. But I get that there might be folks who want to visit when I'm in town. Because I have a really full fall schedule, I'm not preaching in person again until December 18th. So you could mark your calendar for that Sunday.
Thank you for letting me know! It’s on my calendar now 😊
Back to the brownie recipe... if Tristan likes Kahlua I’d recommend you try that. But instead of dousing the cooked brownies with it, put a shot of it in the batter. And then, because it’s his birthday, top the cooled brownies off with a thick layer of chocolate ganache that has another shot of Kahlua in it. I did this recently for a birthday party and it was a big hit. Side note: I always use the brownie recipe on the King Arthur Baking site and I only use their flour as well (I’m a born & bred Vermonter so I’m very committed to them plus their quality standards are very high) but I always cut the sugar in half. Another side note: if Tristan likes extras in his brownies but isn’t a huge fan of walnuts try dried tart montmorency cherries (with or without soaking them in booze first). I love talking food & could do this all day but I’ll stop now 😆
Thank you for sharing your interview! It was fun getting to know a bit about someone new and her work.
On food; last week I was on a river cruise with 2 friends. We met a lot of people and several were from my home state of Minnesota. When I talked about making Lefse for the holidays and eating rhubarb pie, I got so many comments of “YUM!” and nods and agreement… like I was speaking a different language. My friends could not relate. It gave us a common ground to relate, and it was special and super fun to have a connection through food.
I have several foods that I don’t consider particularly good and yet are delightful because they are “extended family foods” - foods that showed up at reunions at my Mamaw’s house (midwestern fare) or at church potlucks (Italian American staples): iceberg layer salad, peanut butter pie, green bean casserole, chili Frito pie, baked ziti, lasagna, manicotti. The last three I do consider both delightful and truly satisfying. Perhaps one of my very favorite foods though is grilled cheese. This week I discovered that pesto in grilled cheese can be magical. In the book Heidi there is a description of the girl’s grandfather melting cheese with a skewer over the fire and letting the melted cheese fall onto bread. I’ve never fully understood the physics of it but was enchanted at the image. So any kind of bread and melted cheese experience also involves the charm of an awakened beloved book memory.
I love when the experience of food can stir other memories as you describe. That's one of the reasons I love eating so much. It's usually not just about that one moment, that one dish, but the echoes of others.
When I was in high school, my best friend was Italian. I remember going to Linda's house and no matter what time of the day it was, it seemed her mom was pulling a ziti out of the oven. I always associate ziti with Ms. Milevoi. :)
Jeff, I always look forward to your posts. I lived in Italy for many years, and the first question people ask you is , "What did you eat today?" And when you pay a visit to someone (which you may do unannounced and expect to be welcomed), the first words are always, "I'll put on the coffee pot." The culture around hospitality and food is central to identity, and that is one reason (though only one) that your posts resonate always with me. Thank you!
Strawberry Pretzel Salad is the best! My family always asks for it! Your mistake was falling for the word “Salad” in its name! It’s really a dessert and an excuse to eat dessert first! 😉
Thanks so much for sharing the interview! I made posole this week - in my family, it’s traditionally a Christmas food, but I was craving it. I always forget how easy and delicious it is. We make white (not red) posole, so it is the simplest, blandest broth. Just pork or chicken, water, and hominy in the pressure cooker for an hour-ish. When you serve it, you add sliced cabbage, lime, onion, cilantro, radishes, tomato, and Cholula, so it ends up being a salad in a bowl. It is the blazes part of summer here, so it was delightful to eat Christmas food!
When I read “strawberry pretzel salad,” I pictured a spinach-type salad with cut up fresh strawberries and pretzel pieces to provide crunch, with a balsamic dressing.
Now THAT is a salad I think could be good.
My Mennonite family also calls all manner of concoctions with Jello and/or marshmallows “salad” and it drives me up the wall. At one family potluck (extended family, 45 people), all the people who had volunteered to bring a salad brought Jello/marshmallows, and those assigned to hot veggies brought corn, which is mostly starch. My face looked something like this: 😑
But because I am an enneagram 8, I spoke up, and now people specify if they are going to bring a “sweet salad” or a “green salad.”
I'm Italian Canadian and nothing can beat my Nonna's pasta with tomatoes and herbs from her garden. No one can replicate it.
The other meal that I strongly associate with childhood is charcuterie; although, we didn't call it that. We weren't fancy, just pressed for time. With both parents in ministry, pulling out cheese, prosciutto, and bread, and throwing together a caprese salad was just easy and delicious.
I was very encourage by your interview with Sister Gramick. Thank you!
Always a delight and joy to receive your emails, and thoughts. This one was full of healing for me.
As to the food question, my favorite comfort food from childhood we called Castilian Pie...which is basically an enchilada casserole. My Mom loved to garden and sew, to arrange flowers and set a beautiful table. She did not love or embrace cooking. But our family of five always sat down to a lovely, comfortable table of meat, salad and sides...in various combos. We had the pear and lime jello salad of the 60s. Jello molds and combos were a staple in that era. Strawberry jello with bananas and mini marshmallows too. But the warmth of a loving family, gather every day for dinner...that is the treasure I hole onto. My older brother died of covid this past January (not vaccinated, sadly) and his passing and my journey with that grief has sent me to many places in the past, in my mind and trips back to our old neighborhood, to find touch stones of our childhood. Thanks for the quiet tears prompted by your gentle writings. Grateful.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your brother. Please accept my condolences. I'm grateful that you have shared memories as some small solace. Thanks for sharing with us.
Thank you so much for the interview with Sr. Jeannine. She is a breath of fresh air. Her relationship with Pope Francis gives me hope that possibly the Church can change. Nuns walk such a tightrope to maintain their integrity and yet remain in the Church. I would like to see Pope Francis go further and commit to caring for the elderly nuns. Perhaps this is just a US problem, but while the Church takes care of retired priests, it does nothing for the nuns. They must depend on their former students and family members to support them.
What a wonderful conversation! Thank you for sharing with us.
That strawberry pretzel salad is....NO
Here is an amazing salad. You should have everything in your house or easily purchased at a farmer's market....corn, tomatoes, salt, lime, basil, and cilantro. It's the best thing I have eaten this summer.
Confession: corn is one of the few things I don't like, unless it's in the form of popcorn, cornmeal, grits/polenta, or corn nuts. In other words, not on the cob or in kernel form.
I loved your interview with Sister Jeannine Gramick. She seemed so hopeful in spite of what is swirling around us regarding the political climate. As someone in their 60s, it was nice to read this interview and dream of what I can still be doing to support marginalized peoples. And the pretzel salad…..my grandmother made this for special occasions! Thank you for your blog.
Thank you for sharing your conversation with Sister Gramick. Her life inspires me and helps me to stay hopeful, and I need quite a bit of both of those things these days.
I, like you, I am not a big fan of strawberry pretzel salad. I didn’t grow up eating a lot of things made with Jell-O so as an adult recipes with Jell-O are not appealing to me at all. But I did recently create a dessert recipe that tickled me to no end and I’m thinking about making again soon. It’s a double dark chocolate brownie recipe with mint extract and sprinkled with peppermint schnapps after it’s baked. Did I just say sprinkled? What I really meant was doused! I happen to love making homemade brownies with half of the sugar the recipe calls for and then adding either rum or bourbon to make them a little extra special.  And sometimes I will soak 2 cups of toasted walnuts with some sort of booze overnight, strain them, and then throw them in the brownie batter the next day.  It’s surprising how much liquid the walnuts will absorb so they make the dessert a ‘for adults only dessert’. Basically, I like boozy brownies of any kind, so that’s what I’ve been creating these days. (Well, I am going to be making baklava and spanakopita today because I’m in a Greek mood today but that’s another story).
Random question for you: how can I find out when you’ll be preaching at Crosspoint a week or two in advance? There are a few of us in my area that would like to ride over to Raleigh to hear you in person and say hello. We just need more than a day to pull that together.
Thank you for sharing this! I might just have to make some kind of boozy brownie for my husband for his birthday... I don't do much chocolate, but he loves brownies.
Re: Crosspointe, one of the things that I appreciate is that they de-emphasize who is preaching on what weekend, because the church doesn't want it to be about the person so much as it is about the communal experience of worship. There are four of us who are on the teaching team, and everyone brings something different and beautiful to their sermons. But I get that there might be folks who want to visit when I'm in town. Because I have a really full fall schedule, I'm not preaching in person again until December 18th. So you could mark your calendar for that Sunday.
Thank you for letting me know! It’s on my calendar now 😊
Back to the brownie recipe... if Tristan likes Kahlua I’d recommend you try that. But instead of dousing the cooked brownies with it, put a shot of it in the batter. And then, because it’s his birthday, top the cooled brownies off with a thick layer of chocolate ganache that has another shot of Kahlua in it. I did this recently for a birthday party and it was a big hit. Side note: I always use the brownie recipe on the King Arthur Baking site and I only use their flour as well (I’m a born & bred Vermonter so I’m very committed to them plus their quality standards are very high) but I always cut the sugar in half. Another side note: if Tristan likes extras in his brownies but isn’t a huge fan of walnuts try dried tart montmorency cherries (with or without soaking them in booze first). I love talking food & could do this all day but I’ll stop now 😆
Thank you for sharing your interview! It was fun getting to know a bit about someone new and her work.
On food; last week I was on a river cruise with 2 friends. We met a lot of people and several were from my home state of Minnesota. When I talked about making Lefse for the holidays and eating rhubarb pie, I got so many comments of “YUM!” and nods and agreement… like I was speaking a different language. My friends could not relate. It gave us a common ground to relate, and it was special and super fun to have a connection through food.
I grew up in Austria and loved Schnitzel, Apple Strudel, and homemade donuts by my father.
I have several foods that I don’t consider particularly good and yet are delightful because they are “extended family foods” - foods that showed up at reunions at my Mamaw’s house (midwestern fare) or at church potlucks (Italian American staples): iceberg layer salad, peanut butter pie, green bean casserole, chili Frito pie, baked ziti, lasagna, manicotti. The last three I do consider both delightful and truly satisfying. Perhaps one of my very favorite foods though is grilled cheese. This week I discovered that pesto in grilled cheese can be magical. In the book Heidi there is a description of the girl’s grandfather melting cheese with a skewer over the fire and letting the melted cheese fall onto bread. I’ve never fully understood the physics of it but was enchanted at the image. So any kind of bread and melted cheese experience also involves the charm of an awakened beloved book memory.
Oh gosh yes. I remember being fascinated by that passage as a kid. I made grilled halloumi for a salad last week and it scratched that itch for me!
What fun to discover a shared book memory with a stranger! Grilled halloumi on salad sounds lovely on this hot summer day.
I love when the experience of food can stir other memories as you describe. That's one of the reasons I love eating so much. It's usually not just about that one moment, that one dish, but the echoes of others.
When I was in high school, my best friend was Italian. I remember going to Linda's house and no matter what time of the day it was, it seemed her mom was pulling a ziti out of the oven. I always associate ziti with Ms. Milevoi. :)
Jeff, I always look forward to your posts. I lived in Italy for many years, and the first question people ask you is , "What did you eat today?" And when you pay a visit to someone (which you may do unannounced and expect to be welcomed), the first words are always, "I'll put on the coffee pot." The culture around hospitality and food is central to identity, and that is one reason (though only one) that your posts resonate always with me. Thank you!
Strawberry Pretzel Salad is the best! My family always asks for it! Your mistake was falling for the word “Salad” in its name! It’s really a dessert and an excuse to eat dessert first! 😉
Isn't jello salad is an oxymoron? This sounds more like dessert!
Thanks so much for sharing the interview! I made posole this week - in my family, it’s traditionally a Christmas food, but I was craving it. I always forget how easy and delicious it is. We make white (not red) posole, so it is the simplest, blandest broth. Just pork or chicken, water, and hominy in the pressure cooker for an hour-ish. When you serve it, you add sliced cabbage, lime, onion, cilantro, radishes, tomato, and Cholula, so it ends up being a salad in a bowl. It is the blazes part of summer here, so it was delightful to eat Christmas food!
When I read “strawberry pretzel salad,” I pictured a spinach-type salad with cut up fresh strawberries and pretzel pieces to provide crunch, with a balsamic dressing.
Now THAT is a salad I think could be good.
My Mennonite family also calls all manner of concoctions with Jello and/or marshmallows “salad” and it drives me up the wall. At one family potluck (extended family, 45 people), all the people who had volunteered to bring a salad brought Jello/marshmallows, and those assigned to hot veggies brought corn, which is mostly starch. My face looked something like this: 😑
But because I am an enneagram 8, I spoke up, and now people specify if they are going to bring a “sweet salad” or a “green salad.”
I'm Italian Canadian and nothing can beat my Nonna's pasta with tomatoes and herbs from her garden. No one can replicate it.
The other meal that I strongly associate with childhood is charcuterie; although, we didn't call it that. We weren't fancy, just pressed for time. With both parents in ministry, pulling out cheese, prosciutto, and bread, and throwing together a caprese salad was just easy and delicious.
I was very encourage by your interview with Sister Gramick. Thank you!
Always a delight and joy to receive your emails, and thoughts. This one was full of healing for me.
As to the food question, my favorite comfort food from childhood we called Castilian Pie...which is basically an enchilada casserole. My Mom loved to garden and sew, to arrange flowers and set a beautiful table. She did not love or embrace cooking. But our family of five always sat down to a lovely, comfortable table of meat, salad and sides...in various combos. We had the pear and lime jello salad of the 60s. Jello molds and combos were a staple in that era. Strawberry jello with bananas and mini marshmallows too. But the warmth of a loving family, gather every day for dinner...that is the treasure I hole onto. My older brother died of covid this past January (not vaccinated, sadly) and his passing and my journey with that grief has sent me to many places in the past, in my mind and trips back to our old neighborhood, to find touch stones of our childhood. Thanks for the quiet tears prompted by your gentle writings. Grateful.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your brother. Please accept my condolences. I'm grateful that you have shared memories as some small solace. Thanks for sharing with us.
Thank you so much for the interview with Sr. Jeannine. She is a breath of fresh air. Her relationship with Pope Francis gives me hope that possibly the Church can change. Nuns walk such a tightrope to maintain their integrity and yet remain in the Church. I would like to see Pope Francis go further and commit to caring for the elderly nuns. Perhaps this is just a US problem, but while the Church takes care of retired priests, it does nothing for the nuns. They must depend on their former students and family members to support them.
jeff, your essays bless me. today's is especially poignant; imagine having pope francis as your pen pal!
Thank you for that beautiful interview!
Jeff,
What a wonderful conversation! Thank you for sharing with us.
That strawberry pretzel salad is....NO
Here is an amazing salad. You should have everything in your house or easily purchased at a farmer's market....corn, tomatoes, salt, lime, basil, and cilantro. It's the best thing I have eaten this summer.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023332-corn-salad-with-tomatoes-basil-and-cilantro
Confession: corn is one of the few things I don't like, unless it's in the form of popcorn, cornmeal, grits/polenta, or corn nuts. In other words, not on the cob or in kernel form.