Book Review: Bread and Wine (Part II)

A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

“More than that, I am a bread-and-wine person. By that I mean that I’m a Christian, a person of the body and blood, a person of food and drink, and also, at the very same time, I recognize them as something much greater—mystery and tradition and symbol. Bread is bread, and wine is wine, but bread-and-wine is another thing entirely. The two together are the sacred and the material at once, the heaven and earth, the divine and the daily.” - Pg. 11, Bread and Wine, Shauna Niequist; Zondervan

Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist makes you wish she lived next door to you.

Niequist writes a combination cookbook and blog-like chapters, filled with warmth and love for her friends, husband, and you and me. Included in most chapters are recipes. I have tried two so far–the Bacon-Wrapped Dates and Goat Cheese and the Blueberry Crisp.

This was before baking.

The Blueberry Crisp (pictured above) was altered. I used blueberries and strawberries. Also, nuts were omitted. Almond Meal costs nearly $10 a bag and so I substituted flour. The result wasn’t what I liked. It wasn’t sweet enough. So I grabbed a handful of brown sugar which made it perfect. I probably won’t make it again. Her other recipe was a risk.

Bacon-Wrapped Dates with Goat Cheese (pictured above) was a surprising treat. My husband hated it. I couldn’t stop eating them. When you bite into them, you don’t really detect the dates. I used dried dates and not fresh. The dates added a light touch of sweetness to the savory. The goat cheese didn’t stand out strong, but became subtle as it baked. I used thick-cut gourmet apple-smoked bacon in this recipe. I tried to persuade my co-workers to try the recipe, but they were making all sorts of faces at me. My husband says, “Dessert and meat do not go together.” It’s another snack recipe that I don’t have to share, like avocados.

Overall, I loved this book. Like any recipe book, you will always have your winners and losers. Having only tried two recipes so far in this book (later in the week, I plan on making the goat-cheese biscuits), the Blueberry Crisp was definitely the loser. Most of her recipes are gluten-free or altered to fit her particular diet. I gave this book four stars.

*Book given by publisher to review. You can read Part I on the review here.

Update: My Crossover Novel

A sunspot viewed close-up in ultraviolet light, taken by the TRACE spacecraft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Anomaly is at 30,540 words. My Word Weavers critique group and a friend are both critiquing the novel.

Working Elevator Pitch: More is falling a part than this man and woman’s marriage as massive sun spots cause displacement in the atmosphere.

It’s looking to be about 70,000 words with a firm deadline of December. It’s a crossover speculative fiction which means, that while the two main characters are not believers, there are believers here and there. The Christian believers are not there to spread the message, but to create a real world scenario of mixed families filled with believers and agnostic or atheists which can naturally create tension. In the meantime, my two characters struggle to not only figure out what is left to rebuild their marriage on, but why people are disappearing. Between flickering cell phone signals, rolling blackouts, and people disappearing, my two characters will be forced to make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives.

I am outlining a new novel to begin in January that is more horrific, but in the speculative Christian fiction genre. In this one, I will be having a message of redemption in it that is typical of Christian writing, but not preachy. I hate preachy writing. You’d know this if you read some of my book reviews. Let me clarify.

When I say message of redemption, I mean where there are shortcomings, repentance happens. Where there is hurt, forgiveness occurs. It is horror, but it will have a romantic note. The characters are saved and some are not saved. I’m going to be writing it like a ticking time bomb. Firm deadline for this new novel will be December, 2014. By January, 2014, I will have two complete novels to shop: The Rose Door and The Anomaly.

The Road to Honduras

The road to Honduras began with writing Compassion letters to a child in India, becoming a prayer warrior to a family in India, and reading bloggers like Dan King when he went to Haiti or Nik Ripken’s accounts as he traveled the world. It piqued my interest in missions and now my husband and I are going on our first short-term missions trip in May, 2014. I don’t know what to expect.

Our church, FBC Prescott, has approved the trip. It will be a construction trip. We will be helping missionary, Michelle Crotts, in Honduras.

Honduras, a country of about 8 million is one of the poorest in the Americas.  It has many slums, dysfunctional families and, like all Latin countries, its fair share of drug addiction, gangs, violence and prostitution.  Gangs in particular have been a serious problem, but in recent years the police have imprisoned many gang members and reduced their influence.  Honduras also is prone to hurricanes, which usually ravage the coastal areas.

Our lone ministry, located in the capital of Tegucigalpa, is focused on youth leader training, working with handicapped children and the development of a Christian camp for them. (From here).

But I need your help to make this happen. My husband and I have to raise 100% of our support which is $1700 each. I would also like to raise a couple of hundred extra to help out a Honduras family. I have several fundraisers planned, but if you would like to make a donation, you can make the check out to FBC Prescott. Write on the memo line: Tony and Nikole Hahn. Please mail it to: P.O. Box 3175, Chino Valley, AZ 86323. Or, if you live locally, you can drop off the check to I or Tony personally. All donations are tax deductible.

I am also doing a community garage sale on July 20 and could use any donated items for it. On June 24, I am holding a Scentsy Party through Susan Gunn. You can also order online if you live too far away to attend in person. That information will appear on another blog post. For all Honduras posts, you can look under Catagories and Missions. This trip will be our very first short term missions and we need your help to make it happen.

Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Tony and Nikki

A Slow Fade

It’s always that one, small step that starts a person down the wrong path. Casting Crowns sings it best: People never crumble in a day. The best news? God allows U-turns!

Prayers of Generations Past

“Then this thought burst into my mind, “After I am in heaven with Jesus, the only way I can still affect the generations that follow is through prayers I prayed while living on this earth!” Tears emerge. Heart warms. God bumps ignite. We see this over and over in God’s Word where God’s promise is fulfilled in the generations to follow. For example, Jesus prayed in John 17 for future believers in Him, which includes those even today. Wow, His prayer is still coming to fruition.” - Pg. 24, My Prayer Chair, RLM Ministries.

Carla McDougal, in her new book, My Prayer Chair, said in the third chapter how she got God bumps when her great-great uncle told stories of how many believers sprouted on their family tree. The stories he told touched her heart and she reflected on Psalm 145:4 how, “one generation will praise Your works to another…” What would that look like?

Was it when my aunt scrawled her God-notes on cards to me? Did she whisper prayers about me as she wrote those notes and put in her “treat money?” I think she died before she knew the fruit of her prayers in my life and what God would and still is doing in it.

Carla wrote, too, how Jesus prayed for believers not yet born. I thought about how Abraham was told by God that he would become the father of Israel. He would not see the fruit of his prayers in his generation. Carla asked, “What prayers are being prayed that are being answered today?”

What would our life look like if we had the patience to pray for someone even if we do not see the answer in our lifetime? What kind of impact would it leave if we were to pray bold prayers?

It would change us. It would change our outlook and grow us through the pain and frustration of yet unanswered prayer. I wonder if our view of God would change if we looked into the Bible and studied only answered prayer. What if we sought the answers of questions like:

1: What prayers took generations to answer by God?

2: What prayers were answered quickly?

3: What prayers did God say no to and what prayers did He grant?

Then, perhaps we should look at the substance of those prayers. Do they sound like our prayers? These are questions ruminating through my mind as I read this chapter in, My Prayer Chair.

Book Review: Decisive

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath breaks down our decision-making patterns and helps to identity the problems of our narrow points of view. It’s a business book, but it can be read to help someone with their personal life.

Chapter One begins with the title, “The Four Villains of Decision Making,” which includes making decisions based on tradition and political infighting:

“This was the moment of clarity. From the perspective of an outsider, someone not encumbered by the historical legacy and the political infighting, shutting down the memory business was the obvious thing to do (page 14).” The authors explained how Intel’s CEO, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove fought on what direction they should take Intel. At the time, they were deep into the memory business, but microprocessors were where the profit was even though Intel had a legacy in memory. Because of asking themselves, what would a brand new CEO do in this situation who didn’t have the history of the company ingrained in their psyche, Moore and Grove saved Intel.

Decisive breaks the book down in four parts, outlining their business theory: WRAP (Widen your options, Reality-test your assumptions, Attain distance before deciding, and Prepare to be wrong).

Many times we don’t widen our options by expanding the spotlight beyond what people want us to focus on. We need to look at the bigger picture and widening your options does this.

Reality-test your assumptions uses the example of Ooching. Someone in one of the chapters chose to test a product before deciding to invest in it. In this section, Decisive even suggested that people applying for a specific job interview people in that field to determine if the job is the right fit for you and if it met your expectations.

Attain distance before deciding talks about stepping away or sleeping on a decision before agreeing to the job. It used an example of someone who had to decide between a great job and a greater job. The emotional high after the interview impeded her judgement and ultimately she chose to stay with her job because it gave her balance in her life. She had time for all the things she wanted to do in life, but the better paying job would have increased her work hours exponentially.

Prepare to be wrong is preparing for the worst-case scenario. Decisive talked about setting trip wires. Trip wires are like early warning systems.

“All this worrying about traps and contingencies may make tripwires sound overly cautious–the bicycle helmet of decision making. But actually we want to argue the opposite, that tripwires encourage risk taking by letting us carve out a “safe space” for experimentation” (Pg. 240).

Decisive’s chapters bear a summary and repetition style of writing which makes keeping this new knowledge easier. I enjoyed reading this book and gave it five stars.

*Book given by publisher to review.

Book Review: Broken Wings

Broken Wings by Shannon Dittemore is Book Two in the Angel Eyes Trilogy. It continues Jake and Brielle’s story and is the only novel series I love that leaves us hanging at the end, forcing us to buy the next book in the series to find out what happened.

Brielle still wears the Halo Jake gave her in Book One. Marco is with them. Canaan is still Jake’s Shield. But now Brielle’s father is in trouble. He’s met a young woman named Olivia. In the beginning chapters, Brielle can’t identity if what she is feeling is directly related to having to share her father with someone else or if the warning in the Halo should be heeded and what it means. Brielle is also having nightmares. The nightmares get stronger with each chapter.

Her father is drinking again. Olivia has encouraged it. Brielle grows more helpless as her father becomes more alcoholic than father. The demon, Damian, has also returned. The Prince of Darkness has plans to war over Stratus, Oregon and wants Brielle and Jake. Damian isn’t an active character until the later half of the novel as Jake discovers things about his past which connect him to Brielle’s father and deceased mother. Meanwhile, heaven and hell prepare for a celestial war over Stratus and Jake and Brielle are in the middle.

Dittemore successfully writes another novel, chronicling Brielle and Jake’s love story with her beautiful, earthy, and intense story telling of show more than tell. Broken Wings ends on a question mark which will force you to buy her next novel in the series, Dark Halo (August, 2013) to find the end of the story. The story in Broken Wings stops at the edge of the action. It’s the only novel where I don’t mind this technique. Normally, I hate it when novels have a beginning and middle, but the end is not in the book you are reading. Thankfully, Dittemore puts out these novels in quick succession so you don’t have to wait too long before continuing the saga. I gave this novel five stars.

*Book given by publisher to review.