Really, Food Network? Really?

Let's face it:  Reality TV in no way actually constitutes "reality".  The first season of any new reality show is generally the most honest, I think, but, as time goes on, you can see the "types" begin to creep in...the manufactured drama, the camera cuts edited in to support the storyline(s) the producers want to tell, et cetera.

I like "The Next Food Network Star" because there is at least some talent involved - at least initially.  As more seasons have come and gone, food and food knowledge has been left largely behind in place of "personalities" and contestants made up of people with acting resumes and multiple reality TV appearances.  While there is a need to find a mix of the ability to cook, the ability to teach, and the ability not to stare into a camera like a deer in the headlights, this season's crop of contestants - minus a few - have pretty much sounded the death knell of my interest in this show.  To go over everyone would take too long so I'm just going to highlight the few who have (a) made an impression or (b) made me roll my eyes so hard that I have been able to map the back of my skull:

Nikki Dinki - I liked Nikki.   She had an interesting POV that is rarely ever given any support by the Food Network.  IOW, the vegetarians never make it to the end.  I do agree with Alton that her ability to cook outstripped her overall food knowledge but that is something I think they could have worked with.  Heck, give her to Alton for a month or two!  He'll make sure she knows her stuff.

She also had good camera presence.  She looked very natural in the field assignment for the donut place and she can *ahem* speak coherently unlike some other contestants.  She's personable and doesn't beat you over the head with shtick.  Her plating for Sunday night's challenge was definitely a misstep (hello, ocean of rice!) and I can see where she was not able to consistently display the food "authority" the judges kept claiming they were looking for.  But I do think those are things that can be fixed and she could work on.

I would have watched her show.  Vegetables are food and Food Network sorely neglects them other than a quick nod to them as a side dish.  I would have liked to see much more of her.

Rodney Henry - He claims a point of view called "Pie Style" or, as he mumbles it, "Pah Stl".  When asked what pie style is, he can formulate neither an informative nor comprehensive answer.  Apparently, it's a "way of life".  Really?  For who?  Aging hipsters who stole Vince Vaughn's Swingers-era shtick and refuse to give it back?  Everything he makes is a pie.  Everything.  They already have a show like this where the guy makes everything into a sandwich and I don't watch it.  Why would I want to watch a guy try to cram everything into a pie shell?

He cannot talk coherently about food unless you allow him liberal use of the words "super", "awesome", "cool", "delicious".  He does not explain what he does or why he does it and he mumbles like a failed Demosthenes.  Alton and company keep talking about food authority and I see none in him.  For a guy who claims to be a pie expert, IIRC, only ONE of his pies has even been judged to be edible by the judges (as in they would want to eat more of it).

Last night's episode was just appalling.  In his remake of chicken cacciatore, he forced it into a pie crust and then deep-fried it.  While an interesting idea, what the camera showed was a total abomination - burst crust, filling spilling out, and (as Alton commented upon eating it) raw dough.  Yet he moves on based on his "star power" despite the fact all appearances point to the fact that he can't cook or talk about cooking in anything resembling a coherent manner.

*sigh*  All hail the second coming of Guy Fieri.  Can someone please hide this guy's guitar?

Damaris Phillips - She's a culinary instructor with a Southern POV.  While Food Network is currently doing the Southern thing to death (The Shed?  Honestly...), I think she is very warm and friendly on camera once she stops being nervous.  She has largely dropped the shoulder shimmy and other things that were showing how uncomfortable she was and has grown on camera.  I think she explains well and I've wanted to try several of the things she's made on the show.

While she may come across as a little exaggerated sometime, she has a much quieter (and more welcome) presence than many of Food Network's previous Southern hosts for me.  Paula Deen became an absolute caricature by the end and the Neelys were annoying right from the start with the stir-and-slap-and-tickle show.

In a way, Damaris reminds me of Sunny Anderson and Aarti Sequiera - not overly loud, not bent on being a big personality, but someone who loves both cooking and eating food and wants to share that and her knowledge with others.  I'd watch her show.

Connie "Lovely" Jackson - I'm not sure what her point of view was because she was so obsessed with herself.  She also broke the first rule of nicknames as explained by Howard Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory when he was trying to suggest the nickname of "Rocket Man" for himself to the astronauts:  You cannot give yourself a nickname.  Nicknames must be given to you.  When you try to give yourself a nickname, it generally backfires:



It was interesting watching her each week during the judging.  She would plaster a smile on her face and try to come across as incredibly gracious when the judges were critiquing her, but the moment they started saying anything negative about her presentation or her food, you could just see the smile come right off her face and be replaced by a rather unLovely look.

I also could never get a handle on her POV.  Everything was "glamorous" or "party" or some kind of amped-up version of food.  But what was she cooking?  What was her background?  What styles of cooking was she employing?  French?  Asian?  Contemporary?  Meat and potatoes?  Roadkill?  All I ever really got was that Lovely's idea of a show was that it would be all about Lovely.  Anything else - including food - would be secondary.

Stacey Poon-Kinney - Her theme is vintage kitchen or taking classic dishes and giving them a modern twist.  I'm not sure exactly how the maple bacon cheesecake fit into that but I digress...

I do agree with the judges that there is something not quite genuine about her.  While she is polished and can present well to camera, I find myself sort of mentally skimming what she says - watching the performance more than listening to what she is talking about.  In a way, she's another Giada DeLaurentiis for me.  I like a fair amount of Giada's food but I find her show(s) to be more of an exercise of "look at me and my glamorous lifestyle".  I tend to tune out Giada's descriptions (since there are only so many times that you can describe things as lemony or minty), check the title of the dish she is making and then go to Food Network's web site to read the recipe and see if I want to make it.  I can see myself doing the same thing with Stacey.  I would look at the titles of her shows on the web site and then go find the recipe I want - but not watch her show.  To me, she lacks the ability to...well, make fun of herself the way Damaris can, to laugh at herself and realize that not everything has to come across like a beauty pageant competition.  She can let the cracks show.

Russell Jackson - He seems to go between being a "culinary revoluntionary" and "culinary sins".  I'm not sure exactly what that entails but I find him interesting.  When he first started the show, my immediate thought was total trainwreck.  The stammering, the blank looks into the camera...I figured he'd be gone in the first few weeks.  Surprisingly, though, he hung on and has greatly improved.  You can still hear him pausing slightly when he talks on camera but he's coming across as more coherent and thoughtful and with a greater knowledge of food than I originally thought he had.

I really liked his dish in last night's challenge.  He updated a tired, stuffed chicken dish but kept the flavors and kept the ingredients largely the same to appeal to both old and new customers.  It looked good and it sounded delicious.  Plus, he was able to articulate why he felt he should be on Food Network and do so in a manner that was engaging and pointed to his culinary expertise.

Will he do well under the pressure of trying to complete X number of shows under a strict timeline?  That remains to be seen.  He's getting better under pressure but he still has a way to go.  I'm hoping he doesn't blow it when they present to the network in next week's episode 'cause he's one of the few I'm rooting for.  I like his personality.  I like him much better on camera now that he's starting to get the hang of it and I think his food has gotten better as he's gone along and learned to relax a little; not so much "Underground Chef!" as knowledgeable and talented chef.

So, to recap:

Would have watched - Nikki
Would watch - Damaris, Russell
Would not watch - Stacey, Lovely
Would throw my TV out the window - Rodney

The Word of the Day

Perseverance.

The Spousal Unit and I are still struggling with his drinking.  There have been two times where I just wanted to leave.  As P!nk says, "I think I've had enough of this/Want back my ignorance and bliss".  However, both times God has shown me that this is not an option for me - at least not the way I want to use it.  Both times I have been so emotionally overwhelmed and sick of it all - sick of feeling like the only one trying - that leaving would be simply to get away from the immediate problem and that is not the solution.

C.S. Lewis has that famous quote about how prayer changes him, not God; that he prays because he is helpless; that he prays because he can't NOT pray.  I think I may be starting to understand what he means.  Looking back through the six months of my current journal, I can see a change in the entries. Early entries are complaining about the SU, asking why, why do I have to do deal with this, why can't he just get his freaking act together and change...why, why, why?  The thing I have learned about God is he doesn't always answer your "why" or, if He does, he may do it in a way you don't expect.  My later entries have more...compassion, I guess you could call it.  While I am still frustrated and angry in some of them, God has tempered them and interspersed them with study and Scripture and prayers I've written down.

Beth Moore says that "Christ's ultimate goal in any work He assigns us is to reveal Himself, either through or to us".  I don't know how much/if He's been revealing himself through me but I do know He has been revealing Himself to me.  There has been hardly a day that has gone by where I haven't had something in my study time stand out to me whether it is simply something to comfort or something I need to learn and incorporate.

Earlier this month, God gave me a pretty detailed word.  One of the strongest parts of it was the reminder that He is the one in charge and it is His timing, His timeline that we are working in.  I need to submit to that and understand that submission is strength.  It lets me be empty enough to be filled with Him.  It is hard to let him take over because I want to be in control just as much as the next person.  But I'm not.  I can't be.  I cannot make the Spousal Unit stop drinking.  I cannot make him confront the issues he needs to in order to heal and leave the past behind.  I can only call daily on my Abba and trust in Him.  He is the one who will change my unbelief, my fear.  If I confess those to Him, I will be amazed at the things he does.  Even if I cannot perceive what He is doing, Jesus is about his Father's work.  I can't wait to "see" him act.  I have to act in faith that He is working even though I can't point to anything tangible as the signpost of "Look!  Here's the turning point!"

A week or two ago, He gave me Isaiah 43:19:  "See!  I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland".  Last Sunday, the SU and I were in church and he went and asked for prayer for the first time in a long time, admitting to the people praying for him that he has a major drinking problem.  In my linear, dim view, part of me grabbed on to that as "See?  There's the sign" forgetting that the sign is not nearly as important as the One who gives the sign.

That is what makes today suck.  Hard.  He has essentially been drinking since 4 o'clock this morning and is now at home passed out/asleep while I'm sitting in a coffee shop and writing this because it is difficult to be around him when he is like this.  I was sitting on our little apartment patio at about 6:30 to try and have some quiet time and talking to God about how I was trying to remember that I am to follow His will and be content in Him - not that I can't talk to Him about my sorrow and anger but I need to trust in His sovereignty in this situation (and apparently for my spelling of that word!).

I opened up the study book I am reading and this paragraph leaped out at me:  "Beloved, have you forgotten something He told you?  Christ, our Lord, is faithful to his promises.  If you're not presently 'seeing' Him at work in your situation, do not live as if He's lifeless and you're hopeless. Believe Him and expect Him to reveal his resurrection power to you!"

I am truly blessed and thankful my Abba took the time to sit down with me this morning and specifically speak to me exactly where I am.

Nouwen writes that "prayer requires we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing".  Naked and vulnerable are freakin' scary states to be in!  But God gives us an amazing promise that if we do this, we will find all our strength, hope, courage and confidence in Him.  God has not given me a timeline nor will he, probably.  What He has told me to do is to keep being obedient to Him, to take the things he's taught me and put them into practice day after day after day and stop looking for the quick solution.  I need to trust Him and that He has the whole picture in mind.  What He does will be beyond my imagining.

Came home.  Made nachos for the Spousal Unit.  I am not hopeless.

Yes

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by


Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves em both
We’re all cast-aways in need of rope
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen


Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home


So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that wil unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
Wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright


Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by


Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
‘Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on


Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levees and my bluffs
Let the flood wash me


And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
‘Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the Son of God is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing Lord, come soon


Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by

Some thoughts re: God and intimacy...

Moore: "Sometimes perhaps He is most obvious in aloneness and in darkness. He is with us to embrace, to hold so close we can hear His heart beat."

Nouwen: "Prayer is the way to let the life-giving Spirit of God penetrate all the corners of my being."

Me: Intimacy is hard. Although I know God already knows everything about me, I like to pretend that he doesn't. It's easier for me that way.

But his intimacy is not invasive or destructive. It doesn't demand. It waits for me-always on offer. Never failing.

My God is a generous God.

Decisions, decisions

As always when I don't blog regularly, there is a lot that has happened in the meantime so let's just consider I said that and move on :).

As far as school, I passed the Spring semester with all A's and will be starting my two Summer classes next week.  This is the home stretch - two classes this summer and my Capstone this Fall and I will be DONE with this Master's degree.  I'm alternating between "Woohoo!" and "Oh crap, the semester's starting again!".  (My glass is never half-empty or half-full.  It's both :)).

I have also been inducted into two national honor societies and, in a total surprise to which Sara was a witness, was named Student of the Year for my program.  Color me absolutely boggled. 

I have also continued with some of my goals - working on my Master's without killing myself.  Managed to take most weekends off to spend with the Spousal Unit or at home.  We did move to a lovely new apartment that I will post pictures of.  I have also found some Bible-study type books and have been digging into those...which in turn is sending me into the dreaded character growth territory.

I also changed my ringtone to Fat-Bottomed Girls but that's neither here or nor there.  Just hilarious to see people look around when my phone rings :).

Before I get into the rest of this, I want to say these are my thoughts about my own personal marital situation and I'm not advocating a one-size-fits-all mentality.  Everyone needs to seek out God's answers for their own situation.  So (deep breath), here we go:

Our therapist says that the SU and I have reached a crossroads.  In his words, "at the risk of talking myself out of a job", it's time to make a choice.  That choice is either separate or decide that I am okay/resigned to living with what the SU will give me for now and not count on anything changing (although in the therapist's POV, he believes there is potential for change for the better).  In the words of Mutant Enemy:  "Grrrr.  Argh."

This has been and continues to be an incredibly difficult path to walk.  I am very lucky to have a core group of women who have been praying for me and offering counsel or just a shoulder to cry on 'cause, believe you me, I've been doing some crying (and I am someone who hates to cry).  After our session last week, I was pretty darn sure that separation was the next step until I got up the next morning at 5:30 and read Henri Nouwen's Turning My Mourning into Dancing for about two hours before the SU woke up.

One of Nouwen's points about experiencing solitude is that it should be time when you dare to stand alone before God and so, for me, any type of separation should be for that (if that is the route I take) and not just because I want to get away from the SU.  If God is to be at the center of my marriage, I cannot just put him aside for the sake of my own mental and emotional comfort.  To love someone is to be open to suffering (per Nouwen) and there is a need to trust that the risk to love someone is worth it.

Something Nouwen also talked about was how Jesus related to people for *their* sake and not his.  His focus was not on satisfaction but responding to someone's real, deep need.  Over these months of counseling with the SU, I have discovered very deep, unmet needs in my husband that make me grieve; things I had not really known or really thought about beyond the few times he mentioned them.  Do I think there are things he needs to get kicked in the pants on?  Oh,  yes.  But some of those kicked-in-the-pants behaviors are outward expressions of things he has never dealt with or maybe ever been able to deal with.  How can I not at least feel compassion towards those places in my husband that are so wounded?

To do that, though, to stay and wait for God's timing versus my own, versus my own desires and expectations involves a big leap of faith.  I want the fairy tale.  I want the grand gesture and the passionate attempts to change.  But I may not get anything like that and I may not get anything even close to it for a long time.  I may very well be asking for things in a language the SU does not speak. 

"But our lives are renewed every time we trust more.  We take a leap of faith and trust only to see the next layer of possibility" (Nouwen, p. 53).  If I am to trust God, I cannot expect to know the whole plan nor can I expect to use *my* definitions as the end result.  If I take the leap of faith, I can only trust that God will see it and respond.  What is the next layer of possibility?  I don't know.  It may be better communication.  It may be the SU believing more that I love him and I do not have a list of pluses and minuses that I keep tallied up in my head which in turn releases him from some of his bondage.  It may be me learning how to love in the midst of my own discomfort.  It doesn't mean I can't want to know the outcome but it does mean that I don't necessarily know what it will look like nor should I put a label on it because the label immediately brings it back to ME and I start trying to bend things to what I feel the result should be rather than letting God work as he will.  If I try to hard to create the result, I lose my trust.  If I lose trust, I lose hope.

I don't want to do that. 

I need to look beyond my own expectations.  Is the SU where I want him to be?  No.  But God knows where he is.

God also knows where I am.  In his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son , Nouwen talks about Rembrandt's painting of when the prodigal son returns home and he talks about having felt like both sons in the picture.  His words concerning the elder son struck me:

"I came to see how I had lived a quite dutiful life...had always been obedient to my parents, my teachers, my bishops and my God.  I had never run away from home, never wasted my time and money on sensual pursuits, and had never gotten lost in 'debauchery and drunkenness'.  For my entire life, I had been quite responsible, traditional, and homebound.  But with all of that, I may, in fact, have been just as lost as the younger son.  I suddenly saw myself in a completely new way.  I saw my jealousy, my anger, my touchiness, doggedness and sullenness, and most of all, my subtle self-righteousness.  I saw how much of a complainer I was and how much of my thinking and feeling was riddled with resentment...I was the elder son for sure, but just as lost as his younger brother, even though I had stayed 'home' all my life" (Nouwen, p. 20).

He then goes on to talk about a friend of his with whom he shared his view of himself as the eldest son several months later.  His friend said to him, "Whether you are the younger son or the elder son, you  have to realized that you are called to become the father" (Nouwen, p. 22).

If I was to leave the SU now, I am pretty sure no one would fault me.  They would say I have done everything I can reasonably be expected to do.  But is that definition of "reasonable" accurate?  Have I given myself and everything involved with this situation up to God including how I think it should go or does part of me sit in subtle judgment of the SU because he does not conform to expectations, because he does not seem to quickly and obediently respond to the good counsel and advice he has been given over and over by many who care for him?

That's not to say I can't be tired or need to vent or seek counsel.  Trying to live in faith doesn't mean I am superhuman or that it all becomes easy.  Trust me, my inner child is having a tantrum over this.  "But I don't wanna!!"  But two words keep coming back at me:  all in.  They were words I used when the SU asked me why I wasn't mad at God over what happened to our shop. I told him then that the things we lost were just stuff and I had to decide if the stuff was more important or if I was all in for God.  Our pastor used those words in last week's sermon as well.  "All in" means I can't hold back, can't choose what to experience and have to give. up.

That scares the pants off me.  "Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be."

Am I called to wait?

"...marriage is foremost a vocation.  Two people are called together to fulfill a mission that God has given them.  Marriage is a spiritual reality.  That is to say, a man and a woman come together for life, not just because they experience deep love for each other, but because they believe that God loves each of them with an infinite love and has called them to each other to be living witnesses of that love.  To love is to embody God's infinite love in a faithful communion with another human being" (Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit).

God -

Help me to hear you and your desire for not just myself but my marriage.  Help me to give up my expectations, my desires, my wants, for yours.  Give me strength when I need it but also help me to be weak and rely upon you as well.  Help me love when I feel I cannot or do not want to, to remember that the Spousal Unit is just as much yours as I am.  Give me your heart for him.

Thank you for my husband.  Thank you for the love he has given me and the joy he has brought me.  Help me to remember those times when all I want to do is point out how 'bad' he is and be superior in that.  Let me live in your timeline and not mine and to remember this prayer in the midst of the moment when I most want to lash out.

Help me change from the elder son into the father. 

I want to be all in.

Amen

Things Change

Don't it make you cry
Something so clear as love
Could become so vague
Don't it make you cry
Something so clear as joy
Could fade into grey
and it don't matter what we do
and it don't matter what we say
Without surrender we will never find our way

Disengage and leave the ground
Setting my sights on the great beyond
Silence is the loudest sound

- Ed Kowalczyk

Back in the saddle again

Didn't realize it  had been so long since I'd written anything.  I'd written lots of posts in my head but until they perfect that head-to-blog transfer, I guess I'm kinda out of luck...

I haven't kept up with posting twice a month to Project 365 so I'll have to see if I can do better with that.  I do think I've made progress in having a life along with finishing my Master's.  I don't spend nearly as many Saturdays at the coffee shop as I was last semester.  It's been kind of nice to wake up on Saturdays and just be able to sip coffee, play some Fishdom and leisurely get ready to start my day.

I am also now in maintenance on the diet and have been for about a month.  I've lost about 4 more pounds because I am getting back to pre-diet, pre-injury levels of exercise.  I am still being careful about my spine but I am able to do more and have less pain overall (and be able to walk upright) so I'm cautiously testing where my new limits are.

The SU continues his battle.  We agreed he would go on Antabuse and he asked me to give him the pills every day so I would be sure he took them.  He made a comment about how he would probably test it at some point and I told him I reserved the right to point and mock if it made him vomit his organs out his nose.  Well, he first achieved 30 days sobriety, then decided to test the drug and it was rather frightening.

I did not point and mock.  I'm not going to go all into the details but there was one point I thought he had died in front of me and another point when he was responsive that I thought he must be having a stroke.  When I went to grab my phone to call 911, he told me what he'd done.  I started crying and he kept telling me he was sorry.  When he could finally get up and went into the bedroom, I followed to grab my pillow and spend the night on the couch as is general procedure (that or a hotel) when this happens. 

I was sitting out there and flipping through Ephesians on my phone (book we're studying in church) and came across part of Chapter 3 (14-19) and felt I was supposed to pray those for the SU so I did.  Then God told me to go into the bedroom and tell him I loved him - that my love was firm.  That brought about the "Really, God?" conversation He and I have on occasion. 

But I did what He asked and hauled my carcass off the couch to go in and talk to the SU.  I am glad I did.  I have seen changes in him as he's prayed consistently and worked on his sobriety for the past month and those changes were apparent and helped to keep my heart soft.  There seemed to be some genuine sorry and repentance in his apology and I got the impression he was relieved I came back to talk with him.  I also shared with him how scared he'd made me and my anger is not necessarily at *him* but rather the foolhardy and dangerous risks he takes with his life and health - that he is better than he tells himself he is and has value to many people.  He told me the next day that he's learned some things:  he actually prefers sobriety to drinking, he can do 30 days and more, and Antabuse is nothing to mess with (no kidding on the last one!).  He also said we deserve better and he wants to work to give it to us.

So we are back in the beginnings of sobriety and at Step One again.  I'm okay with it.  I love my husband.  He can do this.