Jesus and Me ... and the Cats

Thanksgiving this year was so much fun!  Not only did we have delightful company, but it gave me a chance to do something I don't often get to do, and that's cook. I love to cook!  For me, it's so relaxing.  I love to cook for other people and try new recipes.  I learned to cook from watching cooking programs on public television as a young bride.  Julia Child and others taught me knife skills and cooking techniques.  Today, I still am a cooking show junkie, and with the internet, I have access to all those wonderful recipes. Cooking appeals to the hands-on creativity in me, but I've learned that that creativeness needs to be kept under control. The most important cooking lesson I've learned is to make sure I have all the ingredients called for and to follow the recipe, to the letter.  Some of my worst creations have resulted from getting too creative, including making substitutions.  Or I was impulsive, deciding to make the dish on the spur of the moment befo

It's 1:25 pm on November 26, 2012, and the kitchen is finally cleaned up.  The left overs are all packaged up after a trip to the grocery store this morning to buy more storage containers.  A double batch of turkey and rice soup was made, pronounced "good," and put in the freezer for winter suppers.  There were only three of us for the Thanksgiving meal, but we had enough to feed fifteen people.  Of course, I wanted leftovers, but I made five times as much food as we really needed!  I was having too much fun cooking for people I love, producing a bounty that included everyone's favorite Thanksgiving dish.  It reminded me of a devotional in the book, Joy Breaks, called "Joy Beads" by Barbara Johnson (Zonervan Publishing House, 1997, pp. 30-31).  Barbara was told that if she put a BB in her bottle of make-up, it would keep it from becoming thick and gooey.  So, she sent her husband, Bill, out to get her a BB.  One BB. Bill returned home and proudly prese