If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you probably recall my angst over a new Philippa Gregory book that I saw while on a layover in the UK.  I resisted the urge to purchase it, knowing that in a month’s time, I’d have the one I’d reserved from the library.  Well, the wait is finally over, and I’ve finished relishing The Other Queen.

Let me first tell you about Philippa Gregory’s talents.  If you ask me, she’s the queen historical fiction, bodice ripping included.  Gregory is most famous for The Other Boleyn Girl, recently made famous by Natalie Portman, Scarlet Johansson, and Eric Bana (as read off the cover of my own personal copy of the film, of course).  She specializes in Henry the Eighth and his wives, but she’ll branch into his offspring occasionally as well. Here, we have a book that fits the latter category.

Having savored many of Gregory’s novels, I can attest to the fact that The Other Queen ranks up there with her best work (other favorites include The Other Boleyn Girl and The Constant Princess).  She’s accomplished something few authors have dared:  make Mary Queen of Scots a tragic, sympathetic heroine.  Always poised against Elizabeth, who does no wrong in history’s eyes, Mary is destined to play Elizabeth’s dark foil or at the least, evil foe.  With such a preponderance of characterizations and historical villainizations, Gregory sets out to capture the real woman behind the seemingly villainous historical actions.  While Mary doesn’t come away “scot free” (sorry, couldn’t resist, and neither could Gregory at one point, for that matter), she does have one of the most sympathetic portrayals that I’ve ever encountered.  You can’t help feeling sorry for her at times, and that in itself, is a great victory.

To make Mary look better, one does need to take a few shots at Elizabeth, and Gregory has always been willing to tarnish the “Virgin Queen’s” reputation.  Personally, I think she goes a bit overboard with her attempts to villainize Elizabeth, and in the name of saving Mary’s reputations, she’s simply sullying Elizabeth in the same way that Mary has been historically corrupted.

Another great character in this book, second to Mary, is Bess Hardwick, wife of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is the Scot’s Queen’s jailer.  Bess is a self made woman, everything that the Mary is not, in upbringing, in family, in manners, and in faith.  While Mary is a loyal Catholic, Bess embraces Protestantism and all it offers to those willing to take over the spoils of the former Catholic Church in England.  Bess decorates her home with former abbey treasures and has made homes of former church properties.  When these two women live in the same home, their differences will naturally play upon each other.  At times, Bess’ obsession with money became grating, but her steadfast ambition for her family echoes that of women like Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice who simply want to provide a legacy for their children.

One thing I especially love about this period of time is the battles waged in England over Protestantism and Catholicism.  This story is set during Shakespeare’s lifetime, while he was a young man (though he gets no mention here, which makes sense since he wasn’t famous yet).   Shakespeare lived in Elizabeth’s England, which re-instituted the Protestant state church and was recovering from her sister’s persecution of Protestants. and  The battle between these two queens was the battle between these two forms of the Christian faith, and the result dictated the future of a nation.

I’ve added some new features to my site that I wanted to draw your attention to, especially if you’re one of my e-mail or feed readers who doesn’t visit the site very often.

The first is a feed from Twitter posts, something I’ve been doing for awhile, thanks for my friend Jen Zug, who got me hooked on it.  Basically, it’s random snippets from my daily life.  You can catch them on the bottom right hand margin of the site, or you can visit it directly at http://twitter.com/amyletinsky.  Expect very non-intellectual commentary on such exciting everyday occurrences as doing the laundry or resisting the urge to eat the cookies in the cupboard.  I recently learned that I can update this from my cell phone, so watch out world, here I come.

Then, there’s the comments feed that I’ve made widely accessible for you.  Ever post a comment on my blog or any body else’s blog for that matter, only to forget about it and wonder if anybody ever replied to it?  Well, this is my way of helping you come back to the conversation.  We’ve been having a lot of great conversations on this blog lately, all in the comments section, where people will respond to a post, and others will chime in with their thoughts.  I like to get in there too with my two cents, of course.  So, if you can’t get enough of my opions on everything, here’s your chance to get more.  I’ve got links to this in the right hand margin, but you can also subscribe to the comments via e-mail here.  If you prefer using a feed reader like Google Reader, here’s the address for the feed.

I have one more option for you.  It’s more for you readers who stop by for the book reviews or for those of you who would prefer to only get a notice when I post a new book review.  Here’s a link to receive an e-mail whenever I post a new book review. And here’s the link for using a feed reader to get those updates.

Okay, there’s one additional reason to visit the site (look around if you’re already there).  I put a new picture of myself up, as an official part of the website.   It’s in the top right hand corner.  Thanks to the very talented Karen Mullen for a wonderful portrait session.

I love entertaining guests.  It’s an excuse to whip up some good eats, make a fun music playlist, and chit chat the night away with old and new friends.  Thankfully, I have a husband who appreciates this desire in me, so he supports my efforts to have people over, even if he isn’t as outgoing as I tend to be.

I’ve noticed lately, though, that I’ve started making a lot of excuses for our apartment, that it’s too small for entertaining, that it’s inconveniently located, that parking is a hassle, or that my kitchen is too tiny.  I’ll look forward to the day when we have a larger home and can have more guests over, coming up with reasons to avoid doing it now.

But then I think about all the people I know who have used their small homes and minimal resources to make guests feel at home.  Schoolmates often made a dorm room comfortably fit a large party, and nobody complained one bit.  Some friends of mine were recent immigrants from Africa, and their large family had a small apartment, but they shared what they had with many guests.  Their home was always open and welcoming.

I’ve been convicted that instead of postponing my parties, I should be faithful to share what I have now.  It’s ironic that we currently live in our largest apartment yet, moving up after 2 previous apartments, and it’s still not large enough for my tastes. It makes me wonder if I’d ever be satisfied enough to be hospitable.

Partly, this is me seeking contentment with where I am and what I have.  But it’s also me wanting to be a good steward of the limited resources I have.  Jesus explained how we’re all stewards (managers) of the possessions that we’ve been given. Everything belongs to him, but he asks us to manage them for him.  When we’re faithful with the small stuff, he knows that we could be trusted with more someday:  “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10).  I want to faithfully use the home that I have, even if it’s small.  And that means I can be hospitable in a lot of ways.  It might just take a little creativity.

So last weekend, I took a big step in this direction and invited my book group over to watch a movie and eat dinner at my place.  It took some rearranging of furniture, but everybody had a place to sit.  And I got to invite the entire group.  Sure, it wasn’t a movie theater, but it was much better, if you ask me, because it was my home, a personal place I could share with them.

It’s time for another Friday food feature.

Oddly enough, it was my husband who reminded me that I hadn’t yet written about Swiss chocolate.  Of all people, why was it a guy?  Then again, he knows me well, and he’s doubtless surprised that I haven’t mentioned my favorite food group yet (the chocolate one, of course).

One thing I loved about Switzerland was the abundance of fresh, gourmet chocolate.  Not only could I find a wide variety of it in the grocery store, every local bakery had its own homemade chocolate.  Here, you’ll see a small bakery with an elaborate selection of chocolates.  This particular bakery was up in the mountains in a tiny alpine town.

Not only do the Swiss have incredible gourmet chocolates, such as truffles, they also do a great job baking chocolate into all sorts of goodies.  Here, you can see a roll that I’m eating that is stuffed with chocolate on the inside.  The Swiss version of a croissant is called gipfeli (they seem slightly less buttery), and you can often find chocolate gipfli at local bakeries.  I had it for an afternoon snack with coffee.

Here’s a word you’ll need to familiarize yourself with in order to understand and purchase Swiss Chocolate: noisettes.  That’s the French word for hazelnuts, and it seemed like I found that word more often than the German and more recognizable “haselnüssen.”  The Swiss love to stick hazelnuts in everything. It’s their equivalent of peanuts, if you ask me.  So, if you’re not a big fan of them (try some Nutella to see if you like the taste), learn to look for that word.

I’ll end with a recipe, since I’ve been doing that a lot with these food posts.  I’m borrowing this one from my friend Jen Zug, who served me this chocolate Irish Creme fondue.  It’s got ingredients that are easy to find in the US, but it’s got the Swiss fondue twist.  I also like it because you can make it long before the party and leave it warm on the stove until you’re ready to transfer it to the prepared fondue pot stand.

Ingredients:
18 ounces Semi Sweet Chocolate (chocolate chips work fine)
1/2 cup Light or heavy cream
1/2 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream

Directions:
Combine all the ingredients in your chocolate fondue pot and heat on your stove burner on medium low.  Stir until everything melts.  Turn down the burner to low and stir occasionally until you’re ready to serve it.

Optional dippers:
Strawberries
Pineapple chunks
Angel food cake pieces
Pretzels

A few days ago, I wrote about letting nature be your teacher, and last weekend, I experienced it in one of my favorite ways.  I went fishing.  The picture is my dad and me, posing on the Harrison River’s bank.

I get a deep appreciation for all those Galilean fishermen when I’m out there tossing my line in the river all day.  Many of Jesus’ disciples spent day in and day out on a boat searching for fish to feed their families and to make money.  And as anyone who has ever fished knows, the weather and the fish don’t always comply with the fishermen’s best intentions.

Our fishing excursion started early in the morning, and we were packed for the day.  Our boat was equipped with shelter from the rain, when a few sudden downpours showered down on us. But out on often turbulent Sea of Galilee, those fishermen didn’t have anywhere to go.

Recently, archaeologists have discovered a first century fishing boat in the Sea of Galilee.  They call it the Jesus Boat, since it was likely on the water when the disciples were making their living via fish.  You can see pictures of it at this site.  I got to see it shortly after it was discovered, while it was still encased in foam to preserve it.  It’s surprisingly small, for all those disciples.

My mom and dad have been out on the river when some pretty bad storms have hit, out of nowhere.  Huge hailstones and major temperature drops happen unexpectedly, and you just need to ride out the storm.  After it passes, boats search around the river, checking on the smaller vessels, making sure everybody made it okay.  You wouldn’t believe how small some of the boats are, and inevitably, they manage to fit two guys and a dog on board.

One of my favorite paintings illustrates this principle for me.  It used to live at one of my favorite museums, the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston.  The painting was stolen in 1990 in a famous art heist.  The piece is Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” and it’s a stunning depiction of Jesus and the disciples in a boat amidst terrifying waves on the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus is the calm in the center of the storm, and some of the disciples look to him for help.

In the painting, there’s one disciple looking out towards the light on the horizon while holding to a line.  Another is clinging with all his might to the mast.  Others are simply looking to Jesus and holding to nothing.

Out fishing, exposed to the elements on the water, where do I run for shelter and safety?  Where is my anchor and my hope?  Of course, if I’m blessed with a canopy on the boat, I’m heading there, but figuratively, what am I trusting?  Am I trusting the boat and my own life preservation skills to keep me afloat, or am I trusting Jesus, who holds my life in his hands?

I want to be like those disciples at the back of the boat with Jesus, but unfortunately, I know that I’m usually the one strapped to the mast and looking for the best place to duck and cover.

Jane Austen starts her most famous novel with an ironic line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”  The rest of the novel follows several single women in the quest to capture the hearts of men in possession of great fortunes.  It’s a justification for predatory women, to hunt and capture rich men.

Austen begins with the irony of a universal truth about love.  But, the true irony is that her book reveals more universal truths about love than most “serious” attempts at the subject.

Having just completed my 100,000th read-thru of Pride and Prejudice (I’m rounding up a bit), I’m thinking about why in the world this book about upper class women in regency England (early 19th century) still rings true today.  These women didn’t have cell phones. They didn’t surf the web or update their Facebook profiles.  Boyfriends didn’t even exist.  Instead, they had an elaborate courtship and engagement process.  Women didn’t work outside the home.  As a general rule, they didn’t own property, and many of them died early in childbirth. So why in the world is it the ultimate chick lit book?

If Elizabeth Bennet lived today, she and Jane would probably go to a state school, where Elizabeth would be in her junior year at the beginning of the novel (at 20), and Jane (at 22) would be a year out of school and at an entry level job, doing something like nursing or social work.  So when Mr. Bingley enters the scene, he’s a handsome, rich chap, but he’s not the answer to all their prayers.  The Bennet women are doing just fine without his riches. Mr. Darcy is easily ignored and avoided.  When Lydia and Wickham skip town, the family can be thankful that they don’t have to fork over the money for an elaborate ceremony and leave it at that.

Obviously, I think that the story has more reasons to carry over to our time and culture.  But, it’s this sort of mindset, of sticking the characters in the modern time frame, that can limit us from seeing how much we truly have in common with them.

Within the context of the Bennet sisters’ historical situation, we see some universal truths played out, ones that continue to be relevant in today’s game of love.

1.    Watch out for female competitors who use dirty tactics

Sure, the stakes today are a little different, but the heart still beats the same.  Miss Bingley’s two faced friendship and attempts at sabotage with Jane and Elizabeth is a perfect example of the lengths many women will go to win their men.

2.     Don’t be too quick to judge someone’s character

Elizabeth gets burned here. She used bad information to form an entirely incorrect picture of Mr. Darcy.  The same goes for Mr. Wickham.  She was way off on that one too.

3.    Heartbreak doesn’t heal easily

Poor Jane.  She languished for Bingley, and those of us who have ever felt heartbreak feel for her.  So much more the reason to rejoice when they are reunited.

4.    Good Girlfriends are essential to survival

Jane and Elizabeth are constantly debriefing after their encounters with their respective suitors.  And Charlotte needs Elizabeth more than ever when she settles for the annoying Mr. Collins.

5.     A woman has a lot of expectations to negotiate

While the family and societal expectations have changed a lot in the past two hundred years, women’s anxiety over being the “good girl” hasn’t changed at all.  We aim to please a lot of different people, and many of them have conflicting desires for us.  Elizabeth is trying to please her fickle family and the society that says she’s too low to marry upwards into Mr. Darcy’s stratosphere.  Women today battle the call to stay home with their kids but also to embrace the feminist call to “do it all.”  We can’t win.  So we live in the skillful negotiation of the middle ground.

If anybody has been reading along with me, I’d love to hear your ideas for other “universal truths” in the story.  I’m sure that there are plenty more.

On Saturday, Dan and I went to see Steven Curtis Chapman perform at our local county fair.  I’ve been a fan for years, but I’d never had the opportunity to see him standing up on the stage, strumming his guitar.  And after last May, I wondered if I’d ever have the chance to see him in concert.

Most of you are probably familiar with the story of what happened to his family.  On May 21st, Chapman’s youngest adopted child, Maria, was tragically killed in an automobile accident when her older brother accidentally hit her with the family car.

People respond all sorts of ways to tragedy.  Some dive deeply into despair.  Some cast blame and get angry.  Others, like the Chapmans, turn to God and receive amazing grace and hope, even in their darkest hour.  People around the country reached out to the Chapmans and lifted them up in prayer, and the family was thankful for the support.  Eventually, they spoke on Good Morning America in a touching interview that expresses the amazing depth of their faith and how much God has helped them through their suffering (click here to watch the interview).

Chapman started his concert with a song for the broken hearted.  “Blessed Be Your Name,” written by Tree 63, which is one of the most difficult songs to sing for someone going through a trial.  It echoes Job’s words of resignation and acceptance “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (1:21).  When Chapman sang the chorus, we all knew what he was singing about, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.  What a way to start a concert:

“Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say…
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, Blessed be your name”

I love how deeply personal and open he’s been through the whole experience.  And this concert was no different.  Chapman chose to add new lines to some of his more famous songs to represent the truth he’s learned in this suffering.  He stood up on stage and read the scriptures that have held him together during these past several months, and we all came away feeling like we’d seen a heart laid bare.

May God continue to bless the Chapman family in their time of grief, and also, may God continue to use their tragedy as an amazing testimony of hope in Jesus.

Sometime in the early 1900s, a Swiss physician and nutritionist named Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner invented one of the world’s greatest breakfast foods.  He called it müesli, and to this day, in Zurich, people call it Birchermüesli, after its creator.

Whenever I visit my friends in Switzerland, I beg them to make me müesli, and I’m always up for trying different restaurant’s versions of it, since no two places make it the same.  It’s one of the healthiest, high energy foods that I’ve ever encountered.  And it’s guaranteed to power your through your workday.

The word müesli probably brings to mind a granola like food.  In part, that’s true.  Whole grains are an important part of the dish.  When you go to the grocery store and bakery in Switzerland, muesli mixes abound (Trader Joes makes an awesome blueberry müesli mix that I love to use). But these are raw grains, uncooked and needing a little preparation before consumption.  You don’t just stick these in a bowl, dump milk on them, and eat them, like a cereal.

Müesli is a mix of yogurt, whole grains, fruit, and nuts.  That pretty much covers the food groups, doesn’t it?  It’s no wonder that the Swiss will eat it for any meal.

Chari has shown me the proper method, again and again, and I always default to a quick and easy method with whatever I have on hand.  But, it still tastes great.  Here’s how I generally make the dish.

Ingredients:
1 cup plain European style yogurt (the higher the fat, the better!)
½ cup whole grains (oats, barley, wheat germ, and/or rye.
1/8 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or almonds are my favorites)
1 banana, mashed
1/2 cup berries (sliced strawberries, blueberries, and/or blackberries, can be frozen)
1 apple, grated (you can also substitute a finely chopped nectarine or peach)

Directions:
I add the mashed banana to the yogurt and mix well.  Then, I stir the grains in that mix until they are coated.  Next, I mix in the nuts.  I finally stir in the remainder of the fruit.  Depending on the size and quality of the fruit, you can add some lemon juice for a more tart taste or honey for a sweeter taste.  Soak the mix overnight in the fridge to soften the grains and blend the flavors.

Chari claims that a sour cream like dairy product called “Quark” also adds a nice flavor and texture to the dish, but it’s really hard to find in the states.

Many of the purist recipes will call for soaking of the grains separately overnight. They’ll tell you to cover the grains with milk, and mix it with everything else the next day. I’m a bit too lazy for the extra step.  I prefer to do all the prep work the night before, and I think the grains get soft enough with all the moisture from the fruit and the yogurt.  But, I’m also not using really tough grains. If you had some rock hard grains, maybe you’d want to soak them separately.

I had it for breakfast today, and I’m still going strong this evening!

Last weekend, I went to the Seattle Art Museum’s touring exhibit on impressionism, which has been in town for several months now, but of course, I waited until the last minute to see it, meaning it was crazy crowded with other procrastinators like me.

Monet, always the star attraction at these exhibits, stole the show with a story about a stunt he pulled at the Louvre.  When the Impressionists were in their fledgling days, seeking approbation from the Paris art community, most of the painters were applying to copy the classics hanging in the Louvre, and Monet, ever the rebel, eventually followed suit.  But when he got to the Louvre, instead of setting up his easel in front of a classical masterpiece, he stood in front of a window and painted what he saw outside.  Touché.

Monet was an advocate of the plein air (open air) movement in painting, where painters took their easels outside and painted what they saw from life and their senses.  His bold action in the Louvre, among the prominent painters of his day, demonstrated his commitment to innovation and to learning from nature as a masterful teacher.

Sixty years earlier, William Wordsworth advocated that students of all types set down their books to learn from nature.

THE TABLES TURNED
1798

UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless–
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:–
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

Don’t worry, I’m not throwing out my books.  But sometimes I can start feeling the pressure of all the books that I haven’t read or find myself spending more time in the library than is good for me.  Especially now that the weather is turning, and it’s easier to escape to the indoors, I need a reminder that God’s classroom is a big and varied place.

“The heavens declare the glory of God;  the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).

*pictured art from the Kunsthaus Museum in Zurich, Switzerland

I’m thrilled to pieces that one of my book groups finally gave into my nagging subtle hinting and decided to read a Jane Austen novel.  When introducing people to her work, there’s only one book to start with, in my mind:  Pride and Prejudice.  So, this month, I’ll be reading it, for the zillionth time (it’s a yearly thing).

My friend Melanie mentioned that she’d love to see me put more book lists on my blog, so I thought I’d do a Jane list.  These are my suggested reading order for Austen’s novels, but it’s also my order of favorites. Renaissance Guy did a great Jane Austen themed post awhile ago about his favorite characters, and yours truly chimed in with a comment (how could I not?).  Check that out if you have the time.

#1 Pride and Prejudice

Read this first for the most memorable, estimable, and modern heroine, Elizabeth Bennett.  Also, a woman needs to know Mr. Darcy to appreciate the roots of the chic lit. genre of today.  He’s fabulous, and the most heroic and distinguished man in Austen’s books.

#2 Persuasion

This choice will surprise Jane fans, I assume.  I choose it second because it represents Austen’s most mature writing.  It’s her final completed novel, and the heroine is also the oldest one, most wizened and perhaps the most autobiographical of Austen herself.  Anne Elliot is heartbreakingly loyal and real.  She’s a heroine for women who find love late in life, or for anyone who has loved and lost.

#3  Sense and Sensibility

This is a story for women who call themselves “true romantics” (and need to be broken of that illusion).  Marianne Dashwood is nauseating at times, and Austen is at her best ironic form when poking fun at the younger Dashwood sister’s sentimentality.  The classic “rake” male is the worst in all of Austen’s tales, so if you want a guy to hate, this is him.  I won’t name names and spoil the fun.

#4 Emma

Emma gets a bad rap for being a spoiled brat, but Austen doesn’t always let her have her way.  As always, there’s an ironic touch to everything Emma does.  Austen once said that Emma was the heroine that only she could like.  I disagree because I sympathize with Emma’s busybody nature.  And she gets what’s coming to her.  Emma’s father is the worst example of parenting in all the books, but if you recognize that Austen is poking fun at people who are professional invalids (in her day, they were called valetudinarians), it can be quite amusing.  Expect irony at every turn with Emma, and you won’t be disappointed.

#5 Mansfield Park

This is a dark novel, and I have a hard time sympathizing with the overly moralistic heroine, Fanny Price.  But there’s a great host of other characters, including a brother and sister team who are up to no good.  Here’s a dysfunctional family if I’ve ever seen one.

#6  Northanger Abbey

Austen wrote this novel as a parody of the popular gothic novels of her time.  To truly understand it, you’ve got to read the books she’s parodying, primarily Ann Radcliffe’s the Mysteries of Udolpho and Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. This isn’t a romance, just a romp in an old castle, more of a murder mystery.  If you like Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Mr. Darcy sends you into convulsions (the not good kind), maybe you’d like this novel best.  But for me, I don’t think this is where Austen’s strength lies.  It’s amusing, and she’s showing a different side of her writing, but I’d choose the other books first.