Eating October in December

Part 2

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes...

Yesterday, I took on the problem of old squash. Today I'll address the more universal problem of the tomato glut of early fall.

I usually plant too many Italian plum tomato plants, but I expect to freeze their fruit for the winter, so don't worry too much when my counter is covered with red orbs come the end of October. In the past I've made sauce and froze it and roasted halved tomatoes and froze them, but the fall produce season usually produces a glut of produce and not enough time to process it all. Over the years I've fallen into taking the easiest and least time-consuming way of dealing with all the tomatoes, a tip given to me years ago by a woman who had ten kids. (Note: Always listen to tips given by women who have ten children. They have learned how to become incredibly efficient in most areas of their lives, especially in the area of food storage and preparation.) This woman would pick and wash her tomatoes, cut out the stem end of each tomato and freeze them as is in freezer bags or plastic storage containers. I started doing this just to get the tomatoes off my counter before November. I also found that a frozen tomato, with a hole cut in the stem end, could easily be skinned by dipping the tomato in some lukewarm water for a minute and simply squeezing the tomato out of the skin. The remaining frozen orb could be thawed slightly, chopped and then thrown in soups or stews or chili. My favorite use of the frozen tomatoes in my freezer, however, is for a roasted tomato sauce. Below is the recipe. I just take the desired amount of frozen tomatoes out of the freezer, usually enough to cover the bottom of a roasting pan, put them in a bowl of lukewarm tap water, slip them out of their skins and put them into the roasting pan. Then follow this recipe:

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Desired amount of skinned, frozen plum tomatoes, enough to cover the bottom of a 13” x 9” roasting pan

2 - 4 cloves garlic, chopped

4 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

oregano and/or basil (optional)

Preheat oven to 425°. Put skinned, frozen tomatoes into a 13” x 9” baking pan. Add garlic, salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Roast until sauce is thick and jammy, about 40 - 60 minutes (sometimes longer if the tomatoes are very juicy). The consistency should be thick and saucy, but not dry. Add oregano and/or basil during the last ten minutes of roasting, if desired. Toss with pasta or use as a sauce on pizza.

This sauce is easy and really tastes like summer. 

 

***

About that 20-inch zucchini I mentioned yesterday?...well, I hacked off a piece of it, skinned it, cut out the seed area, thinly sliced it and popped it into the sausage tortellini soup I made for Christmas Eve (which also contained some of the skinned frozen tomatoes). No one knew I was serving them two month old zucchini. I think I'll shred the remaining piece and make a batch or two of mini-loaves of zucchini bread for the freezer...to keep the rest of the frozen tomatoes company...

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold,

it would be a merrier world. - J.R.R. Tolkien

Eating October in December

Part 1

The Great Patty Pan Squash Experiment

I made squash soup last week. I used summer squash that I had grown in my garden this summer. They had been sitting on my counter since the middle of October. It's now December...

Many years ago I grew a squash that was described in the seed catalog as a summer squash if picked early, but a winter squash if left to harden on the vine. The winter version didn't look much different from its summer cousin, but it did have a tougher skin and stored well into the winter. When I returned from a two week vacation in the middle of October this year, I found a half dozen overgrown patty pan squash hiding under the fading leaves of a nearby zucchini plant. At that point they looked like a small invasion of flying saucers, large, with tough skins and, I was sure, large seeds inside as well. I picked them, put them on my kitchen counter, and ignored them for two months. I wondered if they would behave like the summer/winter squash I had grown years ago.

A few days before Christmas, in an effort to clear the counter before the holiday, I decided the time had come to test the long term viability of the patty pan squash. (I was also fresh out of dinner ideas that night...) I peeled the squash. (The skin was easier to peel than a butternut squash.) I seeded them (much like a pumpkin). The remaining flesh was white and firm. I steamed the flesh and let it cool. I then proceeded to make a generic creamed soup recipe using the steamed squash. The result was quite delicious, like an autumn squash soup, though the soup was, well, patty pan white...

I've included my recipe below. With the success of the patty pan soup, now maybe I'll be brave enough to do something with that 20 inch monster zucchini that's still sitting on the counter...

Cream of Squash Soup

¼ cup finely chopped onion

¼ cup butter

3 tablespoons flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 ½ cups chicken broth

1 ½ cups milk (up to a ½ cup may be half and half)

2 – 3 cups (approximately) of pureed summer squash

Nutmeg

Ginger

Sauté onion in butter until tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Cook one minute, stirring constantly until smooth and bubbly. Gradually stir in chicken broth and half the milk; cook until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Do not boil. Puree squash with half the milk in a food processor. Add squash mixture to thickened broth and heat through. Add ginger and a bit of nutmeg to taste.

Tomorrow

Eating October in December

Part 2

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes...

Americans have more food to eat than any other people and

more diets to keep them from eating it. - Yogi Berra

Just Say It...

 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you...”

Sometimes I just have to say those words that way, three times in a row, in a rapid-fire manner, the words sometimes jubilant, sometimes infused with a sigh of relief, often both.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you...”

I come home after a long day at work; my husband offers to order a pizza...

”Thank you, thank you, thank you...”

I'm late for an appointment and a prime parking spot opens up in front of the building I was supposed to be in two minutes ago...

”Thank you, thank you, thank you...”

After four months of trying to get a tiler to install a kitchen backsplash for my new kitchen, I finally find someone else to do the work...who does a beautiful job...and offers to change out the nine electrical outlets to match the new tiles...all finished a week before Christmas...

”THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU...!!!”

A cleanly hooked big bass; a beautiful sunset; finishing a long knitting project with only six inches of hard-to-find yarn left to spare; good medical test results; being narrowly missed by an aggressive driver on the interstate – very different situations ranging from the inconsequential to the potentially serious...

”Thank you, thank you, thank you...”

I'd like to say the attribute of gratitude comes naturally to me, that I see the random gifts thrown my way every day and appreciate them for what they are – precious gifts to be thankful for. But truthfully, I often miss them or see them as something other than precious. There is a painfully familiar scene in the episode, The Reichenbach Fall, in the PBS series Sherlock where Sherlock Holmes is being honored for his detective work in recovering a priceless painting. Upon being presented with a small wrapped gift, he shakes it and correctly deduces its contents:

Sherlock: Diamond cufflinks....All my cuffs have buttons...

John (to the presenter): He means thank you.

Sherlock: Do I?

John (to Sherlock): Just say it.

Sherlock: Thank you...?

Like Sherlock, I sometimes fail to see the relevance or value of some of the gifts I am presented with as I go about my day. As Christmas approaches, the stress and busyness of the season has me grumbling about all I have to do, much of it revolving around the giving and receiving of gifts. Like Sherlock, I can disconnect from what I am given and am giving and miss the whole point of the giving and receiving. Fortunately, I, too, have a John Watson at my side, an inner voice from the Spirit of the living God who reminds me to just say it – “Thank you” – for the busyness of the season, for the cleaning and cooking and shopping and everything else that makes me crazy . And when I first hear myself say it, it does sound a bit like Sherlock's “Thank you...?” but as I internally repeat the words, the tone of them changes, and I'm brought to a place of acute recognition of what is being celebrated during this time of often frantic gift-giving...

The Gift...

...The God/man invading our existence as a baby. The Son of the living God coming to restore our relationship with His heavenly Father...

(“Thank you...”)

...The Savior of the world, born on this earth in a stable, coming to live like one of us, but dying for each of us, for our sins, all of them - even that reticence to be grateful - taking all our failings with Him to the cross and then taking us with Him into the new eternal life of His resurrection...

(“Thank you, thank you...”)

...The Gift of Christmas is a Person, the One Who knows me better than I know myself, and loves me lavishly anyway...

(“Thank you, thank you, thank you...” the words now jubilant, infused with a joyous sigh of relief...)

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

- William Arthur Ward

Sweet Memorial

I periodically pretend to clean out the basement, throwing out or giving away things I've held onto long enough – old clothes and toys, storage containers, empty boxes - rearranging the remaining objects to look like there is less stuff down there than there actually is. On my last decluttering adventure to the basement, I found an old metal can that I had held onto for so long that I don't really know how old it is – more than thirty years, perhaps? I thought about getting rid of it, but it only got as far as the garage, where it eventually ended up in a photo shoot on the front seat of my car.

The can had at one time contained Tavener's hard candy, a fruit-flavored jewel-like sweet in bright colors of green, red, orange and yellow. I don't remember how or why I got the can of candy, but I do remember why I've kept it for so long.

Sweet memorial...

When I was a child, my grandfather had a metal can of Tavener's on the front seat of his car. Always. I do remember the original candy in the can, and it is possible he had more than one can over the life of his cars, but that familiar Tavener's can was a permanent fixture on the front seat, just to his right when he sat in the car. And we kids all knew it was there – me, my brother, my cousins. We knew that where Grandpa was, there was candy. The original candies were just a classic hard candy, ranging from bright red (yummy cherry) to bright green (yucky lime – my least favorite...). When the original candy ran out, Grandpa would refill the can with a random assortment of other sweets. The candy in the can was not often what it said on the outside of the can, but candy of some sort was always in the Taverner's can on the front seat.

My brother and I spent a lot of time in the car with Grandpa growing up. He took us fishing and crabbing, out to nearby lakes to feed the ducks. He drove my Grandma to the store, to doctor appointments, and more often than not, my brother and I were left in the car with Grandpa to let my grandmother run her errands unemcumbered by two small children. We were good at entertaining ourselves, but we knew if things got a little frenetic in the back seat, there was always a bribe sitting on the front seat in a little metal can. “Want a piece of candy?” Grandpa would say, and quiet would reign again – at least for the length of time it would take for my brother and I to finish sucking on whatever we had chosen out of the can.

Objects tied to memories are precious...and biblical.

In the book of Exodus, God gives Moses specific instructions about making an ephod and a breastpiece, overgarments to be worn by the high priest when entering the Holy Place. They both contained jewels, as colorful as Tavener's candy, to represent the sons of Israel – objects, but associated with people, the purpose being a reminder, a memorial before the Lord:

Take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel in the order of their birth—six names on one stone and the remaining six on the other. Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings and fasten them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear the names on his shoulders as a memorial before the Lord. (Exodus 28:9-12)

Then mount four rows of precious stones on it. The first row shall be carnelian, chrysolite and beryl; the second row shall be turquoise, lapis lazuli and emerald; the third row shall be jacinth, agate and amethyst; the fourth row shall be topaz, onyx and jasper. Mount them in gold filigree settings. There are to be twelve stones, one for each of the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes...Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place, he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastpiece of decision as a continuing memorial before the Lord. (Exodus 28: 17-21, 29)

After crossing the Jordan River, Joshua also directs the making of a memorial. This one is made with stones from the river itself, to remind the people of God Himself, of His power and loving deliverance toward the people of Israel: 

 

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. (Joshua 4:4-7)

We are all surrounded by tangible memorials to God's goodness – family, homes, jobs, experiences - that most of us acknowledge in some way the fourth Thursday of each November. I acknowledge an additional November memorial, a remembrance – November 30, the feast of St. Andrew. In the eastern European culture where my grandfather grew up, name days were celebrated more than birthdays. As children, my brother and I were coached by Mom and Grandma to wish Grandpa, his name being Andrew, a happy “Andrej” - an acknowledgment of his name day.* So I suppose it is timely I came across that old Taverner's can in the basement recently. No, it's not the original can, the candy tin that Grandpa actually had on his front seat – but it is the same kind of can, same size, same old Tavener's graphic – and when I see it, it reminds me of Grandpa. The can serves as a memorial of the times spent in the car with him, the presence he was in my life for so many years, the only in-house father figure I knew as a little girl.

Needless to say, the can didn't get any farther than the garage. And somehow, the basement doesn't seem to be the appropriate place for it anymore. When it made its trip upstairs and into my memories, it demanded a more prominent place in my living space. Memorials are like that...

*My brother and I were taught the abbreviated version of a long Slovak saying that was traditionally said to the person celebrating his name day. Roughly translated, it went something like this: “I'm wishing you, I'm wishing you and I'm not going to stop wishing you until you give me something...” This usually earned a quarter for each of us from Grandpa.

One day, you’ll be just a memory for some people. Do your best to be a good one. - Unknown 




 

The Shrine in the Woods

On Pilgrimage

(Part 2)

The story of the shrine in the woods began fifty years ago when a Franciscan brother from Graymoor, Brother Joseph Zakia, felt led by God to carve out a spot in the wilderness for prayer. The son of immigrants from Syria, Brother Joseph came to the Franciscan monastery by way of the U.S. Coast Guard, still wearing his sailor suit when he showed up to start his new life as a Franciscan brother. He eventually came to supervise the retreat ministry, his favorite retreat being the “nature retreat”, a weekend of being in God's creation, sleeping out on the monastery property, hiking down to the nearby Hudson River. His retreat philosophy? Come and spend time in God's creation with a verse of Scripture as your companion. "Just waste time with God," he would say. "That's the best time of your life.”

The hilltop shrine was originally erected in 1964 by Brother Joseph, a place for people to walk to, as on pilgrimage, to go and waste some time with God. The shrine and its statue of Mary eventually were taken over by nature and mostly abandoned. In 1994, the statue was rediscovered and the local immigrant community became the new caretakers of the hilltop, restoring and caring for the shrine and making it a place of pilgrimage. In 2000, the shrine was vandalized, the statue destroyed, apparently by someone who left a pile of leaflets condemning Marion devotion. The immigrant community rebuilt the shrine promptly, and the visitors to the hilltop increased in both fervency and frequency. Sunday foot tours, special devotions, all-night vigils and processions all found their way to the rock outcropping in the woods. In a 2008 event, over 100 people from the greater New York City area made a pilgrimage to the shrine on a cold night in December for an all night vigil. Though many of the pilgrims were from Hispanic backgrounds, the presiding clergyman that night was Vladyka Mykhayil, an archbishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox church. Part of his address reminded those present that regardless of ethnic heritage, they are all hikers of a sort:

"We are all pilgrims in this life, walking the road together on our journey toward God. Our immigrant community is one of great holiness and spirituality...”*

His words remind us we are all immigrants, each and every one of us, people moving through this finite earthly world, susceptible to decay and sin, but pilgrims heading toward an everlasting, perfect heavenly world where we can finally take up permanent residence. Like thru hikers on the AT, we are just passing through this world with an ultimate destination ahead.

***

I don't know what happened to the shrine on the Appalachian Trial in the past year. I couldn't find any recent information about it. Perhaps nature had taken it back again. Perhaps vandals had struck again. Maybe the caretakers have taken down its weathered structures in anticipation of a reboot of the shrine next spring. The shrine has disappeared before, only to reappear with a new generation of pilgrims, some deliberate followers, like those with a devotion to the Missionary Virgin Mother of Immigrants. Some, like my husband and I, accidental pilgrims, AT hikers who had wandered off the trail. Whether the shrine reappears or not, I'm glad we found it when we did and that I took the time to find what I could about its origins. I'm encouraged by the vision of Brother Joseph, the shrine's initiator, and his invitation to spend time in God's creation with a verse of scripture as a companion.  I'll embrace the reminder of what it would be like to be on pilgrimage with God's word for company, His presence as my hiking companion.  After all, I'm just passing through this life and I want the best time in it to be the time I wasted with God...

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

*http://uaoc.org/news/index.php?GUID=E3CB074A-FA37-4FDC-BD5B-BC0F10A5B621

A Walk in the (Spiritual) Woods

(The AT meets the Virgin Mary)

(Part 1)

The shrine at the top of a rock outcropping was the last thing I expected to find along the Appalachian Trail. Like most man-made structures exposed to the elements, it had a weathered look. The few small benches with peeling paint sat next to some old plastic chairs, the covered message board contained faded schedules and fliers, printed in Spanish. There was an ornate statue of the Virgin Mary on a stacked rock altar, encased in a glass-fronted cabinet, her clothing slightly faded from the light that filtered through the trees growing on the top of the outcropping. Some perennials had been planted in small beds formed out of landscape timbers, and there were faded plastic flowers in colorful vases. The overall atmosphere was that of a small chapel where the builders forgot to add the walls and the roof...

A number of years ago I read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, a laugh-out-loud account of his experience hiking the 2,168 mile Appalachian Trail. I became fascinated by all things AT, reading all I could about the trail. I read accounts of other hikers – thru hikers, day hikers, their motivations for their hikes - and quirky facts about the trail itself. I thought I knew about most of its hidden gems. Since the trail passes through New York State near where my husband grew up, every year, when we go back east to visit family, we go out for a few hours to hike a section of the trail. (We are “short” day hikers...) We park at the monastery of the Franciscan Friars of Graymoor, in Garrison, and pick up the trail on the edge of their property. We then head into the woods, looking for the iconic white painted blazes on the trees that mark the AT. (The Franciscan Friars have had a long relationship with the Appalachian Trail. Since 1972, they have provided a sleeping shelter, showers and, in the early years, meals for AT hikers passing through that section of the trail. There was a period of time when hikers were housed in the monastery itself, earning it the reputation as “The Hilton of the AT” in hikers' guidebooks.)

We first found the shrine several years ago, a little over a mile along the trail from the Franciscan property. The trail through this area is treed and rocky, rolling but not steep. There are old stone walls and high rock outcroppings on both sides of the trail. It was only by chance that the white painted top of the cabinet holding the statue of Mary caught our eye, a flash of white among the fall foliage. We climbed up the moderately steep rocky hill and found the shrine. My husband and I used our combined eight years of high school Spanish to decipher the fliers on the covered message board. It appeared that the hilltop shrine was a gathering place for prayer and devotion to “Virgen Misionera Madre De Los Immigrantes” - the Missionary Virgin Mother of Immigrants. From the look of the schedule, it was a busy place throughout the year, with eucharistic celebrations and prayer gatherings. It was empty and silent that weekday morning we first discovered it, but when we returned the following year for our hike, we found a young Hispanic family, a father and mother with small children, had hiked into the woods to climb the rocky hill. I wondered how many other people knew of the shrine and purposely sought it out, and how many had accidentally stumbled upon it like we had. There were no signs anywhere along the trail to indicate where it was, yet when found, it appeared to be a much visited spot.

Our hike this year on the AT was later in autumn than in past years. Despite the fall leaves being underfoot rather then up in the trees, the rock outcropping and its shrine were hard to spot. (All hills of rock along the AT start to look the same after a while...) The flash of white wood was not visible, but we guessed we had arrived in the vicinity of the shrine, climbed the next outcropping and found an almost bare hilltop with few remains of the shrine. The man-made rock altar was still there, but all traces of the shrine had been removed with the exception of the signage that had been over the statue of Mary. The sign was lying on the ground among some rocks, the only indication of what the hilltop had been.

My husband and I sat up there awhile, trying to recreate in our minds what the shrine had looked like when we last saw it. My husband took some pictures, and we climbed down and continued on our hike. On the walk back I decided to find out as much as I could about the history of that rocky hilltop. There wasn't a lot of information out there in cyberspace regarding the shrine, but I found enough to fashion a brief history of the shrine in the woods.

Tomorrow: On Pilgrimage

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. - John Muir

Why People Fish...

Part 2

This is how this year's fishing variable interval reinforcement schedule played out:

Again, beautiful fall weather, good tide and positive fishing reports were on our side. At our first fishing destination, the water was clear enough to see bait fish following our lures. (Reinforcement of a kind – if bait fish were interested in our lures, surely their larger predators would be as well, no?) After a few casts I caught the smallest bluefish I'd ever seen, all of about three inches. Like a rat getting a single small pellet of food for a lever press...

(For those of you out there that care about such things, we were fishing for bluefish of any size. Bluefish can reach 40 pounds, though under 20 is more common. Smaller, seven to ten inch bluefish are called snappers and are fun to catch and make great eating. They are also the fish I was wildly successful at catching through my teen and college years, much to the chagrin of my brother whom I'd regularly outfish.)

I moved to another part of the pier we were fishing from and hit a hot spot – sort of. I would feel a sharp tug on the line, then nothing. Again, another tug, and nothing. Finally, the rod bent, and I knew I had a big one, which I played until it reached the surface, where I could see the 18-20 inch bluefish skillfully throw the hook and swim away. Like a rat almost getting a substantial reward of food for a lever press. I kept casting.

Another hit, another large blue, not quite as big as the first one, but equally skilled in throwing the hook when I got it to the surface, allowing me to see, again, the size of the one that got away. (Yeah, I know...it sounds like a classic fish story...) More casts, more tugs, at variable intervals, but no more visual appearances. I kept casting.

Meanwhile, my fellow rats fishermen were not seeing quite the action I was, but still kept fishing, experiencing a sort of vicarious variable interval reinforcement from my partial success. We then traveled to another fishing area several miles away where other fishermen had buckets of kingfish they had been rewarded with on their own variable interval schedule. This time my husband hooked and landed a snapper-sized blue, providing my brother and I with the vicarious reinforcement which kept us fishing the surrounding area with no success.

We moved to a third fishing area, one, again, with lots of interested bait fish, some big enough to actually hook and land (more small food pellet reinforcement for lever pressing). It was here I got my own official snapper-sized blue, nostalgically bringing back memories of outfishing my brother. We called it a day shortly thereafter (Lacking that genetic disposition, my husband's fishing stamina was waning.) and we went out for dinner.

At the end of dinner, my brother, who had had up until that point the least successful day of fishing of the three of us, announced he might go to the ocean side of the island and make a few casts before heading home. (It was already dark and he had a four hour trip ahead of him.) As tempting as it was to join him, I played the good wife, said goodbye to my brother, and went back to the hotel with my fished-out husband. Emails from my brother the next day contained a photo of the striped bass he caught in the dark and the tale of a much larger striper that snapped the line and got away with one of my brother's favorite lures.
 

Why do people fish?

Variable interval reinforcement...

Will we be back next year? Oh, yeah...

Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught. - Author Unknown

Why People Fish...

Part 1

“Why do people fish?”

We were about to embark on a day of fishing with my brother on a recent trip to the east coast when my husband posed the question. He, unlike my brother and me, had not inherited the fishing-obsession gene that runs strong in my family.* He is not opposed to fishing, actually enjoys it in moderate quantities, and will fish with me in the ponds in our backyard. For the past two years he has good-naturedly obtained a New York State Marine Registration which enables him to partake in the marathon fishing day my brother and I engage in when we see each other once a year. We meet on the south shore of Long Island, the area where my brother and I honed our fishing skills growing up, but an area neither of us live close to any more.

I could have answered the question with some sweet brother-sister bonding explanation (I do love my brother.) or said something about the exquisite beauty of the bays and grassy islands I used to take for granted when I lived there but now really miss (They are beautiful and I do miss them.) but I didn't even think of these as reasons at the time. Instead, based on my years of fishing experience and observations, a 40-year old random bit of Psychology 100 popped out of my mouth:

“Variable Interval Reinforcement,” I answered...

In behavioral psychology, operant conditioning uses various schedules of reinforcement to shape behavior. Rewards given on a schedule keep mice (and people with fishing rods) repeating certain behaviors. Lab rats will press levers, run mazes, even endure electrical shock, for food. People with fishing rods will cast for hours, in the dark, under difficult weather conditions, for the possible thrill of catching a fish.

Continuous reinforcement, where the desired behavior is rewarded every time it occurs, causes the behavior to occur at a frequent rate, but if the reward is removed, the behavior will quickly cease. But variable interval reinforcement encourages a behavior that is much harder to extinguish, rewarding the behavior after an unpredictable amount of time has passed. A rat in a behavioral science lab might be rewarded with a pellet of food after his first bar press following a one minute interval, receiving another pellet for the first response following a five minute interval, and a third food pellet for the first response following a two minute interval. Variable interval reinforcement encourages slow, steady, repeat behavior. Variable interval reinforcement is why people fish...

My husband's question was, I think, partly motivated by the memory of last year's fishing trip – beautiful fall weather, good tide, positive fishing reports, yet not a single bite for any of us. Is weather, tide and someone else's opinion of whether the fish might show up enough to keep us coming back to try again? Thanks to variable interval reinforcement, yes...

Tomorrow: How this year's reinforcement schedule played out.

*Hooked, May 10, 2013

Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn. - Chuck Clark

 

Happy Mole Day!

(Nerds R Us Redux)

I almost forgot today was Mole Day...October 23...10/23...10²³

My chemist husband emailed me this morning to tell me he arrived at work today at 6:02 am...on 10/23.

Avogadro’s number is 6.02 x 10²³. (Actually, it's a longer decimal, carried out to many more places, but 6.02 x 10²³ is its common nickname.) This number, named after the Italian scientist for his contributions to molecular theory, represents the number of particles found in one mole of a substance, the mole being the number of atoms determined experimentally to be found in 12 grams of carbon. Or something like that...of interest mainly to those trying to pass high school chemistry or scientists who work with chemical compounds (said husband being the latter).

Last March 14, Pi Day (3/14...3.14), I wrote about our family celebrating the nerd holidays.* I included a recipe for a Pi Day celebratory pear pie. I also promised a recipe for mol(e)lasses cookies come Mole Day. Well, the day is here and so is the recipe. Enjoy, perhaps after a tamale or enchilada covered in mole poblano sauce... 

 

Mole Day Mol(e)asses Cookies

¾ cup oil
¼ cup dark molasses
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 ¾ cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon cloves


In a large bowl, stir together oil, molasses, and 1 cup of the sugar. Add eggs and beat until smooth. Add baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, beating until well combined. Add flour. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until next day.
Place remaining ¼ cup sugar in a small bowl. Roll dough into 1-inch balls, then roll in sugar to coat. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Bake in a 350° oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to racks and let cool completely Store airtight.

*The Angle, March 14, 2014

Nerd Girl Problem #25 – England has a magical channel called BBC where shows like Sherlock and Doctor Who originated. America has E!, which boasts Jersey Shore and Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

An Introvert in the Hands of an Extroverted God

I'm surprised it didn't occur to me sooner. The Trinity stuff should have been a dead giveaway – triune God, three Persons in One, a divine posse, heavenly hommies. And what about His motivation for creating mankind, His words regarding Adam - “It is not good that the man should be alone”...? Yep, the Deity I worshiped was an extrovert...

As early as middle school, long before I was familiar with the meaning of the word, I knew I was not one - an “extrovert”, that is. I knew what one was, the boy in school who engaged the teacher in circuitous conversations that made her forget the promised quiz, the girl who could fearlessly approach any group of kids and start talking about anything. Nope, not me... If a teacher wanted to hear what I had to say, I needed to be called on. And I could come up with the perfect social conversation starter...usually about two hours after the opportunity to use it had passed. Some people described me as shy, but I thought of myself as quiet – until I had something to say – and then I said it, after thoroughly pondering and rehearsing it over and over in my mind, of course. My mind was a very busy place, but nobody knew that except me. Because of the way my mind and personality worked, and because of all the energy it took to put myself out there – in school, in the neighborhood, in relationships – there were certain social things that I shied away from doing, usually involving large groups of people. “That's just not me,” I would think, and go and find another book to read.

When I was seventeen, I decided to take God seriously and found myself on the other side of a sudden shift from a third person (“Him and me”) relationship with God to a second person (“You and me”) relationship. The relationship got personal in the best kind of way, and in the early days of getting to know that triune God of the Bible – Father, Son and Spirit – in a deeper way, I found myself listening for His speaking into my life. (I'm not getting weird here. I'm not talking about audible voices, just a strong sense of thoughts and ideas that were too wise and profound to come from my teenaged introverted mind...) One of the first things I felt God speaking to me about went something like this: “You know how you don't do certain things because you think you can't, that it isn't in your personality to be outgoing, to speak up in groups? Well, I've changed all that...” (“Wow!” I thought. “God knows who I am, and He's going to turn me into one of those cool, outgoing, social types!”) But He wasn't done. “I've changed all that. I'm taking away your ability to use the quiet, thinking person I made you as an excuse not to do what I call you to do, to speak when and where and to whom I want you to speak...” I was left with the profound sense of, yes, God did know who I was, who He created me to be, but it wasn't up to me to decide what I was capable of doing. It was up to Him. I wasn't sure how I felt about that...taking away my ability to use my introvertedness as an excuse...previously, it had worked so well for me...

Over the years since then I have found myself in situations where I have been asked to do something I have perceived as too “extroverted” for who I am – speak in public, facilitate a Bible study, lead a small group, approach and socially engage someone I barely knew. My default is to want to use my introvertedness as a good reason why I can't do it. But God had been true to His word. He did in fact change me, taking away my introverted excuse of social energy deficiency. As I'd step back, as the words “No, I really can't do that...” were making their way to my lips, the hand of Him who created me would gently push me forward, and I'd find myself saying “O.K. I'll give it a try...” Yeah, momentary panic would often ensue - “I can't believe I just agreed to do that...” - but over time I've learned to depend on my faithful, extroverted God to compensate for my perceived introverted social deficiencies.

So, I've gone through most of my life feeling like, as I've described to myself, a large rubber band, functioning at the stretched limits of my introvertedness. Sometimes I fear I'll snap, when I've said “yes” to something outside my comfort zone, but, in truth, I never do snap. When I stumbled upon the following quote in Susan Cain's excellent book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, it was with some amusement and a sense of camaraderie:

...Free will can take us far,...but cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer. We might call this the “rubber band theory” of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much.

The introvert in me wants to wholeheartedly agree with this statement, but my extroverted God reminds me that it is He who determines the limits to which I can be stretched. He made me the way I am, in His image, so sometimes I acknowledge that if He is the extroverted God I perceive Him to be, part of me must have some piece of the extrovert in me as well. Other times, when I think He's completely forgotten who I am and how He made me, I'm reminded of Jesus, in Matthew's gospel -

And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone... *

- and then I know my God does understand what it means to be an introvert, seeing Him through His son's need for those moments of quiet solitude. So, I trust Him with the rubber band that is me. He knows the amount of stretching I am capable of. In His hands I can rest in the confidence I will not break, even when I may not feel it in the moment. He may choose, like a bold middle school student, stirring up things in the back of the classroom, to stretch and shoot me in directions that would cause my old, distant now, self to mumble “I can't...not me.” But this present introvert, in the hands of my extroverted God, all excuses removed, can only acknowledge such a launching as a trajectory toward the true me...

When you meet me, you think I am quiet.  Then you get to know me and just wish I was quiet. - Anonymous

Quiet people have the loudest minds. - Stephen Hawking

* Matthew 14:23