links sewn together

Because my parents have been safely in Croatia wandering around Diocletian's palace:

For Split is Diocletian's palace: the palace he built himself in 305, when, after twenty years of imperial office, he abdicated. The town has spread beyond the palace walls, but the core of it still lies within the palace gates. Diocletian built it to be within suburban reach of the Roman town of Salonae, which lies near by on the gentle slopes between the mountains and the costal plain. The site had already been occupied by a Greek settlement, which was called Aspalaton, from a fragment shrub still specially abundant here. In the seventh century the Avars, that tribe of barbarian marauders who were to provoke a currency crisis in the Middle Ages because they looted so much gold from Eastern and Central Europe and hoarded it, came down on Dalmatia. They swept down on Salonae and destroyed it by fire and sword. The greater part of the population was killed, but some had time to flee out to the islands, which gave them the barest refuge. What they suffered in those days from cold and hunger and thirst is still remembered in common legend. In time they crept back to the mainland, and found nothing left more hospitable than the ruins of Diocletian's palace. There they made shelters for themselves against the day when there should be peace. They are still there. Peace never came. They were assailed by the Huns, the Hungarians, the Venetians, the Austrians, and some of them would say that with the overcoming of those last enemies they still did not win peace; and during these centuries of strife the palace and the fugitives have established a perfect case of symbiosis. It housed them, they are now it's props. After the war there was a movement to evacuate Split and restore the palace to its ancient magnificence by pulling down the houses that had been wedged in between its walls and columns; but surveyors very soon found out that if they went all Diocletian's work would fall to the ground. The people that go quickly and darkly about the streets had given the stone the help it gave them. Black Lamb Grey Falcon, p. 138-139

They missed this whole terrifying episode. But a family of ICA alumns were caught in the middle of it.

From the UK Telegraph where you should go and read the whole thing

 "I don't know how she knew to do it but she did. She did what she was told and she went."

Seeing the little girl running towards him gave Mr Haji fresh impetus to continue helping people out.

"This little girl is a very brave girl," he said. "Amid all this chaos around her, she remained calm, she wasn't crying and she actually managed to run towards men who were holding guns. I was really touched by this and I thought if such a girl can be so brave ... it gave us all courage."

One by one, the Walton family emerged and ran with Mr Haji and other rescuers until they reached the police lines outside the mall.

I've been praying and worrying about how violent and evil humanity is, how all the cries for Peace usual end in war and distress. It's easy, of course, in my quiet corner of Binghamton to worry but not to see the action of God in each situation and circumstance, to think that he isn't hearing our cries and prayers. But I got it into my head to read Habakkuk yesterday and remembered this: 

"O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you"Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

The  Lord 's Answer 

Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!"

The Work Habakkuk wanted to see God accomplish was safety and a cessation of war. Tragically, I'm sure he felt, but truly, the work God was actually doing was the sending of the Chaldeans. Many in our "peace" loving western world cannot accommodate a God who is sovereign over both war and peace, whose will is accomplished in every moment, every action. They, sometimes even I, prefer a weak, useless god to one who's work includes suffering and destruction. With each moment of chaotic violence the western church seems more and more ready to turn away from repentance and longing for God's mercy to a weak and useless god, crying out, along with everyone else, 'where is god? Why does he allow suffering?' 

But God is mighty to save those who turn to him. Repent and cry out to him. He is not far away. He is close at hand. He will not turn away from the one who trusts in him. 

odds and ends

Too bad it's not Friday because I could really use a quick take right about now.

Shockingly, I'm at the end of my first school quarter and about to do up my reports and send them in. You know that daily oscillation between 'I think we're doing fine! Look how on track we are and how much progress everyone has made!' and 'Oh sweet Mother of Jesus we are all going to die! Aghhh!'--that oscillation becomes even more pronounced in the actual writing of the quarterly reports for El Governemento. One word you feel great. Next word you panic like the nut in Word Girl who runs around with flailing arms, screaming.

I jest, a little. But not too much.

I'm also facing down a large amount of pairs.

By now they are rolling their way around the floor of the garage and soon, if I don't cook them, they will be composted for me onto the very floor. Maybe I could cut a hole in the roof of the garage to allow for light and then I could have a winter greenhouse....hmmmm.

And of course, yesterday was the moment to blog about Kevin DeYoung's new book Crazy Busy. 

What better way to blog about a book of this title than to forget and miss the deadline! Well, obviously there are better ways. It's a really good book and can be read in an hour that you don't have, beating children and spam phone calls back while you eat, absentmindedly, from a bucket of butter pecan ice-cream. 'I'm not crazy busy,' I said to Matt upon putting the book and spoon down, 'I m busy, but the crazy isn't from the busy, it's from me just being wacko.' Strangely, I find this a helpful distinction in my own mind. Between the book and Matt's excellent sermon from Sunday,

I discovered that my working All The Time has been a helpful way for me to keep God at bay without actually sinning. It's not like I'm doing anything Bad, all the work needs to be done, even the constant work of praying, but I've been smacking at God with my primordial pestle while telling other people to 'just be', and 'it's not what you do, it's who you are,' etc. Oh the Hypocrisy.

Anyway, it turns out I really do have to get up right now and make breakfast and turn my thoughts towards the fact that my parents will be with us a week from today! (So exciting!) They are safely in Croatia for a bit which has prompted me to dig up Black Lamb Gray Falcon again and read all about Diocletian's ancient palace. Gosh I'm jealous, both of the writing in Black Lamb and of not being in Croatia myself at this moment. If I have time, I'll put up some of West's marvelous descriptions. But don't wait around for them, I'm very very busy and I've got a lot to do and I might be a little crazy.

Pip pip

7 quick takes: church and home tra la la

one

The last many weeks I've been spending every available 'extra', as if there are any if those, minute at church trying to chip away at the big Catechesis of the Good Shepherd pile. I've already posted pictures of the new rooms which continue to be so lovely, but I've also been rewriting lessons and remaking materials that weren't working. Communal Prayer, for example, needed a serious overhaul.

I did up new little 'order of services' or whatever you call it

and then laboriously rewrote by hand Opening Sentences, Dismissals. Psalms, and so on and so forth. When I finally came to the point of laminating everything Matt was reading about Anselm and the existence of God and boy, thought I, I used to be an intelligent person one time, but lo, now I am stupid with so much laminating. How the intelligent have become seriously dim witted!

two

I also put together this cute little Folder Holder for the Little Ones. So Cute! [sorry, overcome with the cuteness]

three

Of course, spending so much time at church means that the house and garden fall into decay and failure. Saturday evening I rushed around cutting a few more flowers before a threatening frost. But then I just plunked them on my desk where they eventually faded and died because I didn't have time to do anything else.

Sob. I do not desire the advent of frost and cold weather. I mourn and weep and wail, in fact, when I think about it.

four

No tomatoes, no squash, no herbs this year, as I have regularly been lamenting (so much whining that someone wonderful has been bringing me gorgeous tomatoes--that is the true lesson, as any child can tell you, the more you whine, the more you get what you want) but my hydrangea finally bloomed, in three colors even, and I've managed to dry a few of them.

five

So I'm still not done at church, I have to fix the basket for the Pearl of Great Price and write another lesson but I woke up and realized that if I didn't spend some time doing stuff at home, my lessening intelligence would be compounded by being a Bad Mother and Wife.

six

So, naturally, I forced Matt, against his will, to rearrange our bedroom. He has been wishing he could have a place to study that isn't a Junk Heap of Despair but there just isn't another room or place in the house so we subdivided our bedroom--half Study half Bedroom.

Here is the 'Study'. Not wanting him to be lonely by actually being alone, I provided him with a chair for me and lovingly placed my lap top straight away near him.

'You don't want me to actually work, do you' he observed sadly when I had made myself perfectly comfortable.

'Of course not,' I said, 'I want us to sit here happily reading the Internet together and never doing any work ever again.'

Look how many books fit in his nook!

seven

Making the room into two separate functioning spaces meant putting our bed up against the wall. I expected this arrangement to be awful but I really love it.

Why? You ask. Well, for the last couple of years I have woken up to the dismal red expanse of the church brick wall, AND though I love the church dearly, that wall looms over me and makes me feel like I wished I live in a forest, which I don't really wish, but the wall messes with my mind. Now, however, I wake up to the view of the sky and all the angst seems to have melted away.

Plus, I painted this clever shelf which I procured from the church Rummage Sale. The child, I don't know how to explain that, but isn't the shelf fine?

And then I flung all these pictures on the wall.

So now I should go back to writing lessons. Or something. 

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

a little tasty morsel

We get all kinds of church supply catalogues in the mail nearly every day. Indeed, it's practically the only kind of mail we get aside from bills--just piles and piles of catalogues full of church stuff. I always page through them with the utmost attention and care and sometimes I am wonderfully rewarded.

Look at this clever and fabulous invention.

And look! It is available is three convenient pack sizes.

Just think, all the fun with none of the hassle! No refrigeration required. Disposable no-leak construction. Prepackaged wafer and juice in one single container. All we need is a little drive thru window in the parking lot.

7 quick takes:

one

It's my usual Friday morning of lying here covered in children knowing that I should get up and feed them but once I do that the cascading work of the weekend will begin to tumble forward and I won't come up for air until Monday morning. 

two

And you know, that's how I feel on Tuesday morning--just a few more minutes before the Sisyphean tasks of the work week begin. Because once Tuesday starts there's not breath until Friday but Friday starts its own more particular and exhausting climb towards the top.

three

Sunday, of course, is the pinnacle. You climb towards it all week, in various ways, reach the summit sometime during the morning, and come rolling down all the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.

four

The rhythm of the week is good. The climbing is paced and reasonable, though hard. It's not, as per the new Kevin DeYoung book which Matt is supposed to blog about but probably can't because he hasn't read it yet, 'Crazy Busy'. Such a helpful distinction--reasonable busy vs. crazy busy. Maybe I'll blog about it for him.

five

Without the rhythm--each day it's own appointed set of activities and tasks--I do it think it would descend into 'crazy' and I wouldn't even make it to Sunday. The rhythm carries me along, well, along with God, so that I don't completely loose my mind. Rhythm is such a nicer word than Routine. I hate the word Routine. It makes me want to run out of the house into the street screaming and waving a huge insanity flag.

six

This is how I wish I really spent all my time. What is this creature for? And why does he get to stay here while I get up and muscle up breakfast? And why is he always grinning at me like that? He should at least have to pull a little wagon with a lot of stuff in it. Or something.

seven

This hymn really sums it all up.

memory work and a long ago bright sunny tragic day

We've been chipping away at our school year for many a week now but I finally settled on some scripture memory, a hymn and a poem for the fall and winter. 

Last year we memorized John 3:1-17 and Numbers 21:4-9. Well, memorized might not be quite it. We said it often enough so that when we review everything we all basically remember it but only if we say it altogether. These two passages were felicitous choices because VBS this year turned out to be all about the People of Israel wending their way through the wilderness and a whole complete evening was on the serpent being raised up in the wilderness.

Anyway, I finally fixed yesterday on the scripture and hymn for this fall and as we sat altogether to hear them for the first time, I found they were a surprising and excellent way to talk about the importance of this day. Here is the hymn:

Forgive our sins as we forgive

You taught us Lord to pray;

But you alone can grant us grace

To live the words we pray.

 

How can your pardon reach and bless

The unforgiving heart

That broods on wrongs

And will not let old bitterness depart.

 

In blazing light your cross reveals

The truth we dimly knew,

How small the debts men owe to us

How great our debt to you.

 

Lord, cleanse the depths within our souls,

And bid resentment cease;

Then, reconciled to God and man,

Our lives will spread your peace.

Hymn 674 Rosamond E. Herklots, Detroit

And here is the scripture:

Matthew 18:21-35

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.  So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’  And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.  But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’  So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’  He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.  When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.  And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

And for levity's sake, here is our first poem for the year:

If I Could Have a Pair of Wings

Anita E. Posey

 

If I could have a pair of wings,

Do you suppose that I

Would chose a pair of robin’s wings

And skim across the sky;

Or would I take the wings of gulls

And glide across the seas;

Or would I buzz around the flowers

With wings of busy bees?

I could, with wings of dragonflies,

Dart over lakes and creeks;

Or with a pair of eagle’s wings

Soar over mountain peaks.

Perhaps, with wings of butterflies,

I’d flutter out of sight;

But with mosquito wings, I guess,

I’d flit about and bite.

the town circus

So I stupidly and blithely, several weeks ago, said to the really super nice person who gently and kindly cleaned my teeth, "Oh yes, my husband and I could both come in at Two O'Clock on Monday, September 9, 2013, me for a filling and him for a teeth cleaning." I smiled and beamed all around, like some benighted village idiot.

Yesterday I remembered.

"We have to go to the dentist tomorrow," I said.

"Who's 'we'?" inquired Matt, with interest and suspicion.

"You and me," I said.

"But not the children? The children don't have to go to the dentist," he said.

"Well. But the children do have to go, if we both go," I said apologetically and tragically.

And so it happened that all eight of us went to the dentist today, me for a filling, Matt for a cleaning, and six children to "sit nicely and read books" as I explained in hopeless desperation.

I made them dress up and comb their hair and lathered myself with eye shadow and some other stuff. The thing is, I've been to the dentist a lot lately, as I've chronicled on Facebook. I've gone from being someone in mortal fear, through drilling and trauma, to being someone who just walks in to the Dentist Waiting Room like its no big deal. And that's largely because the Dentist herself and all the people who work with her are SO KIND, so extremely kind. As I said to Matt on the way home, "they don't make you feel like a worm and no man and a Really Bad Person" when you walk in and open your mouth. I mean, that seems obvious, that a Dentist shouldn't make you feel awful about yourself every time you go. But it Isn't. Every other dentist I've ever been to has not only inflicted physical pain, but spiritual pain to match. I've come to treasure the women in this office, and thank God that they send their children to regular school so that they're free on Mondays when we all come filing in. That was the substance of my lecture to the back of the car on the way there.

"You be obedient and respectful and kind," I waved my finger in the air, "because you're all eventually going to be sitting there with your mouth open and it's better if they generally like you and don't think you're awful." The children all cowered back and narrowed their eyes. "AND you can have a big handful of chocolate at the end if you're good." The looked vaguely mollified, "AND I'll give money to you older ones if you keep the babies quiet and happy."

I lay back in my perfectly contoured chair for an hour of blood, gagging and pain, listening to Matt in the next room "chat" as one chats to any dentist with the mouth wide open, "cragaouveaawwrhh." And vaguely from the Waiting Room came the sound of Elphine saying "shhh" every so often and then...silence. Real complete quiet. The only other sound? The many congratulations of everyone for how nicely they all "sat and read books" and also played with the iPad and iPods and all the other electronic devices I dragged along. I shouldn't have been so geared up. They're basically good children. But, you know, its the Dentist. 

slow children walk, cheerful children run...

Or maybe

COME to Sunday School at COGS (Church of the Good Shepherd)!!!! 

If you can possibly manage it. 

Why?

Because we're ready for you to come! 

We have seriously and laboriously prepared a place for you.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

And then really AFTER

Good night all! If you want to know what it all is and what it's for come on Sunday and ask for a tour. Better yet, bring your favorite youngish person to hear about Jesus!

(Sorry about all the exclamation points. Spent more than a few days arranging and rearranging and my sense of proportion might be just a tad off.)

{phfr}: devastating reality edition

I had this post up all yesterday as I wandered around the day trying to do all the stuff I was actually supposed to do while typing at the same time. But then when I was standing in the church kitchen at the end of the day, staring at the disaster of the century (see below) and the Internet cut out, I just gave up and put it away until this morning.  I'm trying to find a word for what sort of day it was--the beginning was perfectly fine, but then as it went on it got worse...there must be a perfect word for that....hmmmm...oh well....still nothing.

{pretty}

This is cosmos and lettuce gone to seed. It's so nice to walk out of the church into this delicate array of purple and white. Tragically, for me, the sun flower appears to be facing away over the fence. I hope the neighbors are enjoying it.

I'm so glad I snapped these pictures yesterday because apperantly there was a 'light' frost last night. Oh may my soul be strengthened in the time of trouble, I am not ready for any frost, light or otherwise.

Today I'm going to go out and cut all the flowers off my surprising Dahlia. 

The thing about this Dahlia is that I thought I was planting a peoni (what do I know) and then it grew to be huge and glorious and about as tall as me and to extend far out over the walk so that as you're muscling your way up the path with 25 pounds of kale and bags of paint and trays and dowels and fake flowers you have to turn and slide sideways so as not to smack into it.

And this Yellow Flowered Thing has turned out to be glorious. I thought it was going to be some sort of close to the ground yellow flowers and it turned out to be nearly a tree. Amazing. 

All these flowers have been a consolation to me in my failure to plant vegetables. No tomatoes this year but every day a fresh array of color on the kitchen table.

{happy}

Last Saturday I took Elphine out with me for the day because, well, you know, she's eleven now, and I had this vague sense that if I didn't go wander around with her for an afternoon she would come unglued. We had a good time but Gladys, here,

did come unglued at being left home. And so Wednesday morning, while everyone else got down to their school work and had a piano lesson, we went to Panera where I had a boring coffee and she had this amazing pastry and a hot chocolate. We chatted happily and then she vouchsafed to me that she wished there were only five children in our family, not six, and that if we had to get rid of someone (though, she admitted, that wasn't a nice idea) we could let Alouicious go live with our good friends who only have three children and might like another one. More digging produced the root of this desire and we talked a lot about Jesus and forgiveness. I was so happy about, it, frankly, because I knew something was wrong but not what it was. Sometimes I'm not a terrible mother (cough).

And this was my other great happiness this week: breakfast of nectarine, plum, and blueberry topped with four cups of cooked oatmeal, half cup oil, two eggs, pinch more salt, bit more sugar, cinnamon, two cups of flour, mixed together and poured over the fruit, baked at 350 until bubbly and golden, gone within 20 minutes the next morning at breakfast, fights breaking out as the dish was being scraped. Felicitous, really.

{funny}

Elphine's cat, Frances requires all the children to pet her every day, but not me. I thought she didn't like grown ups but it turns out it's just me. The person she actually loves most, besides Elphine, is Matt, whose tolerance for her is at a devastating low. I laughed for ten minutes yesterday as he stood and petted her angrily. She wants Him to pet her, not Me, and his sense of duty to all creatures meant that he stood and did it. Cats do know who love and hate them, uncannily, I've seen it again and again.

{real}

So all day long I went along thinking that I would get to the Real and write about how I've been reading both Daniel and I Samuel for the last few days and how interesting and strange is the anger of Nebuchadnezzer and Saul. I read about them in the same hour as I read about the bakery in Oregon being put out of business. We don't like anger, I think, we go great lengths to see that it doesn't bubble up, except on weird television shows. We're not used to it. But when someone is running as far and as fast as they can away from the Most High, real anger has to accompany that flight to give it energy and purpose--real distructive scary anger. We Christians should try to get used to it because its hotting up quick, the fire as it were, and spears are starting to fly, and the rage is swelling up everywhere. But God isn't surprised by any of it, and he intends for some, even some Nebuchadnezzers, to repent and believe.

But that turned out not to be the Real Reality that transformed my day.

Have a look at this steaming brew.

Mmm. Delicious.....what do you think it looks like? In the pot it had a kind of color of spam and the smell of some foul-er sections of Gehenna, and the consistency of something grossly and unfavorably meaty. 

Who made this steaming Pot o' Sorrow? you ask.

Why I did.

Me. Just Me. Wretched old me. And I had to serve it up to the deserving and patient Shepherd's Bowl crowd, apologizing all the time and encouraging them to eat more bread and salad. 

I'm not going to relate how the soup came to be this way, other than that it was very delicious the day before but then went through some chemical destruction through the night so that I spent from 3 o'clock to 5:30 desperately but ineffectually trying to make it better.

"Will anyone ever come back to Shepherd's Bowl after that soup?" Matt inquired when all was said and done, "Is our ministry In Binghamton over?"

"I don't know," I replied, "but I do know that all my works are not so much like filthy rags but more like this hideous life destroying soup."

I'm going to keep this firmly in mind as I go about the rest of my work this weekend, trying to get ready for Sunday School, remembering things like

"Unless The Lord Builds the House, Anne makes Terrible Soup"

And

"No one comes to the Father, Especially if Anne Makes the Soup."

And

"I go to prepare a place for you and Don't Worry, Anne won't be making the soup"

in which i complain about work i actually enjoy doing

I think I mentioned off hand last week that I'm supposed to be spending every waking minute writing Sunday School Lessons for the fall, which I believe for all practical purposes, starts today. Blech. Fall. 

Just kidding, I love Fall. I love all the pictures of cute children with their cute backpacks and their Euphoric Parents leaving them off on bright sunny mornings with nice looking teachers. But the official total start of school signals the beginning of Regular Sunday School and that means getting my mind and my life in order enough to let life go on smoothly for others. And that means actually writing all the lessons in my head for which I've made materials, and also actually writing down all the edits I've made in my own mind but which cannot be known to any mind other than mine (and God's) if I don't take the trouble write them down. It all comes, said Eeyore or someone very like him, of taking a theologically coherent (but unfortunately erring) program that's nevertheless lovely and wonderful for children and trying to make it theologically "better", although that is not the word for which I am flailing about. 

Which is worse, writing out new lessons from scratch or coloring over in heavy marker the existing offending lines and scribbling in the margins, I do not know. I'm suffering under a heavy dose of both. My new teachers will hopefully let me know forthwith. But it exasperates me that so many things for children, and I'll just go ahead and say that here I mean Godly Play, can on one hand be so well made (the actual materials are beautiful) and on the other hand be so horrifically heretical. And along side that, because, you are asking yourself 'why is she messing around with Godly Play?' why can't Sophia Cavaletti be just a touch less catholic? I'm just kidding. She may go along being herself, and I will go along struggling to use her beautiful work as best I can as a devotedly Reformed Protestant. 

Enough with all the kidding. All you Anglicans out there, you who love a little of the Catholic and a little of the Protestant and are tired of the stupid coloring pages, if you take up the strange brew of Godly Play and Catechesis, come complain here and say how you are making it work. Or commission me with some cash on hand, or prayer or candy or something, to write up the beautiful lines I can say with no problem as I adjust on the fly, but which if they were written down, might be more helpful. Just kidding, I don't have time. But wouldn't it be wonderful if I did? Oh the dream.

curried birthday meat pies

Begin with a flakey and gorgeous pie dough.

2 1/2 cups flour

Pinch Salt mixed thoroughly into the Flour

2 sticks Unsalted Butter

Hand cut the butter into the flour until its crumbled and crumbly.

Add cold water bit by bit as you mold the flour into a light but finally unsticky dough.

Form it into a nice ball and shove it, covered, into the fridge while you make the filling.

A pound or so of ground beef sautéed with onion and garlic and a big tablespoon of curry powder, enriched at the end with a generous amount of either full fat cream or sour cream. Let it mellow on the stove while you roll out little rounds of dough. Fill each little round with the curried meat filling and pinch them up into little purses. Bake them at 350 until golden and fragrant. Let them cool and heat them up gently if your party is actually the next day. I made about 30 of them and there was not a single one left when all was said and done. Happy Birthday! Or whatever day it is that requires this kind of celebration.