Radical Womanhood

The Economic Base of the Family

I'm headed to Charlotte, NC, today to speak at a women's conference at CrossWay Community Church. One of my topics will be about the history of domesticity and why there is tension in our culture today about the value of the home. I mentioned in a prior blog post that I was working on a chapter about this topic and an alert reader, Linda Bronkar, sent me this 1999 article by Nancy Pearcey titled, "Is Love Enough? Recreating the Economic Base of the Family."

If you recall, the Practical Issues for Godly Women series began with a question. Rebecca asked: "I understand homemaking is to be a priority for women, but is homemaking to be the only priority/purpose/what-have-you for a woman?" It's been a long, windy, and somewhat distracted road to get back to this particular question, but I wanted to explore some other "nooks and crannies" of biblical femininity before we circled back again to this topic.

So now that we are here, I want to link to this article because it does a stellar job of encapsulating all the research I've come across on the history of the home. (Wish I had found it first--it would have saved me a lot of time!) Here are two excerpts. The first addresses the family prior to the Industrial Revolution:

Colonial families lived much the way families have always lived in traditional societies. Prior to the 19th century, the vast majority of people in the world lived on farms or in peasant villages. Productive work was done in the home or its outbuildings, whether for subsistence or for sale. Work was done not by individuals, but by families. Stores, offices, and workshops were located in a front room, with living quarters either upstairs or in the rear. The boundaries of the home were fluid and permeable; the "world" entered continually in the form of clients, business colleagues, customers, and apprentices.

What did this integration of work and life mean for family relationships? For husband and wife, it meant they inhabited the same universe, working side by side in a common enterprise (though not necessarily in identical tasks). For the mother, the location of work within the home meant she was able to raise children while still participating in the family sustenance. Marriage in colonial times "meant to become a co-worker beside a husband, if necessary learning new skills in butchering, silversmith work, printing, or upholstering--whatever special skills the husband’s work required." Of course, women were also responsible for household tasks which required a wide range of skills: spinning wool and cotton; weaving it into cloth; sewing the family’s clothes; gardening and preserving   food; preparing meals without pre-processed ingredients; making soap, buttons, candles, medicines. Colonial mothers did not need to start a feminist movement to demand a role in economically productive work. Many of the goods used in colonial society were manufactured by women, doing the brainwork (planning and managing) as well as the handwork.

Fathers enjoyed the same integration of work and child rearing responsibilities.  Parenting was not, as today, almost exclusively the mother’s domain. Sermons, child-rearing manuals, and other prescriptive literature of the day addressed both parents, admonishing them to "raise up" their children together. When manuals did address one parent, it was usually the father, who was thought to be particularly important in religious and intellectual training. With productive endeavor centered on the family hearth, fathers were "a visible presence, year after year, day after day." They trained their children to work alongside them. "Fatherhood was thus an extension, if not an integral part, of much routine activity."

It took only 50 years to radically transform both our economy and our family life. The startling pace of the Industrial Revolution introduced breathtaking change from 1780 to 1830. In reaction to the harsh reality of the industrialized workforce, the home took on a special status as a "haven" in the early to mid-19th century--a period that created "the cult of domesticity." But, as Nancy Pearcey points out, it didn't last very long:

For all the glorification of the home during the height of the Cult of Domesticity, the stubborn fact remained that many important functions once performed in the home were now performed by other institutions. The family’s sustenance came from without; a husband’s wages, status, and professional friendships were all based on associations outside the home. For all the transcendent values associated with it, the home was becoming an adjunct to the "real" world outside.

Fewer people seemed to reverence those transcendent values anyway. After the   publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, evolutionism took over biology and the social sciences. With its implacable materialism, Darwinism undermined confidence in any transcendent truths. If home stood for the outmoded values of piety and religion, then the home itself was an outmoded institution.

Moreover, Social Darwinism took direct aim on the home by exalting the public sphere as the seat of evolutionary progress. Beginning with the assumption that men are superior to women, Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer sought to explain why men had evolved faster. They proposed that, from their brute beginnings, males fought for survival out in the world and were thus subject to natural selection, a process that weeds out the weak and inferior. Women, at home nurturing the young, were out of reach of natural selection and hence evolved more slowly. What is significant is the contempt Social Darwinists expressed for both women’s  character and women’s environment (i.e., the home). Homelife was denounced as  a drag on evolutionary development.

As you would expect from her writing, Nancy Pearcey's article is dense with information and insights. I highly recommend that you continue reading "Is Love Enough? Recreating the Economic Base of the Family."

Hospitality Habits

While I'm away from the blog this week, I'm introducing you all to some of my blogging friends. Lydia Brownback at The Purple Cellar blog recently wrote about her friend, Susie Cassel, and how she excels in hospitality. I enjoyed the post so much that I want to make sure to flag it to you all. It's a great addition to the Practical Issues for Godly Women series, too, which is more or less on hiatus this week.

Lydia writes:

Susie defines two distinct types of hospitality, both of which we should prepare our hearts to offer. First is calculated hospitality, which includes hosting our friends, making meals for the sick--basically, the sort we can plan ahead. The second type is spontaneous hospitality, which is opening our home and heart to that drop-in neighbor or friend who calls at an inconvenient time. How we handle spontaneous hospitality is a matter of mindset, of putting others ahead of our personal comfort. But that doesn't mean there aren't great rewards for such service: generosity comes back on our heads! But, primarily, every time we open our homes and hearts to someone in need, it is Jesus we are serving. Do we think about that? Do we see today's interruption or inconvenience as an opportunity to love Christ? Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matt. 5:40).

Lydia has posted four of Susie's hospitality habits, which I encourage you to check out. I found some great ideas listed there! I particularly liked the tip about how daily hospitality to your own family produces a ripple effect.

The Joy of Eating Together

The good old-fashioned family meal has so many benefits, not the least of which is serving the family some healthy fare. But there are also some benefits just from being together. A recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reported that sitting down for regular family meals may protect teen girls from developing eating disorders.

Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and colleagues from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that adolescent girls who ate five or more meals each week with their families were approximately one third less likely to engage in extreme weight control behaviors, such as making themselves vomit, taking diet pills and abusing diuretics or laxatives than girls who ate less frequently with their families.

I am especially fond of family meals, perhaps because they are not common in my single adult life. So when I can get together with my extended family, I make a big deal out of it. Growing up, my official family title was Director of Ambiance--I was all about the music, candles, entertainment and the like. Now when I get together with my own nieces and nephews, I like to continue this tradition. When they were younger, we would practice "the art of conversation," as we termed it. Even the littlest ones would think of a question and follow-up response to ask a guest.

Now that the girls are old enough to take on some kitchen tasks, we often cook together, too. I've been trying to teach them how to cook intuitively, using ingredients already on hand. We have made some memorable dishes this way! But we have fun together, experimenting with all kinds of flavors and textures. (You haven't had nouvelle cuisine until you try a five-year-old's dish of mandarin oranges, marshmallows, pretzels, and uncooked spaghetti!) We make our dishes, rate them, and discuss over dinner what worked well and what we'd eat again. I want to encourage them that cooking can be a creative and rewarding endeavor. And since I'm the aunt and this is my special time with the "niblings," I don't mind the mound of dirty dishes afterward. (An impracticality for daily meals, I'm sure.)

Now my nieces are often in the  kitchen making items for family get-togethers or casual meals. My oldest nephew also enjoys decorating the table for holidays and leading us in conversations about what we're most grateful for at Thanksgiving and the like. I don't claim any extraordinary influence here (I tip my hat to their parents), but it's been fun to make my small contributions to their enjoyment of a good meal together!

(Photos: Natalie cooking a holiday brunch; the experimental dinner created by Claire, Stephanie, and Abigail and served on their hand-drawn dinner plates.)

Let's Dish!

In the Practical Issues series, we are now looking at cooking. I acknowledge that cooking is not as much of a gender-specific function today--many men I know are much better cooks than their wives or girlfriends--but in the day-to-day aspect of feeding a family, women are usually the ones to think through the meals and stock the groceries. So if the stove made 19th-century cooking easier, and processed and frozen foods made 20th-century cooking easier (easier, not necessarily better!), what can we say of 21st-century food? I have no idea what lies ahead, but I can tell you that one innovation I truly enjoy is the prep-kitchen concept of a place like Let's Dish.

One of the challenges I now have is limited time. Though I'm home a lot working on this book, I need as much free time as possible to write. While it's tempting to putter around in the kitchen (which I love to do), I had to figure out a way to eat healthfully and quickly. Frozen meals can only take you so far, especially if you try to avoid preservatives (as I do). There's also a limited palate in the microwavable-foods section. So when a friend of mine invited me to try Let's Dish, I wanted to try it.

If you've never been to a meal-assembly store before, the best way I can explain it is that it's like hiring out a sous chef. You select the meals you want to make online, register for a day and time that's good to go, and then you go assemble meals. The recipes (and nutrition data) are already figured out. The items are already assembled, diced, minced, chopped, etc., and you assemble according to your portions and preferences. Like garlic? Add a pinch more. Dislike cilantro? Skip it. In about 90 minutes, I had 24 meals assembled and ready for my freezer. No preservatives--all fresh! I selected Garlic Herbed Salmon (yummy!), Fusion Pork Tenderloin, Curried Vegetable Stew, and Citrus Almond Tilapia. Each dish serves six, so I divided my portions into thirds for easier access. Let's Dish even provides labels with the cooking instructions. So now, I simply take out a frozen dish in the morning and leave it in the refrigerator to thaw. I come home, heat up the oven, toss in the dish -- and by the time I've done all the little chores that must be handled when you come home (start the laundry, check your email, toss the junk mail, etc.), dinner is ready.

Even better: I had two meals ready to go in my freezer when a neighbor told me his twins were born. So not only am I prepared for healthy meals for myself, I am also stocked up to bless others. (A pre-paid visit to a meal-assembly store is also a great bridal or baby shower group gift.) The only downside is the unattractive bandanas you have to wear in a commercial kitchen--but I'd rather have hat-head and not find hair in my food later on!

If you want to try it, there are lots of similar concepts out there, so here's a link to a site that lists them by state. In the D.C. area, many of the Let's Dish franchises have a newcomers discount, which I expect would be offered by other companies, too. For me, it worked out to less than $6 per dinner -- a little more than a microwave meal, but better tasting and with less sodium on average. (And, hey, if you sign up for Let's Dish, give them my name as a referral. I might get a discount for my next trip there!)

(Photos: The Let's Dish kitchen in Gaithersburg MD; Dawn Weaver and Barb Jones assembling their meals; the three of us ready to go with our meals. Note to Barb and Dawn: I included the unflattering bandana shot of me, too!)

UPDATE: I opened the comments function on this post because a single woman sent in a great idea for how to adapt this concept to serve the married women in her church. Check it out!

Technology and Cooking

One resource I've found endlessly fascinating during my recent research is the out-of-print book titled, Just a Housewife: The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America by Glenna Matthews. (If you can find a used copy on Amazon, it's worth it. The research is from a mainstream perspective, but one that's fair to Christian theology and influence.) I've learned many things reading this book, including how our cuisine has changed over the centuries because of technology. For example, I never thought through the implication of the stove on the kinds of meals a family would eat. Here's an excerpt from Just a Housewife:

Another technological change that had profound consequences for the style of domesticity was the development of the stove. The transition from open-hearth cookery to cook stove was effected in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. In her Treatise on Domestic Economy of 1841, Catharine Beecher gave instructions for the hearth, while in The American Women's Home, published in 1869, she and her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe discussed the stove. Affordable for almost all American households, the cast-iron stove made it easy to carry on several different cooking operations simultaneously--a feat much more difficult to accomplish over an open hearth--and thus contributed to a more varied menu in non-elite households. In short, the stove led to the demise of the one-pot meal.

By the way, the Beecher family was quite an industry in the 19th-century. I'll have to explore that further in a future post. But Harriet Beecher Stowe was the same woman who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, which led to the end of slavery in the United States. She had an influence on American culture and on the course of American history that no woman before had ever enjoyed. As Matthews notes, "This influence came about because Stowe used the moral authority of the housewife to justify speaking out against slavery. The cult of domesticity was predicated in part on the idea that home has an expressly political function. The political impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin, filled as it is with domestic imagery, demonstrated how the influence of home on the world could manifest itself."

But back to cooking technology. I also learned that cakes and other baked goods used to be made without "chemical leavening." In the 19th-century, this development was a big deal. I had no idea that baking soda and baking powder were chemical leavening, or even that baked goods used to be made without them. As Matthews notes: "Throughout most of the nineteenth century, cookbooks would reflect a tension between the old style of using eggs for leavening and the new, which permitted the use of cheaper ingredients and required less skill on the part of the baker." Apparently, beating eggs sufficiently to make fluffy baked goods was quite the art and one can taste the difference in the final product.

Better tasting baked goods would be my downfall. I guess I should be happy not to be tempted with them in this century!

Insider Tidbits for the Repair-Impaired

If there's one thing worse than being repair-impaired, it's having the repairman tell you how easy it would have been for you to fix something yourself.

Case in point: my dishwasher. The doodad at left fell off a few weeks ago. I discerned this was an important piece. It must be something that sprays water all over the dishes and water on the dishes is important if you want them to be clean. So I attempted to put it back on myself, but I would always find it at the bottom of the dishwasher after each use. So I called Sears Repair, because my dishwasher is a Kenmore appliance (a Sears brand). The house call would be $65, not including parts or labor. They tried to upsell me on a warranty for $200, but I put that off. The dishwasher is only two years old--one year too old for the manufacturer's warranty, of course.

When repairmen are at my house, I make it a point to hang with them and ask as many questions I can in order to glean useful information. (They love this, I know.) The guy who came this week was especially forthcoming. Without any prodding, he told me I could have ordered this part and fixed it myself. He said I could have gone to Appliance Blog to get all the information I need about ordering parts and fixing the appliance. He says he goes on every few days and answers people's questions in the forum. For free.

Sure enough, after he left, I went to the blog and found my part in just a few seconds. This blog links to the the well-designed Repair Clinic site. I like sites with lots of pictures. In fact, I found Repair Clinic to be far more useful for appliance information in general and easier to navigate.

So for this week's Thanksgiving theme, here is a bit of practical information that everyone needs when the appliances act up with dinner guests around. Don't panic when the garbage disposal refuses to work after "helpful" people stuff turkey bits and potato peels down the drain. (Two no-no's, in case you are unaware.) Go to Repair Clinic and figure out how to unstop it. (When desperate, it's also good to know that Drano comes in a disposal-safe formula. Short of taking everything apart, this works well on food clogs.) Don't panic when someone boils a tea kettle to past empty on your stove, melting parts of the kettle onto your burner. Go to Repair Clinic and order the new heating element. Don't panic when the dishwasher refuses to drain. Go to Repair Clinic and find out why.

One spinner-doodad: $14.40. Actual cost to me: $143.40. Useful advice that I am passing along to you just in time for Thanksgiving: Priceless.

A Thanksgiving Milestone

I passed another milestone of adulthood yesterday: I roasted my very first turkey.

You see, in my experience, it's the family matriarchs who are responsible for Thanksgiving turkeys. When you are established, when you have a family and a home, you are the come-to holiday destination. All relatives travel to you and therefore you have the turkey responsibility. When you are a go-there guest, you are responsible for portable items such as drinks and dessert. Never the turkey. And that's how I've passed all these years without roasting a turkey. At first, we all gathered at my parents' home. Then we migrated to my sister's home when her children came along. I've always been the go-there guest, bringing side dishes.

But yesterday I ventured into new territory to cook a turkey for my church's International Thanksgiving Dinner. Being a large multi-national church (people from 17 different nations joined our church this month!), we've been celebrating Thanksgiving for years by inviting people to come in their national wardrobes and bring a dish from their nation of origin, which we serve along with the traditional American Thanksgiving dishes. So this time I boldly volunteered to make a turkey and then scoured the internet to find out how to do so.

Fortunately, I found a good technique for keeping the turkey from becoming dry. First, my family swears by Butterball turkeys, so I purchased a fresh Butterball turkey so I wouldn't have to spend days moving items around a thawing turkey in my fridge. Then I read that if you separate the skin from the breast meat and rub melted butter and herbs in between, it will help keep the white meat moist. In my case, I used heart-healthy olive oil, sage, and rosemary. Then I rubbed olive oil, kosher salt, and the herbs all around the outside of the turkey. In the cavity, I sprinkled more herbs and added three bay leaves. (By the way, if you are also a turkey newbie, don't forget to remove the assorted giblet bags from both ends of the cavity!) Into the oven it went for about three hours at 325 degrees, until it reached the right temperature. Very easy to do, after all!

For a dinner party last week, I made the Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle I am going to bring this Thursday. It's an incredibly yummy dessert (here's the recipe), but it's not a very portable dish for the go-to guest to bring. I had to rig a crazy system to securely drive the trifle dish over windy back roads to this dinner party. To keep it from spilling, I had to go waaaay under the speed limit, pulling over to the side periodically to let cars pass. Driving Miss Trifle, I called it. It's a diva dessert, but so worth the extra pampering!

Now that I have sufficiently rehearsed for Thanksgiving, I am truly looking forward to the celebration this week!

(Photos: My starter turkey; the International Thanksgiving Dinner; Hannah Kim wearing her Korean outfit with Lucia Fomuso from Cameroon; Millie Obimo wearing a Kenyan head scarf with another friend from Kenya; the Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle.)

Hospitality Helper

There hasn't been a lot of original writing on this blog lately--the result of writing a book at the same time. The book has siphoned all my brain cells and original ideas. However, I have been finding some great material from other blogs and articles to share with you all, so thanks for bearing with me in this season! Do keep an eye on this blog; I plan on surprising you every now and then with an original post. :)

Today I want to point you to a great series about hospitality that the Metro Moms blog has been running recently. I gleaned this tip today and hope to remember to put it in use myself:

My little pink box is tucked away in its drawer for now.  I use it whenever someone is coming to our house for dinner and/or fellowship.  Cindi McGee's mom, Ellen Uhr, shared this idea with me years ago when I was being mentored by her excellent example of hospitality.  In my little pink box are index cards with the names of my friends on them.  I use these cards to write down how they like their coffee, if they're allergic to any food, what their favorite desserts are, etc.  It's taken some time to discover these things about them, but I've found that if I write it down, then next time they come over I don't have to ask them how they like their coffee.  I can just prepare it for them. 

I'll never forget how warmly cared for I felt when Ellen prepared my tea exactly how I liked it without having to ask me.  It's a simple way to let others know that you have taken notice of them.

There are 16 posts about hospitality so far in this series, and many good ideas!

Food: Sin Management, Germ Management

The Girltalkers are in the midst of a challenging series on food, sin, and eating to the glory of God. I highly recommend you pop over and check it out. I also look foward to the forthcoming book, Eat and Be Content, by their interviewees, David Kotter and Dr. Jeffrey Trimark.

On the same subject, I discovered this tidbit in the health section of The Washington Post today:

When it comes to food-borne illnesses, raw products generally "pose more possible hazards than already-cooked products," [David Goldman, assistant administrator of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service] says. (An exception: listeria, a bacteria that can thrive in cooked products such as hot dogs and can cause miscarriage.)

So, how you stock and handle food from the grocery to your kitchen can make a difference in safety. At the store, keep juicy raw meat, poultry and fish well separated from fresh vegetables, fruit, cheese and other foods that will be eaten without cooking.

Also consider wiping down the grocery cart. Many stores now offer antibacterial wipes. If you don't want to do that, at least keep raw food in plastic bags where it won't come into contact with the cart. University of Arizona microbiologist Charles Gerba tested 60 grocery shopping carts and found that about half had fecal bacteria, mostly located on the seats where young, diaper-clad children ride during shopping.

No need to explain, then, why hand washing is another key step in helping to prevent food-borne diseases. Most people know to wash their hands before fixing food. But where many fall short is during food preparation.

"People take out the frozen food, break it up and put it back in the fridge without washing their hands," says Gerba, who has found that refrigerator door handles are one of the areas of the kitchen that harbor unhealthy organisms. Another common problem spot: the kitchen phone. "Those are two areas that people overlook disinfecting on a regular basis," he says.

Health experts say that the importance of cleaning cutting boards also can't be underscored enough. The tiny crevices of wooden cutting boards are prime spots for bacteria to thrive. So at Goldman's house, they use one cutting board for meat and poultry and one for fresh produce.

Ewww. I had been using those wipes for my own hands at grocery stores, but had been tossing raw produce in the carts in an effort to use fewer plastic bags. No way to win sometimes.

Tagged for Recipes

I've been lurking on the blogs of many of my friends and noticed there is a "recipe tag" going on among them. They are posting four of their favorite recipes and tagging others for more. I've actually printed a number of these recipes because I'm looking for more veggie dishes, though I couldn't resist one of the yummy dessert recipes! So though no one's tagged me for a recipe (not anyone's fault--I'm notorious for not responding to tags!), I thought I would still participate and pass on some of the recipes I thought looked good and will be trying soon. Below is one of my own favorite recipes, followed by three more that I've gleaned from these blogs. I'm especially interested in trying the lentil recipe because of the benefit of eating lentils as a protein-packed meat substitute. (A cup of cooked lentils has 18 grams of protein, but under 1 gram of fat.)

SPAGHETTI SQUASH w/SUNDRIED TOMATOES (I made up this recipe in order to introduce this healthful veggie to my diet. One cup cooked spaghetti squash contains 45 calories. It is an excellent source of folic acid, high in fiber, and contributes a fair amount of potassium and small amounts of vitamin A and niacin to the diet. It is also very low in sodium.)

1 spaghetti squash (they are the football-sized yellow squashes)
1 jar julienned sundried tomatoes in olive oil
Garlic salt or minced garlic, to taste
Fine sea salt, to taste
4 oz. crumbled feta cheese
Optional: grilled chicken breasts, cubed

Pierce the squash with a knife or fork all over--at least eight times. Microwave it for 8 to 10 minutes, until you can smell the squash cooking. Let it cool briefly and then slice it lengthwise. (You may need a potholder if the squash is still very warm.) Using a fork, tease out the middle section with all the seeds and discard. Then pull the "spaghetti strings" of the squash out with that fork and place them in another bowl. Add the sundried tomatoes and toss to coast the squash with olive oil. (You may need to add more olive oil, depending on the volume of the squash.) Add garlic and sea salt to taste. Microwave the squash for an additional minute if it has cooled while you've been preparing it. Add the feta cheese and toss. You can also add cubed grilled chicken breasts if you'd like to make this a main meal instead of a side dish. Serve warm.

Serving sizes vary, depending on the size of the squash, but generally you can count on six side-dish servings and three main-course servings.

ROASTED VEGETABLES (from Christy Greer)
Ingredients:
* any amount of assorted vegetables
(Here are some combinations we enjoy:
-potatoes, onions, carrots, beets
-squash, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms
-sweet potatoes, potatoes, beets, fennel
Basically, put together a colorful combination.)

All you do is chop your vegetables up into similar sized chunks. We prefer them on the larger size, but if I'm stuck for time, I cut them small. (Of course, peel them first if you want.) Spray a large pyrex dish lightly with cooking spray. Toss the vegetables in the dressing (see below). Place them in the dish. Bake at 375 for 30-60 min, depending on the size of your chunks. Take them out of the oven when they are getting browned on the edges.

There are 2 basic dressings that I often do:

ONE
olive oil
balsamic vinegar (1 tbsp)
herbs (basil, thyme & rosemary--fresh is always better, but dry works fine)
garlic powder
salt & pepper, if desired

TWO
olive oil
honey (maybe 1/8 cup)
thyme
salt & pepper

Whisk all the ingredients together for the dressing until blended well. Basically, you can use however much olive oil you desire. The more you use, the more "fried" it will be. I often use about 1/4 cup for a large 15 inch pyrex dish full of vegetables.

I know this was a lengthy recipe, but it really is such a simple, healthy and hearty dish to make. It's great for company because it's easy to make a lot of it. Here is a picture of some roasted vegetables I made recently. I roasted these in my Schlemmertopf (clay pot) instead of a pyrex dish.

PUMPKIN GINGERBREAD TRIFLE (from Jenni Smith--I can't wait to try this one for Thanksgiving!)

2 (14-ounce) packages gingerbread mix
1 (5.1-ounce) box cook-and-serve vanilla pudding mix
1 (30-ounce) can pumpkin pie filling
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 teaspoon ground cardamom or cinnamon
1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping
1/2 cup gingersnaps, optional

Bake the gingerbread according to the package directions; cool completely. Meanwhile, prepare the pudding and set aside to cool. Stir the pumpkin pie filling, sugar, and cardamom into the pudding. Crumble 1 batch of gingerbread into the bottom of a large, pretty bowl. Pour 1/2 of the pudding mixture over the gingerbread, then add a layer of whipped topping. Repeat with the remaining gingerbread, pudding, and whipped topping. Sprinkle of the top with crushed gingersnaps, if desired. Refrigerate overnight. Trifle can be layered in a punch bowl.

BAKED LENTILS WITH CHEESE (from Susan Jansen via Nora Shank)

Preheat oven to 375. Combine in shallow 9x13 baking dish:

1 3/4 cups lentils, rinsed
2 cups water
1 whole bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon each marjoram, sage, thyme
2 large onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups canned tomatoes

Cover tightly and bake 30 minutes. Uncover and stir in:

2 large carrots, sliced 1/8" thick
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery

Bake covered for 40 minutes until vegetables are tender. Stir in:

1 green pepper chopped (optional)
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Sprinkle on top:

3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Bake uncovered for 5 minutes until cheese melts.

This recipe serves 6.

Nora adds this comment to her mother's classic family recipe: "Travis tasted this for the first time a few months ago when I made this family favorite...and he LOVES it... It is good for those omnivores in your life that don't typically like meatless dishes. If they are particularly ravenous, you can add some sliced chicken sausage."