Mystery Revealed

Mysterious box.

Very carefully, open the lid:

I cannot believe what's inside!

Macaroons! Delicious, yummy, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate macaroons:

Ashley spent all of my birthday making these as a surprise for me. She used this recipe and they turned out perfect.

There is a story to this gift, as you might imagine. When Ashley and I were visiting family in France two years ago, we went a little crazy at the patisseries. Once we had tasted the delicious French desserts we had to return to a patisserie every day for more. We had tarte citron (lemon tart), pain aux chocolat, pain aux amandes et chocolat (chocolate bread and chocolate almond bread, respectively; aka croissants), gateau basque (Basque cake) and... Macaroons. Delicious macaroons that came in more flavors than you can imagine. On my first patisserie visit I thought the macaroons would be like the ones I had tasted here, and of course I was uninterested - until I saw them, then tasted them, then got hooked on them.

When we returned home, Ashley and I began our hunt for French macaroons. All the bakery websites in our area promised authentic French macaroons. We would try one and instantly be disappointed. We didn't give up however, and occasionally I would get a phone call from Ashley that would go like this: "Shelbi! I found a French bakery and they have macaroons! I'm buying a couple - I'll let you know..." Then, a few minutes later, a text message: "never mind, they were horrible!"

We finally gave up. It seemed so ludicrous that the bakeries that promised authentic French food from owners/chefs who had supposedly visited/studied/lived in France turned out to be as American as other bakeries. How could you have visited France and tasted the food and then turn out something that didn't even resemble the French equivalent?! Even the patisserie chains in France have superior macaroons, which look like this:

See the difference?
Not hard, ultra sweet American cookies. These were melt-in-your-mouth, bittersweet delicacies.

So, for my birthday, Ashley found a recipe and decided to try her hand at making macaroons. You will notice that the recipe calls for almonds, which have to be blanched then ground into powder. This is one secret to French desserts that American bakeries fail to note: the French almost always use almond powder or flavoring in their pastries. Everything has a slight almond taste, from the tarts to the croissants. It is so much better than our use of vanilla extract, which makes our desserts very sweet tasting. Almond flavoring counteracts the chocolate and sugar in French recipes, offering a sweet but flavorful dish. Go ahead, give the recipe a try. Have a French tea. Dress appropriately (French women are femininely dressed: always skirts, loose slacks/pants or dresses, even for grocery shopping or visits to the park!), practice your best manners (the French excel at this! For instance, the first thing my cousin schooled us on was to always greet and always take leave of people, even to waiters at the cafes - it is culturally unacceptable and considered very rude to not do both). Decorate with natural botany from your surroundings. Make tea or petite cafe au lait. Relax and fall in love with the French lifestyle, like I did two years ago. :-)

Note: when Ashley and I were mall shopping in France, we would always stop by this patisserie chain for a pastry fix. Paul's offers a guide to French manners on their website, which is hilarious and informative all at once. For instance, take this advice on greetings:

"Greet friends and family with La Bise, a kiss to each cheek, starting with the right, and accompanied by the words “Salut! Ça va?” or similar. Kissing on the lips should be a private activity, as should feeding each other PAUL chocolate or coffee éclairs…"
Or this one:
"Sitting down to Eat: Men take their seats after women. Once everyone is seated, if a woman gets up from the table, it is customary for all the men to get up as well. It is also customary for men to stand up when new guests arrive – unless they are children. Women remain seated. If a woman returns to the table or arrives late, the men must stand and remain standing until she has sat down. And no, it’s not a game of musical chairs. After all that, you will have worked up an appetite for some PAUL bread."

My Birthday...

...it rolls around once a year. When I was a child, it felt like an eternity in between birthdays. Now they come faster and faster. Thankfully I have a wonderful surrounding of family and friends who helped me to celebrate another turned year. I'm so thankful for all the comments (and wow, one from Korea! Thanks, Brian!), emails, text messages, and phone messages that I received. I feel so very special! :-)

Here are a few photos Landon took during the day:

My breakfast table, complete with roses.

Delicious breakfast treat of blueberry muffins.
(one of the many perks of still living at home as an adult: your family still goes all out for birthdays!) :)

What's in the box?
'Twill be opened and shared later.

Birthday candles.
And no, I'm not 5... My family just didn't feel like fitting 20 more candles on there. :)

Bendel celebrated too.

Over at the Resurgence Blog...

Mark Driscoll shares some recent conversations with J.I. Packer here and here.

22 Words

This blog site has fast become a favorite with me. The author asks a question or makes a statement in as few words as possible. I love the topics, I love the comments. I really liked this one.

Learning a Language

I love the French language. I loved it before I went to France and then I fell even more in love with it when I was immersed in it. One of my favorite things to do in the village just outside of Bordeaux was to go out in the courtyard in the evening and sit on a lounge-style chair, book in hand, the crisp evening breeze sweeping away the heat of the day, the village church bells tolling the hour, and the soothing chorus of voices from the neighbors and passers-by on the street filling the air as they went about their business in the village. It was one of the most beautiful, harmonious I have ever heard. I never once heard a French person raise their voice. They can say so much more through a look or a slight tonal inflection than through any hard, loud words we Americans love to throw out at the people who make us mad.

Anyway... so I've been (not too diligently) studying French for a couple of years now, but have often wondered if I'm not studying the wrong language. After all, isn't Spanish a more useful, practical language for an American to learn? I know lots of people who claim Spanish as their native tongue. I can't say that in regard to French.

On this website it would seem as though my doubts are correct, as the French language is introduced as such:
French is highly useful for any activities involving travel to France: whatever great minds the French have, they are poor polyglots. If you go to France and want to understand something of the country, speaking French is a must. Speaking a few words will help considerably, but don't expect people to applaude just because you mumbled a heavily accented Bonjour Monsieur. The French can be extremely demanding and even rude, especially in Paris, to people who do not speak French well.

As opposed to the Spanish intro:
If you are looking for a useful language, Spanish will definitely be on your short list. You can speak Spanish in more than 25 countries and with 330 million people who often speak nothing but Spanish. The language is spoken in a very similar way all over the world, and each hour of study you put in will bring you closer to all 25 countries.

The time estimated to learn French is somewhat discouraging when you compare it to the time it would take to learn Spanish.

For French:
If you study an hour every day there is no reason why you should not be able to read a newspaper with a dictionary after a 12 months of study. Speaking and writing simple texts without errors should be reachable after 18 to 24 months.

For Spanish:
If you already speak another Romance language, 6 months of regular one-hour-a-day-sessions or 200 hours should see you fluent in Spanish. This is what it took me and I had absolutely no prior knowledge of the language. Adding advanced vocabulary and getting to speak with great fluency will get easier and easier as you progress. Once you have assimilated the few but important differences between Spanish and the other Romance language you speak, the rest is very similar.

If Spanish is your first foreign language and your mother tongue is not a Romance language, you should be reasonably fluent with 300 hours of study. In my opinion, an hour of serious study every day for a year is more than you need.

That said, I'm still learning French. But I think that studying two languages at once would be a challenging, ultimately rewarding thing to do. French for fun, Spanish for practicality. Let's just hope I don't mix up the pronunciation though... ;-)

Online Reading

A very interesting piece on literacy and the age of internet reading. Also raises the question: is reading still reading, whether you're doing it with text messages, comic books, or literature?

Dark Knight

While the new Batman is still setting records since it's release 10 days ago, I began to wonder if it's the momentum created by Heath Ledger's untimely death last January or if people can really be this much into dark films? Obviously, it must be Heath Ledger that has made this film the blockbuster it is - and not so much that his death has been a contributor to the box office receipts, but also that he must have turned in a truly convincing, stunning performance as an evil villain (I have not seen the film so I'm going based on other people's opinions expressed to me).

This article from the WSJ acknowledges it as such:
"The Dark Knight" isn't simply another superhero movie. In fact, taken on its own terms, it's really not a superhero movie at all: It's a supervillain movie, and the many critics and fans who are calling for Mr. Ledger to be nominated for an Academy Award are reading the film correctly -- they want him nominated for best actor, not best supporting actor

But then the author goes on to ruminate over whether or not Dark Knight was actually a contributor to Heath Ledger's death:
But there is another, more troubling, aspect to this part of the story. We know that Mr. Ledger died of an overdose of prescription drugs after a period of insomnia and acute depression. What we see on the screen in "The Dark Knight" -- as we are plunged into a netherworld that provides no escape from its brutal realities -- may well be a projection of Mr. Ledger's inner torment as he tried to fight those afflictions: a portrait of a Method actor who could not keep a proper distance from his role, an artist who stared too long into the abyss and saw a twisted, drug-addled death mask staring back at him. (This past weekend, Christian Bale was arrested then released on bail following charges of assault from his mother and sister; "The Dark Knight" must present one heck of an abyss.)

The author then concludes:
We know enough about how involved actors can be in their roles to see that this idea is not far-fetched. Does that make "The Dark Knight" a $180 million-plus snuff film? Give that a thought before you plunk your $229 down for that action figure.

This should give us pause. If life and art so tragically merge together, then how should we view movies that take people into deeper despair and darkness? I'm not advocating slappy-happy, feel good films. I'm just wondering if, in our search for authenticity, we haven't overstepped some bounds in the presentation of evil and darkness, most especially when it's presented without a hope?

How sad that a hope or redemption wasn't offered in the film - one that Heath Ledger could have grabbed onto as he immersed himself in his role. Who knows - perhaps he would be alive today...

Yet Sovereign Mercy Calls

How oft, alas, this wretched heart
Has wandered from the Lord,
How oft my roving thoughts depart,
Forgetful of His Word.

Yet sovereign mercy calls, "Return!"
Dear Lord, and may I come?
My vile ingratitude I mourn;
O take the wanderer home.

And canst thou, wilt thou yet forgive,
And bid my crimes remove?
And shall a pardoned rebel live,
To speak thy wondrous love?

Almighty grace, thy healing power,
How glorious, how divine!
That can to life and bliss restore
So vile a heart as mine!

Thy pardoning love, so free, so sweet,
Dear Saviour, I adore;
O keep me at thy sacred feet,
And let me rove no more.

Anne Steele bio here.
Music composed, performed by Benj Pocta here.
Our church sings this with strings and piano accompaniment - it is indescribably beautiful!

What I've Been Busy With This Week:

http://www.star-telegram.com/825/gallery/767501.html

After a week of building rockets and learning about space, we took the campers to launch their rockets in a near-by parking lot on campus. The local media (paper and CBS affiliate station) were there for the launch, which was a surprise to me (we were not told until we got to the launch site) but very exciting for the campers, who all vied for interviews and photographs. Media fascination begins very young, obviously. As for me, I was able to successfully avoid the cameras, although my supervisor and co-worker were not so fortunate. :)

Why God Doesn't Fully Explain Pain

One of the reasons God rarely gives micro reasons for his painful providences, but regularly gives magnificent macro reasons, is that there are too many micro reasons for us to manage, namely, millions and millions and millions and millions and millions. -John Piper
read the post in it's entirety here.

A Day at The Dallas World Aquarium

We took the time during a visit with family from out-of-town to spend a day at the aquarium. It was their first time and our second (after 7 years). This is only a small sampling of all that we saw there.

You start by going up to the third level and following the spiraling walkway down. Along the way you encounter the animals.

Above is the waterfall at the beginning of the walk.

Some flamingos on the way.

A view of the waterfall from the second level.

The huge 22,000 gallon salt water tank from an above ground view. You can see the people in the tunnel below if you look closely.

The tunnel through the tank. A very popular place for both kids and adults as it provides a great view of the various sea life in the tank, with sharks being the most popular attraction (and the shark feeding the most anticipated).

One of many aquariums.

This makes me think of Finding Nemo. :)

Other than the penguins and sharks, the octopus has to be one of the main attractions at the DWA. Adults and children alike all pushed and crowded around this exhibit.

Not sure where the intrigue and curiosity over the octopus comes from. Maybe an obsession with sea monsters?

Manatees at the aquarium like to put on a show for their audience. They swam to the window, turned somersaults (imagine an animal weighing well over a ton doing that on land!) and occasionally flicked their tails to the people watching from the above ground level.

Aquarium manatee cam here.

My beautiful mom and sis.

Howler monkeys. They are much quieter than their name suggests.

Sea otters are ugly but fascinating. They are big on hamming it up for their visitors. They had to be the most visitor-conscious, ego-driven animals there! :)

Aquarium otter cam here.

Sisters having fun (as usual)
:)

At the Zoo: Penguins

At the Zoo: Birds

At the Zoo: African Savannah

At the Zoo: Primates

photos by Landon