"Kitchen wives" need not apply

Texas women do Theology!

I'm not exactly a lace collar or twinset and pearls kinda gal, either. But really, could Mrs. Frank James (you know, the one who isn't a kitchen wife) be any more condescending?

This wasn't your typical "women's" gathering. There were no doilies in sight. And the handshakes, I have to say, were noticeably firmer than I usually encounter in women's groups across the country.

I have to tell you, I didn't find any of that at the last women's conference I went to, either. No lace doilies, no limp handshakes, no simpering questions. Can't say I've ever been to a "women's" gathering of any sort, honestly. But at the ENDOW conference last year - I mean to tell you those women are serious about their faith, about doing theology and about influencing their world. In fact, those women make Mrs. James's warriorettes look like camp followers.

Ever heard a nun talk about how she uses Natural Family Planning to guide her prayer life? Ever heard an official of your church dare to publicly call abortion, "little murders"? Ever been to a women's conference where most of the material taught from is older than you? Ever been to a women's conference where a respected and well-known professor of theology digs deeply into the dignity and vocation of women?

I'll take ENDOW over the James gang any day.

addendum, two links of possible interest:

The way Teas women do theology is "we"

Pay attention to how this page loads

The menu for this week

Yesterday at work, I said to someone, "I'm so happy, I get to cook tomorrow!" And she said, "You LIKE to cook?!!" Well yes, of course I do. And one dangerous thing that happens every two weeks is that I have pay-day weekend off. So, on that preceding Wednesday, I have been known to scout the grocery ads, peruse a cookbook or two, and dream big dreams. This weekend, I also have a new cookbook to celebrate (the one from which the quote in the previous post was taken). So here is this week's menu:

Moroccan Carrot Salad

Tzatziki sauce

Red cabbage and Brats (church pot luck, won't be any of that to take home!)

Tabbouleh

Ful Medames

Fatoush

For the culinarily sheltered, they are, in the same order:

a simple carrot salad with no exotic ingredients at all

Cucumber-dill-yogurt sauce (excellent for a vegetable dip)

Self-explanatory, I think

Cracked wheat salad with lots of tomatoes and flat-leaf parsley

Egyptian refried beans without the fat and the tang of lemon

Tomato onion and cucumber salad served with toasted pita wedges


Yummmmm!!

Headline of the day

"Tortoise thieves make quick getaway"

snicker

An act of communion

Rather, it seems to me that in the countries of the Mediterranean there exists a deep-seated and largely unspoken consensus that eating is one of the most important things we humans do in our lives. As a great anthropologist once told me, it is our single most intimate act, far more intimate than sex because through food we literally re-create ourselves each and every day of our lives. And beyond individual needs, in Mediterranean countries there's a real sense of eating as a social act, a way of communication, of expressing solidarity and relationship. Gathering around the table, literally breaking bread together, is both a symbol of communion and an act of communion in and of itself.

-- Nancy Harmon Jenkins
Introduction, The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook