Friday, January 10, 2014

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Hey all -

Woah. Two blog posts in one day! Haha! We were talking with a farming couple on Tuesday in Moorhead, MN, and the farmer's wife had set out this whole platter of cookies for us to have with our coffee. As anyone knows, I can't make cookies to save my life. Seriously - whenever I try and bake cookies, they always end up flat, crisp, burnt, stuck to the pan, or what have you - and I end up frustrated and mad that I can make coq au vin but not chocolate chip cookies. What's the deal.

I was looking for a good chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I found this one. And it is, without a doubt, amazing. Instead of making cookies, I decided to show the cookies what was up by throwing the dough into a 9x13 pan. Foolproof. Without further adieu...the best chocolate chip cookie bars you'll ever eat:

Ingredients
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
2 cups chocolate chips (use whatever you like; for me, it's always a toss-up)

Directions
1) In a large bowl, melt butter. Add sugar and brown sugar, mix well. When slightly cooled, add eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition. Add baking soda, salt, and vanilla, combine well.
2) Stir in 3 cups of flour, then stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough into a greased 9x13 pan and bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.

Now, a word of caution. Obviously, these aren't healthy, haha! I make them only when I'm home so I have other people who eat them. The way they're baked for only 20-25 minutes leaves the bars rather gooey; so bake longer if you see fit. In any case - enjoy!

Dean





The Liar's Table

Greetings everyone!

I realize it's been awhile! In the time that has lapsed between my last post and now, I've successfully finished my first semester at Luther Seminary, had a fantastic Christmas break, and am now embarking on a whirlwind rural immersion January term course. I've been baking up a storm in between those times, baking bread for the family and for gatherings. I've broken bread with my parents and grandparents and with good friends and classmates from seminary, and it has been a good thing.

I want to talk a bit in this post about our J-term immersion. As I write often, I'm interested in issues of rural culture and rural poverty. We spent the first part of our immersion in Dunlap and Moorhead, Iowa, two small towns in the west-central part of the state (not too far from Nebraska), where we were under the guidance of Pastor Carla Johnsen, who pastors the two ELCA churches in those communities. Rural poverty was evident. Rural culture was, appropriately, everywhere, and it was engaging.

I wanted nothing more than to stay in Dunlap and Moorhead. The towns, the people, everything about those places (and if you know me, you know that "the wonder of place" holds a huge fascination) was enthralling. We talked a lot about the people of the towns, and how they gather around common spots - the town diner, the town gas station, etc. In Dunlap, Carla affectionately calls the gas station diner booth "the liar's table" because nothing that comes out of the local's mouths can be believed. We all laughed, and in part it's true, but mostly it's not. I find the places where people gather, especially in rural areas, to be uplifting. People are laughing; shooting the breeze, and it's all social and nothing serious because often times in rural communities people need times like that. Stresses are all too real - something's wrong on the farm, a family member is ill, finances are in trouble, the list goes on and on - and to have that gathering space suddenly takes on a new importance.

Carla says that often those spaces become means for pastoral care. Her biggest piece of advice was to go to where the people are, don't expect them to come to you, and so she sits in the diner and the coffeeshop and gas station rather than her church office most of the time. Looking back to my own context, rural Cannon Falls, Minnesota, I think about the spaces people gather - the Cannonball, the grocery store (where often people crowd the aisles for 10 minutes and don't move), the bakery - and am thankful for those places because they become a place where people joke and laugh but also manage in serious, uplifting conversations every now and again. I think about Marcell and Grand Rapids and remember the times spent at the table around coffee at the Frontier Sports Convenience Store or the Pine Cone Shoppe in Marcell, or my aunt's house in Grand Rapids. My grandpa often patrons the Cannonball in Cannon Falls and sits around the horseshoe table with the other guys and town and comes to the farm laughing, "now, don't believe any of this, but...", and I think it does him some good. The Cannonball is our liar's table.

With this in mind, I encourage you to think about where you gather, who you gather around and with, and what your conversations are these days. Think about your contexts, your people. What types of things are happening in these whirlwinds of our lives that could use some space, some conversation, some uplifting? Could you use some time at a "liar's table" to shoot the breeze and laugh a little, or could you need some time for serious dialogue?

Anyway. Sort of a weird post, and I apologize. I'll update over the course of our immersion - I was just touched by these past few days and the lifestyles of the people. Rural culture and lifestyle is a wonderful thing.

From Shalom Hill Farm -
Dean