Favourite Apple Crisp/Crumble

After some wistful petitions from the spear side of the household, I bought flour, sugar, and unsalted butter along with the carrots I would make into soup. The flour, sugar and butter were for apple crisp (or crumble, as we say in the UK), of which B.A. is fond.

We have had heated debates concerning crumble topping. My mother puts oatmeal in hers, so naturally I put oatmeal in mine. But B.A. thinks it is better just to use flour. Hitherto, I have not agreed, but yesterday I could not find the oatmeal, so for once the crumble was oats-free.

B.A. was delighted with the result, saying it was the best apple crumble ever. I think it was a little too sweet; it is definitely too sweet for Poles*

St. Benedict Over the Apple Tree Crumble

1. Send your husband (if applicable) to the apple tree for a pound of ripe apples.

2. Peel, core and slice apples. (B.A. had to peel, as my hands hurt too much from typing.)

3. Put sliced apples on the bottom of a ceramic baking dish, pour in 3 Tbsp water, put some (you decide how much) granulated sugar on them and stir gently.

4. Shake some cinnamon on the apples.

5. In a bowl or spare pot, cut about half a cup of butter into 6 oz of flour and about 4 oz of granulated sugar. The idea is to cut the butter into the size of small croutons.

6. Spread flour-butter-sugar over apples. It will be more crumbly than doughy.

7. Stick dish in pre-heated hot oven (about 350 degrees--our oven's numbers have worn off, so we're not completely sure).

8. Bake for 40 minutes.

9. Serve hot (first day) or room-temperature (second day) with vanilla ice-cream.

Serves 4 once or a loving couple twice.

*If you are new to my blogs, you may wonder what Poles have to do with apple crumble. In time, however, you will discover that Poles, Polish and Poland feature in our lives in various ways, thanks to a serendipitous conflation of events in 2010.

Snatches of Packing, Gardening and Pondering Sin

I have been writing about fall-out from the Cardinals McCarrick and Wuerl scandals, and my hands ache so much at the end of the day that it is hard for me to write anything else.

In the mornings before work, I have been going to the Historical House to pack up books. Small cardboard boxes, especially vodka boxes, are best for this task.  Four more hours should get the job done. 

One evening this week before dinner I rushed out to continue pulling up the dandelions in the lawn, and this morning I managed to get outside again to empty the veg scraps bin on what is still just a compost heap. No compost bin as yet. 

I have watched one television show--"Celebrity Masterchef"---and after so long away from TV, I was surprised by how very boring and mindless it was and wondered why anyone would watch "Celebrity Masterchef" instead of reading a book. There are so many good books, and so few great TV shows. We recognised the face of only one celebrity and the name of the 80s band of another, the mood music was stupid, and the dishes the chefs made looked thoroughly unappetising.  It was a complete waste of an hour, and it frightens me to think that there are people who spend a third of their time--or more--watching television. This is surely not something worthy of human beings. 

Another thing that has been bothering me is artificial snacks. Because so much of the McCarrick/Wuerl scandals involve sins and networks that don't tempt me, I decided it would be a good idea to look at my own inclinations and see if I do anything that could be considered disordered in itself.  And it occurred to me at once that--even if this is "small matter", as B.A. says--there is something  inherently wrong with eating food that has little nutritional value, like potato chips (or crisps, as they are called in Britain), when one has access to highly nutritional food. 

Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and chowing down on something just because it has a pleasurable balance of salt, fat and crunchiness strikes me as a kind of gluttony. Fortunately for this point of view, the apples in the back garden are now ripe, and if I suddenly long to eat something, I can eat one of them. However, stress-eating may also be a form of gluttony. At any rate, we are supposed to ponder our own sins instead of other people's, so I am trying to do that to balance out what I write about all day these days.

Well, back to work.  

Re: What Viganò Said

Nobody panic. You don't panic when you see how dirty your oven is.

If you move into a place with an oven (or you get a new oven delivered) you are probably aggrieved if you find it dirty, but you don't forswear baking just because someone screwed up. Indeed, you are lucky if you checked inside the oven before the house filled with the smell of baking grease. However, since you ignored those who said to check and the house is now full of smoke, the thing to do is open the windows, get a bucket, scouring powder, newspapers and a strong brush, and get to work cleaning.

Is this a sad and bad situation? Yes. Did it wink into existence simply because we found out? No. It's been going on for years. But now we know the small t-truth and hopefully knowing will set us free.

Why Keep Books?

Today I went to the Historical House and filled boxes with books.  When I first started this gargantuan task, I decided to start with books I didn't want anymore. The problem, as I may have mentioned, is that I don't feel comfortable getting rid of B.A.'s books. And I definitely do not want the vast majority of B.A.'s books. Did he really read Justine? Will he ever read Justine? I have my doubts.

However, the very thought of choosing between his books made my poor, radiated husband feel very tired, and he shouted "What?!" when I said I didn't think I needed the Latin-language version of the Summa Theologica anymore.

The problem with books--and we have hundreds--is that too many are relics of one's one past and very often represent destroyed dreams. For example, I have dozens of theological textbooks which I bought and kept because I sincerely believed that I was going to be a professor of theology and would need them. That is why I have, for example, most of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, not to mention the Summa in both English and its original Latin. I even have Mary Daly's Beyond God the Father--or had, as I have binned it.

I also have quite a few books I have never read and may never read and many, many books I have read but may never read again. Therefore, it seems mad to keep them around.

Poor B.A. countered that he has books because he likes to sit in a room surrounded by good books into which he can dip when the mood strikes him.

I did not point out that he has not sat in such a room for over six months and, like me, does most of his reading on the internet and, because computers impede sleep, goes to bed with the Spectator. I even stopped nagging him about discarding books. He was sitting on the edge of the soon-to-be-abandoned sofa bed in what used to be our library, half the back of his head shaved or simply bald. He looked as weak as a kitten.

So I spent the day putting books in boxes without making judgements and taped the boxes shut. However, I know perfectly well that it may be a very long time before those boxes are every opened again. Therefore I began to fill a big red wheeled suitcase with books I need and read often. And because I am a nice wife, really, I made sure I brought some books B.A. highly values, has read recently and will probably read again.

So here are the books that have actually made it to St. Benedict Over the Apple Tree. Most of them came with me today, dragged half a mile in a suitcase or carried on my back:

Churchy, Liturgical & Theological (mostly B.A.'s)
The Holy Bible (NRSV, Catholic)
Biblia (the Bible in Polish and therefore not B.A.'s)
Chwalmy Pana (Polish prayers & liturgy book)
The Monastic Diurnal
The Penny Catechism 

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (in English)
Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi
CCCB, Statement on the Formation of the Conscience (aka Winnipeg Statement)
Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy
Alice Thomas Ellis, Serpent on the Rock 
Adrian Fortescue et al, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described
Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Holy Mass
St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 
Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, Gardening the Soul
Joseph Kramp, S.J., Live the Mass (1925)
Peter Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness
Father Lasance, The New Roman Missal (1945)
Robert Llewelyn, A Doorway to Silence (super-High Anglican guide to the Rosary)
Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy and the Splendor of Truth

Aidan Nichols, O.P., Critising the Critics
Aidan Nichols, O.P., The Holy Eucharist
Aidan Nichols, O.P., Holy Order
Aidan Nichols, O.P., Lovely Like Jerusalem
Aidan Nichols, O.P., The Realm
Aidan Nichols, O.P., The Shape of Catholic Theology*

Pius X. Catechism św. Piusza. Vademecum katolika (I'm going to memorise it. That's the plan.)
Fr. Jacques Phillipe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace 

Card. Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy
Card. Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World

Henry Sire, Phoenix from the Ashes 
Aelred Squire, Asking the Fathers
Ks. Józef Tischner, Krótki przewodnik po życiu

Historical
Thomas Ahnert, The Moral Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1690-1805
William Zachs, Without Regard to Good Manners

Journalism
Associated Press, Guide to News Writing
Emma Lee-Potter, Interviewing for Journalists
Strunk & White, Elements of Style 

Linguistic
Peter C. Brown et al. Make it Stick
Gabriel Wyner, Fluent Forever

Larousse French-English, Anglais-Francais New College Dictionary

JACT, Reading Greek
Langenscheidt, Pocket Greek Dictionary
Liddell & Scott, Greek-English Lexicon
Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek

Collins Concise Italian-English, English-Italian Dictionary
MOIT, Il Mio Primo Dizionario
Oxford, Mini Italian Dictionary
Esplora Firenze con Dante e i suoi amici
Un Giorno in Italia 2

Langensheidt, Premium Slownik polsko-angielski/angielsko-polsku (cut in 2 halves, a sign of love)
Langensheidt, Slownik uniwersalny, Angielski
Oxford & PWN, English-Polish Dictionary
Assimil, Le Polonais
Klara Janecki, 301 Polish Verbs 
Iwona Sadowska, Polish: A Comprehensive Grammar 
Oscar E. Swan, Polish Verbs & Essentials of Grammar 

Literature
C. Alan Ames, Through the Eyes of Jesus (gift of pious neighbour)
Martin Amis, The Information (accident)
Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
Alice Thomas Ellis, The Summerhouse Trilogy
George MacDonald Fraser, The Complete McAuslan

C.S. Lewis, Książe Kaspian
C.S. Lewis, Podróż Wędrowca do świtu (Polish trans. of below)
C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate
Bolesław Prus, Lalka
Bolesław Prus, The Doll (English trans. of above)

& two poetry books belonging to tutor which I mean to give back soon

Other
Eyewitness Guides, Poland
Victoria Harrison, Happy by Design
Jack Monroe, A Girl Called Jack: 100 Delicious Budget Recipes 
Cal Newport, Deep Work
Matthew Rice, Rice's Architectural Primer 
Simon Sinek, Start With Why
Brian Tracy, Eat That Frog
Kate Watson-Smith, Mad About the House
Lexie Williamson, The Stretching Bible

That appears to be 77 or so. Dear me. And that is the smallest drop in the library bucket.

Why I brought all the Classical Greek books when I am unlikely to be called upon to teach it ever again is a mystery. Lest I appear more high-brow than I actually am, I bring your attention to my must-have English novels. Well, Brookner is eminently respectable (I do think Hotel du Lac is a masterpiece). The others are for comfort (or Polish studies).

I think I have at last answered my question. Some books you need as tools, but others are simply for comfort: mind snacks.

*B.A. really loves the work of Aidan Nichols. He once got me to take at least some of these books to a conference where Nichols was speaking for the learned priest to sign. The great man kindly did so although he seemed a little surprised by the number.

Weeding is Good for the Soul

Poor Benedict Ambrose has taken the week off work and has been slowly wrapping up glasses and plates at the Historical House. He took apart the leather-top table and then, having read my splenic post, decided not to bring it home. Still weak from radiation therapy, he's done only a quarter of the packing he hoped to do.  We are still not sure how we are going to get everything down three flights of stairs.

I worked off my vague fury by digging dandelions out of the lawn, before or after work. It is good to be outside and smell the earth. The harling on the walls reminds me of my childhood home, even thought that was white, and these row houses are brown and ochre.

The fury is partly frustration with the circumstances of our move, but partly the content of my articles. The news is by turns sad and infuriating. Pondering the meaning of Single Life between examining dating strategies was a lot more fun, it must be said. Thus, it is great to get out into the garden where life is much simpler and the battle lines are more clearly drawn: woman vs. dandelions.

When the weather is dry and even slightly sunny, I wash and hang out the laundry. This is also refreshing--especially after nine years of hanging laundry indoors.

Last night BA and I went to see Suzanne Vega at Edinburgh's Queen's Hall. BA first heard SV when he was a teenager, obediently making a tape of her songs at the behest of a friend. So among BA's hundreds of classical CDs, there are a few Suzanne Vega albums.

As a teenager of the 1980s, I knew "Luka", of course, and hearing it live was my second shock of the evening. My first shock was seeing the 20-something Suzanne Vega of the "Luka" video instantly age 30 years when she appeared onstage. She is still waif-like, however. The first set was the entire Solitude Standing album, of which "Luka" is the second song. Hearing it live was like being jolted, for a few moments, back into 1988.

Nostalgia is a funny thing. On the one hand it would be splendid to be a teenager and have all that opportunity before you, but on the other hand I acutely remember groping around blindly for all this supposed opportunity. I enjoyed writing stories, but there were no obvious clubs and programs around for girls who enjoyed writing stories. But above all I was helpless and terrified before the sheer cliffs of Math class and Chemistry class, partly because I didn't understand how work could substitute for talent.

For that reason, it would be a terrible thing to find myself once again a teenager in 1988. Naturally it would be great to go back knowing what I know now, even if I didn't remember to buy shares in Microsoft. As that is quite impossible, it is comforting to know that I am better off now--with an "upper villa" of my own,  a good-natured husband and the knowledge that most human beings can do or learn almost ANYTHING we put our minds to, as long as we work at it as assiduously and as long enough as it takes. As the framed Polish poster on the kitchen wall reads, "Naprzód (forward)!"

The Historical Sepulchre

Today I went to the Historical House with my trusty backpack and a lot of boxes.  Ugh!

It almost astonishes me that I now dislike so much a place I loved so much. But in the wake of the flood, our exile, the moth infestation, and our ultimate eviction, I really hate going up the stairs to the Historical Attic, smelling the curiously sour air, looking at the dusty wreckage of our former home and shuddering as I squash yet another brown insect between my fingers.

Our life as we knew it ended when the overhead pipe in the bathroom blew up. Naturally B.A.'s brain tumour and subsequent illnesses had already blighted our social lives, but the Deluge put a definitive end to all our jolly dinner parties, Sunday Lunches, and hopes that we'd be entertaining friends at the Historical House for many years to come.

Now, of course, I look forward to picking up the threads of our relationships and welcoming our friends to our new home. It's smaller and has no romantic antecedents--indeed, the neighbourhood has fallen on good times since it was first built for the proletariate--but the ceilings are higher and the garden is our very own.  But I am desperate to keep all the junk and useless belongings that proliferated in the Historical Attic out of the new space.

Two of the worst chores in the old place were vacuuming and dusting. Both were absolutely necessary to keep the moths at bay, but unfortunately we own a lot of little tables and chairs and ornate little bookcases and other hard-to-dust objects. Eventually I discovered that the only effective way to hoover the sitting-room was to take everything except the sofa and a bookcase out of it, vacuum and then heave all the furniture back in.

This is one reason why I am not at all looking forward to transferring the old furniture here, and I am praying that the used furniture dealer we called will take most of it away.

But, oddly, my greatest dread is that all the books will end up lining the new place. It DOES astonish me that I could hate books--before I married I kept all my books in perfect order and afterwards I lobbied my parents to send them over the sea---but now I just think of how rarely we seem pick them up. Of course, we must have picked them up sometimes--at least twice a year I would have to give the library a thorough reordering--but we do most of our reading on the internet, and most of the books I read now come from public libraries.  Most of our old books, therefore, are simply redundant--as well as dust traps and hiding places for insects.

And so going up to the Attic and looking at all the things we still have to pack and somehow cart to the new flat seriously depresses me. Naturally I am terrified of the moths tagging along, too.

After all my good intentions, when I loaded up my knapsack it was with one shoebox of wine glasses,  my winter church dress, a cookbook, the photocopy of my 2017 tax return, and two cardigans. But I also carried away an occasional table. My fingers are crossed that we will keep only the nesting three.  If the rickety leather-top table falls apart one more time when I move it to vacuum, I will kick it to pieces.

Here are some soothing minimalist and Japanese interiors to calm us all down.

Gardening Tools

Happy birthday, honey!

I am fascinated by "Early Retirement" blogs although it really is too late for me to retire by 40, let alone 30. Why people are writing about this only now (or, to be honest, from around ten years ago--I am always late to trends) is beyond me. I seem to recall pondering how much money people make in their lifetime but not that they could SAVE most of it.

While thinking about what careers would best fund a writer, it never occurred to me to work like a slave for 10 years, save at least 65% of the money and shove it all into index funds that eventually make me $20,000 a year. Then I could quit and write all day long. 

If I wrote advice for teenagers, that would be my advice. Get trained in something highly valuable, work like a slave for 10 years while saving as much as possible, and only THEN go to Paris to sit around writing/painting about Le Beau Homme Sans Merci or whomever.  

This rather flies in the face of my advice to have children as soon as you graduate from university, so either marry a young man who is eager to retire in ten years, and do the hard graft of scrimping and saving from the distaff side, or start work at 16, doing your pre-university courses at night school. 

Dear heavens, I have just looked up the UK wages for apprentices. Never mind starting work at 16. Finish high school, do a 3 to 4 year uni course in something useful, work like a slave for a decade/get married to willing-worker-like-slave (if can find), have babies (if applic.), then work part-time for fun when can. Do not read Vogue, Elle or Marie Claire.

I do not know about you, but I think if I were a man I would find it very thrilling if I took a woman out to dinner and she told me her life goal was to be financially independent by 32 so she could retire and have babies and fun forever more. I imagine this person having one tube of lipstick--a Christmas present from her mother--and one date dress--ditto--carefully preserved in a cloth garment bag when not in service.  

I have wandered far from my chosen topic, which purports to be garden tools. Well, the one extravagance allowed by my Early Retirement gurus is high-end tools, possibly because they are men and really like high-end tools, but also because such things retain their resale value and last decades. Now that B.A. and I have a garden, and we need tools, I did some research to determine which garden tools count as high-end and went out this morning to buy some. 

It is a bit odd, after buying supermarket own-brand pizza on the grounds that it is £1 cheaper than our favourite, to spend £132.95 on garden tools, but that is what I have done. The big expense was the Fiskars hedge shears, which cost so much that they will live indoors, not in the tool shed. 

"Happy birthday," said I to Benedict Ambrose upon mentioning the price of these hedge shears. 

For I correctly intuited that BA would enjoy the thought of cutting the hedge with such a righteous piece of kit, and the pruning shears alone inspired him at once to cut up the embarrassing sapling sprouting over our rose bushes towards the neighbour's garden. 

Mr Money Moustache says that when you go shopping you should have a hot shower afterwards to wash off the shopping juice. I am both horrified that I have spent £132.95 all at once and deeply desirous of adding grass shears and secateurs to my arsenal in the tool shed (and spare room).  

Over supper I casually mentioned to B.A. that I might dig up part of the lawn to make a vegetable bed, and he thought this a good idea as long as I pick a spot not under the clothes lines.  I am pleased by this although, speaking as a North American, it seems slightly heretical to dig up part of the lawn. I mean, the  LAWN!