The Hungry Theologian

I saw a blog once called The Hungry Ballerina. I thought it was a curious concept - the writer is a ballerina, obviously, and since she dances all over the world, she eats all over the world, and then she writes about it (and includes photos of her food). For a foodie like me, these things are interesting. Eventually my attention began to wane, but the title of her blog stuck with me. I'm not a ballerina, I'm a theologian. And I'm hungry. For this week's edition of "stories from the St. Cyprian's summer intern," I give you:

The Hungry Theologian

It's been a busy busy busy busy week! To my good fortune, I've spent most of it in the kitchen preparing for Saturday's Green Turk & Lyon L(a)unch. We're having a bake sale in addition to the other festivities, so - in taking a page from Malcom X, who said "the future belongs to those who prepare for it today" - I have been baking up a storm: banana bread, basil bread (like the photo), sweet rolls, carrot cake cupcakes, bran muffins, cookies and the like. I have a close relationship with my oven, and we've spent a lot of time together the last few days.

Part of why I love to cook is because of the uninterrupted thinking time it allows me. The recipes I follow are typically not complicated, so while I count out cups of flour or beat together eggs and sugar, my mind wanders wherever it pleases. I realized yesterday, in making these goodies, that my recipes have come from some amazing, really important women. My sweet roll recipe, for instance, is my grandmother's. The bran muffins came from my future mother-in-law, and the banana bread is Annie's - she's the mom of the girls I nannied last summer. It has been such a joy to bake and think about Grandma, Clare and Annie - silently giving thanks for their presence in my life, and feeling grateful that I get to pass on a little bit of each of them to the (hopefully vast) crowds at St. Cyprian's on Saturday.

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Yesterday the Bay Area Beatitudes Fellows were treated to the Auburn Media Training, a workshop designed to help us "cultivate our preaching, teaching and writing to meet the needs of TV, radio, print and the web" (from their website). We learned the basics of media work and spent the whole day practicing what we would say in a television interview. It was so interesting! Each of us took something different from the training, and it was obvious by the end of the day that we were better on-camera than we were at the start. I wish every day were so productive.

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That's about all I have for now. See y'all on Saturday for the L(a)unch, right? :)