Rolling Away Stones
March 23, 2016
“Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.”
~Carl Friedrich Gauss
Alejandro Ernesto/EPA/Corbis
This past Sunday, on the first day of Spring, the First Family boarded Air Force One for the first visit to Cuba by a U.S. President since Calvin Coolidge made the trip by sea in 1928.
Two days later, on a day of heartbreak and sadness in Belgium, I listened to the National Anthem of the United States of America being sung by a choir of young Cuban vocalists to open a moving, history-making baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team. I watched as Rachel Robinson, widow of the late Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, enjoyed the game seated next to the first African-American President of the United States. Baseball, the game that begins its season in spring, the season of renewal, helped renew my hope for a more peaceful world on a day when that hope was challenged.
This coming Sunday will celebrate Easter, another powerful symbol of renewal and hope. When I was a young girl, my mom and I would sometimes attend services at a non-denominational church near the beach. I remember the pastor there as a warm, fun and inspirational speaker. One Easter Sunday, he told the story from the Bible about how, after Jesus died, the women who went to visit the tomb where he was buried were surprised to find the stone that had sealed the entrance had been rolled away and that he was no longer there. The Easter holiday is inspired by the rolling away of that stone and the resurrection that it symbolizes.
The pastor then spoke to the congregation about how many of us would probably leave the service that day feeling uplifted and renewed, as if the stone in front of our hearts had been rolled away just like the stone that had sealed Christ’s tomb. However, he then added, it probably wouldn’t take long before something in our daily lives, a call from a relative or a story on the news, would cause that “stone” to roll right back to its usual spot, thus sealing our hearts and minds once again inside the tomb of fear and resentment.
He asked us to remember the light even when darkness seems to overtake us, to keep that stone rolled away and not let the voices of hate, anger and fear prevent our minds and hearts from living in the light of love, kindness and hope. He reminded us that “rolling away the stone” was something that one has to do, not just once a year, but continually.
I wish all of you a happy Easter and a wonderful spring season filled with renewal and healing. Keep rolling those stones away.
~~~
One of the bands featured at the SXSW Cuba Showcase this year was YISSY & Bandancha. It’s classic jazz for a new world: drums, keyboard, bass guitar, trumpet and turntable.
Enjoy:
~~~~~~~~~
Pretty Pink Pickled Eggs and Spring Veggies are a beautiful and delicious way to use leftover Easter eggs.
Pretty Pink Pickled Eggs and Spring Veggies
You will need a quart-sized mason jar with lid for these. Use eggs from happy hens, such as Vital Farms pastured eggs, or eggs from a local hen house. Eggs from pastured hens contain up to 20 times more omega-3 acids than factory hens. Click on the Eat Wild Website link, to find a farm near you that carries pastured eggs. Vital Farms eggs are carried at most Whole Foods. Both links can be found up and to the right of this post, under “Elaborations”.
1 medium beet, scrubbed and cleaned
1 & 1/2 cups water (to cook beets)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon organic sugar
1 cup red wine vinegar (a bit more, if needed)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
2 fennel stalks with tops
2 spring onions or 3 green onions
2 small red or pink radishes
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
6 hard cooked eggs, cooled and peeled*
Slice beet into thin, 1-inch pieces. Add the beets and water to a large saucepan and cook, covered, over medium-low heat until tender, about 30 minutes. Make sure you have 1 cup of cooking water remaining in the pan. Add more water, if necessary.
Meanwhile:
Clean and dice the white part of the fennel, save some of the fronds and chop fine.
Clean the radishes and slice thinly.
Clean, trim and slice the spring onions, include some of the green part.
After the beets have finished cooking, while the liquid is still warm, add salt, sugar and vinegar and stir to dissolve. Add the garlic, fennel, radishes, onions, parsley and peppercorns. Stir to combine.
In a quart-sized mason jar with lid, layer eggs and veggies until jar is filled. Pour liquid over to cover. If there is not enough liquid to cover, you can top it off with a bit more red wine vinegar. Seal jar with the lid and give a gentle shake to mix contents. Refrigerate for 24 hours, gently shaking jar occasionally.
Cut eggs in half to reveal the pretty color. Serve with some of the veggies, along with crackers, chips or bread.
Serves 3 to 6 as an appetizer
*To boil the eggs: place in a single layer, without crowding, inside a cold saucepan. Add water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat. Immediately turn off heat, cover and let sit for 15 minutes. Drain and then rinse with cold water until cool. Refrigerate until ready to use.
To peel cold eggs: crack hard-boiled eggs once on the fat end of the egg. This will be where the “air pocket” is. Begin peeling from there and continue until egg is completely peeled.
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