Prayer for the current financial situation

The C of E has published a new Prayer for the current financial situation:

Lord God, we live in disturbing days:
across the world,
prices rise,
debts increase,
banks collapse,
jobs are taken away,
and fragile security is under threat.
Loving God, meet us in our fear and hear our prayer:
be a tower of strength amidst the shifting sands,
and a light in the darkness;
help us receive your gift of peace,
and fix our hearts where true joys are to be found,
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Perfect preserves

If Jacky's post on hunting down seasonal food to make jam has inspired you to do the same, then here are some recipes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on making the most of seasonal fruit. You could also check out River Cottage Handbook No 2: Preserves by Pam Corbin from your local library for more.

• Black beauties: blackberry recipes
• River Cottage Bramley lemon curd
• Soft options: strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants
• Links to seasonal recipes

You don't have to use wild food as a base, but this Hot hedgerow chutney is worth trying.

Café No-bucks

As I write, I am drinking a cup of home made coffee. And it hasn't cost me anything, except for the electricity to heat the water. A combination of the credit crunch, being a skinflint and a desire to escape the clutches of the over-powerful Tescos has led me to start to explore the world of foraging. More on that is very likely in future blogs, but for now, back to the coffee.

During WWII the nation's coffee supplies were cut off, and you can only imagine what that would have done to the nation's morale! A coffee substitute was made from acorns instead by chopping them up and roasting them (I don't know who discovered that worked, but I'm guessing it was very old knowledge that had fallen into general disuse).

So I got curious and had a go. You need to remove the outer acorn shells with a sharp, serrated knife, then chop the nut into small pieces. You're meant to roast the pieces twice, chopping smaller after the first roast. I roasted mine once, as I left them in the top of the oven for a bit longer than intended - around 15 mins, probably. The result was a charred-looking mess which both smelled and tasted a lot like coffee. The bits ground down well enough in the pestle and mortar & looked something like instant.

So far so good. What about when you make it into a mug of 'coffee'? It tastes very good actually. I may even prefer it to the real version, as there is not the same sharpness to the taste. I have no idea about the caffeine content though or other side effects but I'd rate the experiment as a success. The only downside appears to be - apologies squirrels - it takes about 5 acorns to make a spoonful of the coffee powder, so I will have to work quite hard to make a useful supply.

Post scripts: I have found articles afterwards saying that you are supposed to leach the tannin out of the acorns by soaking or boiling them, because they contain too much - my recipe didn't say anything about that! I also found some recipes for coffee alternatives from the American Civil War, which may be of interest to some readers.

Stress relief

STRESS RELIEF....

Just click on the BUBBLEWRAP

(Then try it in manic mode)

A passion for tea

Is it really worth buying fancy varieties? is written by a tea lover who has "always viewed indulging in different tea types as a lot of unnecessary faffing about". After a tea-tasting session at Taylors of Harrogate she is converted!

How far would you go for a great brew? In My search for the ultimate cuppa tea obsessive Henrietta Lovell discusses the quest for the finest white tea that took her high into the mountains of China.

Wild Food

Wild food - the kind you have to forage for yourself in the countryside - has seen a resurgence of interest of late, I'm told. Perhaps the likes of Fergus Drennan (that man who cooks roadkill), the popularity of SAS Survival manuals, and Ray Mears, have something to do with it.

I've been doing some foraging of my own . No roadkill, just in case you were worried for a moment. I blame my Granny - she took us mushroom picking as children, and grew most of her own fruit and veg, which we picked and helped her make into jam in the long summer holidays. And then there has been my growing dissatisfaction with the supermarkets that are geared so much towards getting maximum profit for minimum quality produce, and their preference for selling prepackaged foods over whole veg... and the limited availability of cheaper products. And then the sudden food inflation on top of all that.

I've quickly realised there are certain benefits to wild food that didn't cross my mind as a child, when squeezing behind raspberry bushes to get at the best fruit. So here they are - in no particular order:

- Fresh air and a bit of exercise (it makes a nice early evening walk going berry hunting or mushrooming)

- You can't really watch Telly when you're busy in the kitchen

- You start to appreciate food more and don't waste so much when you've put effort into collecting it yourself

- You learn about plants & their uses

- Less food miles - the food itself hasn't gone very far, and you probably haven't needed as many trips to the shops

- Tastier food - I've discovered some new flavours and realised that my home-made jam is much nicer than what you can get in a supermarket

- A more varied diet - ever seen elderberries or stinging nettles in Tescos, anyone?

- A sense of history - not that long ago, this activity was 'normal' (at least some readers of this article will think I've gone off my rocker) and people were much more directly reliant on the land and what was seasonal.

The main downside is the amount of time it can take - that, and the fact that you start somewhat obsessively looking about you for the food in the nearest hedge.

Recycling Energy at the Gym

A gym in America is claiming to be the US's first to use the energy of the people working out in the gym to help power it. In fact, the Beeb news site was looking at this issue a couple of years back, wondering if you could end up getting paid to go to the gym.

It sounds pretty inefficient, though - it would be far more efficient and green to close the gym and for the members to do alternative exercise such as cycling to work. (I say that as someone who doesn't even go to the gym!)

Far more interesting is the idea of energy harvesting, also reported by the BBC around the same time. This is all about capturing the everyday energy lost when, for example, commuters walk through a station. This could be used to light public spaces, power laptops, and reduce the size of battery packs needed in military applications.

Britain's 100 best day walks

The August 2008 Country Walking magazine featured Britain’s 100 Best Day Walks! Writers have selected the very best routes from each county, offering "spellbinding views, unique landscapes and an unforgettable day’s walking". Most walks link either to a routecard in the magazine or to a FREE downloadable routecard on the LFTO site (scroll down here).

How many of these have Infusion walked? As we haven't tackled Scotland, Southern England, or Northern Ireland, I reckon we have notched up 12 out of 58 (see below). Adding in walks undertaken by individual members of Infusion would certainly push the tally up.

• Northern England: Helvellyn, Malham Cove, Ingleborough
• Central England: Mam Tor, Kinder Scout, Goyt Valley, Malvern Hills, Dovedale, the Roaches, Rutland Water, Bosworth Field
• Wales: Snowdon

Why (and how) to pray for the economy

Following an earlier post on Credit crunch theology, here's a thought-provoking blog post on Why I Pray for the Economy. Although written in the US, the sentiments can apply to the UK as well, especially the reminder to make

supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings ... for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

Food and waste and sharing

Article on the BBC website on a food distribution charity, which you can also access directly; they also have stuff going on in Leicester. With so much food ending up as waste, this is some encouragement.

Love and desire

Through a friend's blog, I came across the this article in the Independent on love and desire and the difference between the two. It's not a faith-based article, but one could read a lot between the lines. Enjoy!

Anti-theft lunch bag

I'm not a very keen Sandwich eater for lunch, but I'm sure there are some of you who have suffered from your lunch being nicked. I came across this Anti-theft lunch bag and that would certainly put me off from taking anyone's lunch - have a look. And I guess that was my first attempt at a blog post...

Virtual chocolate

Divine is the Fairtrade Chocolate Company co-owned by the cocoa farmers cooperative Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana, who not only receive a fair price for their cocoa but also share in the company's profit. Watch the 30 second You Tube Movie about Divine Chocolate.

Noddy management

Following the news that Enid Blyton has been voted the UK's favourite writer, comes a confession from a senior academic that her own management style was forged by Blyton. In addition to detailing some of the lessons she has learned from Blyton, she analyses some key characters:

"The Famous Five is the ideal Harvard Business team. There's Anne the administrator; Julian the born leader with his determined chin and propensity to issue orders; Dick the playful networker; George the maverick you would place somewhere in Development. But don't delegate to Timmy the dog: he can't be trusted. "

How to be a thrifty gardener

The Guardian has published a useful two part series on credit crunch gardening:

• How to be a thrifty gardener
• The propagation game

These are extracts from The Thrifty Gardener: how to create a stylish garden for next to nothing by Alys Fowler. It says "Gardening has never been more fashionable - or more expensive. And yet you don't have to spend a fortune. Nothing could be easier or more satisfying than making your own planters, compost or even weedkiller".

How noses are calibrated

The company I work for actually helps people calibrate their sense of smell! In case you're wondering if this is a wind-up, let me explain : in the gas industry, the gas doesn't smell until an odorant is added. The best piece of equipment for testing if the right amount of odorant has been added is still the human nose - until a 'better' alternative is developed. And like all equipment, even the human nose needs calibrating for this work. The BBC recently featured the labs where this happens.

Two endings and a new beginning

Some people fear that the world may end tomorrow (10 September) when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland gets turned on. [ BBC Radio 4 is offering special programmes about it all week, and has a Big Bang Day on the actual day of activation].

OR

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper (T.S. Eliot The Hollow Men, 1925).

OR

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new! (Revelation 21)

Wordling Infusion

This is the result of pasting the first-ever post on this blog into Wordle. Click on the image above to enlarge it.

Back to Church Sunday 2008

Sunday 28th September 2008 is Back to Church Sunday 2008. The churches in Loughborough have their own Back to Church Sunday website. The national website has various resources including prayers.

Have you Wordled yet?

Google is a web application that is now regularly used as a verb. Another web tool that looks set to follow this trend is Wordle. It generates “word clouds” from text that you provide, giving greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. Then the clouds can be tweaked with with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The resulting images can be printed or shared via the Wordle gallery.

A number of Christian bloggers have created Wordles from Bible books and passages, for example:
* The Beatitudes (which Emmanuel Church studied over the summer)

* Philippians (forthcoming sermon series at Holy Trinity, Leicester)

Pizza topping in peril

Pizza toppings will be a little less tasty in future now that the anchovy has been highlighted as a "fish to avoid" by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). More info here:

• Over pizzas, over salads but now overfished: demise of the anchovy
  
• In praise of ... little fishes
  
• Read the MSC's updated Advice On Fish Sustainability


• The FISHONLINE website

If you have any tins of anchovies left in the storecupboard you might want to try Janssen's Temptation (scroll down for recipe) - a classic that everyone should try at least once!

And now for the good news...

Information specialist Phil was recently asked "Are there any sites that provide good news? I'm fed up of reading about miserable information!". So he's pulled together a number of good news resources. He concludes his listing by saying: "Take a moment out to read one or two of them. Smile at someone you don't know. And, just for a moment, count how many blessings you have".

A new way to bin the bags

Following on from the journalist's month without plastic, I have given more thought to this myself. Although I take re-usable bags to the supermarket, there’s still the problem of fresh produce and the need to get it weighed and priced (the alternative would be to stick a price label on every single potato or cherry tomato!).

I was therefore thrilled to find, in one of my favourite catalogues, that someone has come up with Weigh & Store Bags. These are reusable bags which mean that "instead of using the polythene ones provided at the fruit and veg counter, [you can] place fresh produce inside Weigh & Store Bags and proceed through the checkout. Back home, you can place these breathable mesh bags and their contents straight in the fridge or cupboard”. An alternative from the funky Onya Bags company is Onya Weigh. This pouch contains 4 strong bags made from tulle (each of which will carry up to 2 kilos of produce).

In both cases the bags are lightweight (so they don’t add to the weight on the scales) and see-through (so the sales assistants can easily see the contents).