Introduction

This blog will be a new one for me in my post-LVC (Lutheran Volunteer Corps) life. It's a simple story, full of struggle for social justice, simplicity, and sustainability outside the community that held me accountable for a year. It's a story of someone transplanted from a joyously simple existence that was more complicated than I would ever know...to a life where finding the joy in simplicity is increasingly harder. It's a recipe book, full of new and exotic dishes I try and cook for myself (and share with others when I can) with fresh food from the Farmer's Market (when it's open) and very little meat. Sounds like an epic adventure, no?

Recipe 1: Butternut Squash Lasagna (www.vegetariantimes.com).

Outcome: DELICIOUS! I bought a squash on a whim (from Trader Joe's...Farmer's Market is pretty slim pickins in December in TN). I don't like squash soup, so I had no idea what to do. I found this recipe and I knew I liked butternut squash ravioli, so I thought I'd give it a go. I savored each bite with joy while I sat alone and just ate. I took joy in what I created and the fact that I spent my entire day baking and cooking (I baked cookies). It was a day much like I would have spent in Wilmington...and when I have these moments of recogniton, of finding my LVC life in my new grad-school life...I desire to find a way to keep having them. Then it slips my mind, or I lose focus once again when I get caught up in work & school. I miss my community for keeping me accountable, for spending days walking everywhere, sitting in coffee shops with a good book, spending a half an hour on a bus just to get out of the house and the downtown area, saying good morning to all the people I pass on the street, no matter how different from me...I'm trying to find a way back to that complicatedly simple existence.