The Royal Wedding! :-)

Did you watch the royal wedding? If so, what did you think about the event?

I have to go off the beaten path of my regular blog topics to talk about yesterday's Royal Wedding! Wasn't it lovely? I'm still swooning over the event! What did you think of her dress? I thought William looked handsome in the military uniform. I also loved the feeling of anticipation in the air when Kate walked down the aisle and William had not seen her yet, and Harry glanced back and saw the bride coming.

Like a lot of the world, I was up at 3:45 to watch this event from beginning to end (just as I did 30 years ago for Diana's and Charles's wedding)! I didn't want to miss a moment! I did miss the kiss because I had to take my son to school, but, I was able to see it when they showed the highlights! I watched footage off and on all day yesterday! I also didn't mind re-watching stuff that I'd already seen! :-)

I also enjoyed the way the couple glanced at each other...you've got two billion people watching your wedding, but, those looks they exchanged, were still private and intimate and touching.

I think this couple will have a happy and long marriage. It appears that they're really, truly in love and when the press compared their wedding to Diana's (30 years ago) it was a direct contrast to Diana's wedding. Charles and Diana barely looked at each other and neither of them smiled. It was almost as if a feeling of doom surrounded them. But Kate and William appear to be suited for one another and I think it helps that Kate is years older than Diana, making her more suitable to enter the ranks of marriage.

I know this couple will have many trials and tribulations in spite of their desire to live a normal life. Can you imagine photographers watching your every move and reporting it? Can you imagine, not being able to eat a sandwich in public without being noticed?

However, in spite of all this, my gut tells me that this marriage will be a happy one, for the most part, and won't end as traumatically as Diana's and Chrarles's wedding.

What are your thoughts about the wedding and the marriage? Leave a comment.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Booksigning! :-)

Come on out Sunday, May 1, 2011 to this address:
Restoration Praise Center
at Community Christian Fellowship
10411 Greenbelt Road
Lanham, MD 20706-2211
I'll be signing copies of Chesapeake Weddings from 3-5 PM.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

The Royal Wedding! :-)

Will you be watching The Royal Wedding tomorrow?

Call me weird, but, I took a vacation day tomorrow just to watch The Royal Wedding! I plan on having scones slathered with Kerrygold butter and preserves! I'm also having coffee (Sorry, no tea. I've never been much of a hot tea fan. I only drink tea when I'm sick with a cold.)

The only problem is, I went to both grocery stores nearby and neither sold scones. I'm going to have to make the scones this evening so that I can enjoy them tomorrow morning! If you have a favorite scone recipe to share, I'd be appreciative if you told me about it. I made scones just one time, a gazillion years ago, and I thought the recipe that I used tasted okay.

I recall when Prince William's parents got married back in the eighties! I was still living at home and I remember getting up at the crack of dawn just to watch the wedding! Also, I recall that I'd never heard much about Prince Charles in the media until he got engaged to Lady Diana! I also remember getting up early in the morning to watch Lady Diana's funeral! :-(

I'm NOT a Royal or British enthusiast! I haven't been following the wedding coverage very much, but, I did take some interest when I first heard William was getting married - I forgot about it a short time later. I don't watch TV much and I get most of my news from online and via AOL. A high-school friend of mine said she was taking a personal day to watch the wedding and I love a good wedding, being a romance author and all, so I decided to do the same thing. I've only started following the wedding coverage over the last few days, but, I'm a bit excited about seeing the wedding and I also want to see her dress!

I'll be getting up early tomorrow morning, probably around three or four, which is why I need to make my scones today! I'd also thought about making crumpets, but, I've never had those before...not sure if I'd like them! I've had scones and they remind me of fancy biscuits!

So, will you be watching The Royal Wedding? If so, what time are you planning to wake up?
~Cecelia Dowdy~

Happy Easter!

Come over to Writers' Rest Blog to see my short Easter message!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Amish Friendship Bread Starter - Day One

No, I'm not going to be posting pictures each day for my Amish Friendship Bread Starter. However, I will post this one so that you can see what it looks like. I did this last night. Now I need to put it in a Ziplock bag and squeeze it each day and add stuff to it. I then need to make some Amish Friendship Bread on day 10!

Contrary to popular belief, the origin of this bread cannot be traced back to the Amish. This recipe is several decades old. I did look up Amish Friendship Bread on Wikipedia and it said that to the Amish, Friendship Bread is merely sourdough bread that they give to the sick and needy. I can't really tell where this Amish Friendship Bread recipe started.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Friendship Bread By Darien Gee - A Secular Title

Please note that this is a secular title.

Have you ever made Amish Friendship Bread (or any other type of bread, like sourdough) that required a starter? If so, did you like it? How did it turn out?



Friendship Bread by Darien Gee
An anonymous gift sends a woman on a journey she never could have anticipated.

One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.

When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever.

In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.

About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens.

==
My thoughts? I can honestly say that I've never read a book quite like this, and I mean that in a good way. Julia is still reeling from the unexpected death of her ten year old son - five years ago. She blames her sister Livvy for her son's death and as a result of her grief, she becomes estranged from the residents of Avalon, as well as her husband, Mark. Mark finds that he needs to pick up the slack around their home since Julia no longer works and spends most of her time grieving. He's tired of being the good guy and finds himself somewhat flattered when a woman from the office starts paying attention to him.

Julia bonds with Hannah (a recently divorced professional cellist) and Madeline (the owner of the new tea shop). These women help Julia to heal.

The premise of the Friendship Bread is what drew me to this book in the first place. If you've been reading my blog long enough, you'll know that I love blogging about food and fiction, and this book is a unique mix between the two. This book was written in the present tense and there are about 20 (or more) points of view - but this style of writing worked for this type of book. Some of the characters only have a point of view for a few pages, and then you never hear about these characters again. The only on-going characters are the ones mentioned in the book summary above as well as Edie (a reporter), Edie's husband, and Livvy's husband.

The way the story plays out, with the community banning together, the friendship bread starter being passed on from person to person, is truly unique, sometimes funny, and emotional - causing a bond between the Avalon community.

Reading this book has made me want to do my own starter and bake a batch of Amish Friendship Bread for myself. After you do the starter, you bake the bread in ten days. During that ten-day period, you squeeze the bag of starter and add ingredients on a few of those days. The starter ferments and when you bake the bread, you pass on three of the bags of starter to friends or relatives. My only problem? I have no idea to whom I'd gift those extra bags of starter! I guess I could give one to my sister? Or maybe my mom? The town of Avalon soon became overflowing with starter bags, and I can understand how this would happen. You can find the recipes for the Amish Friendship Bread starter here. You can also use the starter to make brownies, pancakes, biscuits, as well as several variations of the Amish Friendship Bread.

The starter reminded me of the sourdough starter that was mentioned in my bread-machine cookbook.

When I do the Amish Friendship Bread starter, I'll be sure to blog about it.

As I stated earlier, this is a secular title. There was some mild cursing and a few people living together, but otherwise, there wasn't a whole lot that would offend the Christian reader.

Have you ever made Amish Friendship Bread (or any other type of bread, like sourdough) that required a starter? If so, did you like it? How did it turn out?

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Vanilla Pudding And Shrimp Fried Rice

If you try these recipes, or have made similiar recipes, leave a comment and let me know what you think about these foods. Do you like pudding or stir-fried rice? Have you ever tried to make these foods before?

Here are a couple of recipes that I recently made for my family:

Vanilla Pudding
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk (I used lowfat milk)
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened (I used Kerrygold butter)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix cornstarch, sugar, and salt in a bowl with a wire whisk. Place the mixture into a 2-quart saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over very low heat or over a double boiler, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir at least half of the hot mixture gradually into egg yolks; stir into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir one minute; remove from heat. Stir in margarine and vanilla. Pour into dessert dishes; refrigerate. Makes 4 servings.

Photo courtesy of Free Digital Photos

Cute idea: I poured the pudding into pretty coffee cups before serving. It looked really neat and I think it's a nice, elegant way to serve pudding!

Photo courtesy of Free Digital Photos
Fried Rice
1 cup bean sprouts (I didn't have any, so I skipped this)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil and I think I used more than 2 tablespoons)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
3 cups cold cooked white rice
1 cup of cut-up cooked pork, chicken, OR shrimp (I used two small packages of raw shrimp in the shell, not sure how much shrimp it was.)
2 green onions (with tops) sliced
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons soy sauce (I used low-sodium soy sauce)
Dash of white pepper

If using uncooked shrimp, steam shrimp until done and peel off the shell. I did not cut up my shrimp, I left them whole.


Rinse bean sprouts under running cold water, drain. Heat one tablespoon oil in 10-inch skillet (I used the largest iron skillet that I had but it was too small. It's best to use a VERY LARGE SKILLET OR WOK.) until hot; rotate skillet until oil covers bottom. Cook and stir mushrooms in oil over medium heat until coated, about 1 minute. Add bean sprouts, rice, pork (or shrimp or chicken) and onions; cook and stir over medium heat, breaking up rice, until hot, about five minutes.

Push rice to side of skillet; add one tablespoon of oil to skillet. Add eggs; cook and stir over medium heat until eggs are thickened throughout but still moist. Stir eggs into rice mixture. stir in soy sauce and white pepper. Makes four servings.

Enjoy! Don't forget to leave a comment!
~Cecelia Dowdy~

Showdown By Ted Dekker

Showdown by Ted Dekker

Welcome to Paradise.

Epic battles of good and evil are happening all around us.

Today that battle comes to town with the sound of lone footsteps clacking down the blacktop on a hot, lazy summer afternoon. The black-cloaked man arrives in the sleepy town of Paradise and manages to become the talk of the town within the hour. Bearing the power to grant any unfulfilled dream, he is irresistible.

Seems like bliss . . . but is it?
Or is hell about to break loose in Paradise?

I decided to take a break from my normal reading material to read this Ted Dekker book that's been sitting on my shelf for awhile. I purchased it from the discount rack at Booksamillion awhile ago.

Paradise is a small, sleepy, boring town...until the new preacher, Marsuvees Black, arrives. Once Black enscounces himself within the town, he puts the entire Paradise population under his spell, with the exception of a young boy named Johnny. Johnny has witnessed Black murdering another citizen, and he can see the true colors of Black's haunted personality. Johnny is scared, and he wants to save Paradise from Black, whom he considers a devil-like creature.

Meanwhile, up in the hills, a monastery is performing an experiment: Project Showdown. If the monks and teachers can keep a group of orphans separated from society and evil, will those children only be destined for goodness once they are released into the world, therefore becoming citizens of strong faith which could be an advantage to the rest of mankind? These orphans are not supposed to go into the dungeons, but Billy, one of the orphans, decides to break that rule after he comes under Black's influence. As other orphans follow Billy's footsteps, you're drawn into a story where child writers are mesmerized by worms, worm sludge, and fictional characters. Samuel, another orphan, finds himself in the unique position of trying to sway his peers to go against evil to attempt to find their way back to the way of goodness and light.

This story did draw me in, and I thought it had a phenomenal Christian message. It shows how easily one can be swayed into evil, and while in the Devil's evil clutches, you're brainwashed, no longer thinking that things like murder and violence against innocent people are wrong in God's eyes.

However, some parts of the book were utterly gross. When the kids are in the dungeon, and their flesh is destroyed by an evil rash with sores, they use worm sludge to treat their afflicted skin. Huge worms haunt the dungeon, multiplying while providing sludge treatments for the children. When the children eat the sludge...just gross is all.

Great violence and harm comes to one of the monastery's children. It was hard for me to read about this...it just was. Although the story comes together at the end, this part will probably be hard to get through if you're a sensitive reader.

If you like a good read with lots of supernatural elements, then this book is for you.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Soap Operas - From The Blog Archives

Should Christians watch soap operas?

After hearing that All My Children and One Life To Live were canceled, I felt compelled to pull this old post from my blog archives. I've watched All My Children before, and I used to be somewhat of a fan. However, I'll admit that I haven't watched it in years - too time-consuming and the storylines get too weird. I've also watched One Life To Life occasionally. Leave a comment answering the following question: Should Christians watch soap operas?
The other day, my husband sent me this link to an article stating that the soap opera, The Guiding Light, will be canceled after 72 YEARS ON THE AIR...this soap opera pre-dates television (I'm assuming it started as a radio show)! He sent me the article because he knows that I used to watch soap operas - but I've never watched The Guiding Light.

A few years ago, I blogged about soap operas here.

After I wrote that blog post (I was mostly talking about The Young And The Restless on that post) I stopped watching soap operas. I got into a time crunch and the soap operas didn't make my TO DO list.

I started watching soap operas in high school because I was bored. I lived in a remote rural area. During the summertime, there was really no place to go. My mom didn't drive, my dad was at work all day, I had no money, and I had no car to drive. I spent my summer days walking around the neighborhood, reading books, and watching soap operas! Since I read books so quickly - I practically inhaled them, I got most of my titles from the bookmobile that came to town every two weeks. I also fondly remember watching General Hospital while Luke and Laura fell in love and out of love. I recall watching All My Children when Greg and Jenny fell in love and evil forces strove to keep them apart. I also remember Jessie Hubbard and Angie getting together and falling in love. I'd get freaked out when these storybook romances would end, but watching these stories gave me something to do during those boring hot summer days. To top it off, I'd spend the rest of my day reading romance novels. It's hard for me to get into the soaps nowadays, I guess, because the stories never end. They go on and on...imagine, a 72-year-old story like The Guiding Light?

I've sometimes dreamed of having a Christian soap opera on the air where people can talk about finding faith and forgiving others.

Do any of you watch soap operas now, or did you used to watch them? If so, which ones did you watch? Why do you like them? How long have you been watching the soaps? Do you think Christians should watch soap operas? I'll start by saying I don't see anything wrong with watching them as long as you don't get too carried away...it's kind of like, reading a secular novel or watching a movie. It's entertainment and overall, soaps aren't any better or worse than a lot of the other secular entertainment out there.

I enjoyed the soaps because they were entertaining and I'd get caught up in the characters' lives. Sometimes they were placed in perilous situations and I just wanted them to get rescued! If they were hurt and in the hospital, I wanted them to recuperate and get better! But, if they died, it's possible they could come back from the dead later! LOL!

Feel free to answer these questions and to throw in any other opinions you have about soap operas. I'm kind of anxious to hear what others have to say!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Does The Lord Speak To Us In Our Dreams?

Photo courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti

I'm blogging at Writers' Rest today. Does the Lord speak to us in our dreams? Stop by Writers' Rest to read and comment about this thought-provoking subject!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

The Rhythm Of Secrets By Patti Lacy

The Rhythm Of Secrets by Patti Lacy

Since 1955, Sheila Franklin, a talented musician, has perfectly performed the role of devout pastor’s wife, locking away her past as Sheba Alexander and Sylvia Allen. Her carefully constructed façade crumbles with a single phone call from a young Marine named Samuel, the illegitimate son she secretly put up for adoption. Samuel begs Sheila to use her government contacts to get his fiancé, Mali, a Thai prostitute, into America. A dangerous mixture of love and guilt spurs her to help her only child even though it devastates her husband Edward and exposes her questionable past. After a quarrel with Edward, Sheila and Samuel board a C-130 for Thailand and then search Bangkok’s steamy streets for a Madonna-faced prostitute. The two whisk Mali from a brothel but are seized by a warlord who considers Mali his “number one girl.” In a teak “ghost house,” Sheila discovers God’s grace and gains the freedom she needs to find her own identity—Sheila, Sylvia, and Sheba. A framed story, this novel has roots in the bohemian 1940s New Orleans French Quarter and spans three decades, including the turbulent Vietnam era.
This was a powerful, enjoyable book that I highly recommend. Sheila has secrets - secrets that she's never exposed to her husband, a big-time pastor. He doesn't know about her mixed parentage, or parents' background, or about the fact that she has an illegitimate son with dark skin.

This book shows how one simple, single mistake can haunt you for years and years. I know we're supposed to accept God's grace for our sins, but, even when/if we do this, our sins and our bad choices can still affect our lives for a long time.

This novel also shows that it's best to tell the truth, especially to those that you love. Don't hide secrets, what if they come out to bite you later, causing turmoil in your current relationships?

This book also has a pretty deep inspirational message - showing that no matter how tough things get, even if it appears that we may lose our lives, it's best to call upon the Lord, our creator, during times of trouble.

I loved the way the author truthfully showed how judgmental we can be as Christians. You know, this book had me thinking about how some Christians are quick to punish, judge, make others feel unworthy, not following the example that Christ set forth for us in the Gospels. When Sheila, the main character in Rhythm of Secrets, loses her parents and goes to live with her grandmother Mimi, she's forced to suffer from Mimi's judgmental attitude towards her. This attitude partially stems from Sheila's parentage. Yet, Mimi is a Christian? Sadly, the church is filled with Mimis and it'd be great if, the next time we find ourselves judging others for their mistakes, then we should stop, and take a hard look at ourselves. What sins have we committed in our own lives?

I guarantee that this book will get a strong emotional response out of you. For me, the most emotional part happens when Sheila is forced to give up her baby, a baby that she loves fully and unconditionally. Her son's dark skin doesn't bother her, as her baby's complexion is a result of her mixed parentage.

Give this book a try. If you've read it, let me know what you thought about the story.

I'll top off this blog post with a question: Have you experienced a lot of judgmental Christians in your life? Did the judgmental actions affect your faith?

Many thanks to Kregel for providing me with a free review copy.

~Cecelia Dowdy~