“Head isu!”
“Enjoy your meal!”
“Bon appétit!”
food
Seto Tsäimaja külastus | Visiting Seto Teahouse
Kesksuve paiku keerasime perega autonina Setomaa poole ning saime mekkida seto rahvustoite Aivar Rumvolti poolt käsitööna valminud savinõudest. Menüüs oli paks pudõr, suuliim, kama, piirakad, ubinakuuk ja küümne tsäi. Ei puudunud ka kohalikud kukeseened.
Seto Tsäimaja
Seto Talumuuseum
Savinõud: Avatud Ateljee
Piparkoogitegu | Baking gingerbread
Piparkoogiaeg on käes. Ka meite pere võttis piparkoogiteo ette. Kaasatud olid kõik, mina siis peamiselt fotoreporterina.
Olgu öeldud, et taignameister oli Kairi Koemets. Tumedam pakk pildil on speltajahutaigen.
Oli aeg käed valgeks saada!
Heleene ja emme muudkui voolisid ja rullisid …
… ja vormisid …
… ja rullisid …
… ja vormisid …
… kuni kogu tainas oli piparkookideks vormitud ja rändas ahju küpsema.
Nüüd oli aega klementiine süüa :)
Tuba täitus piparkoogilõhnaga.
Mmmmmm …
Oot-oot, midagi on justkui puudu! Kaunistused loomulikult!
Tähelepanu! Valmis olla! Piparkoogikaunistamist alga!
Tegu tehtud!
Aeg minna metsa kuusepuud tooma!
Fast Food Generation
“What goes in, the same comes out.”
Healthy diet is good for body and grandma’s home-cooked meal is good for soul, wouldn’t you agree? This post, however, goes beyond body and past soul. It’s actually not so much about food as it is about life. Again. Keep reading and you’ll see what I mean.
* * * * *
Lots of people, the young in particular, go for fast food nowadays. Whether it’s fast food from a fast food restaurant or it’s fast food in the sense that it’s a ready-made type of meal from the supermarket that takes five minutes to remove package and heat up the contents in your microwave, it’s fast food nevertheless. The only food worse than fast food is junk food, you know, the enticing array of potato chips and other shiny packages on endless shelves in most every food store today. Our children consume those daily in ever increasing quantities 1*. The good old home-cooked meal no longer seems to satisfy as it involves too much sweating over the hot stove and there’s simply not enough time left from self-realization through friends, hobbies, sports, music, social networking, youtube, TV, etc. An ordered pizza or some other ultra fast microwave food is the easy way out. The skills of cooking a meal from raw ingredients, the natural stuff, seem to be vanishing before our very eyes with the shift of generations. The young have almost completely ceased to eat real food, at least so it seems. While it’s true in the literal sense, my real concern, however, is man’s true spiritual food (Matthew 5:6).
I’m proposing that very often what applies to our choices regarding physical food may pretty well reveal our spiritual inclinations. In other words, “you are what you eat” vice versa. Namely, “you eat what you are”. You select what is good for you based on your personal pereferences, i.e. based on the type of person you are, in agreement with your convictions and values. Not only does it apply to what we eat or think of eating as such, but more prominently to the very ingredients of life itself; the things that really matter in life (Luke 12:22-23). And in this we see a growing trend. The young just don’t seem to care as much anymore and their daily bread (or the lack of it) is but a proof of that. Life keeps spinning up and it doesn’t matter what you eat as long as it’s fast, tastes good and you’re full in an instant; the same way it looks as if it doesn’t matter anymore how you live your life as long as it makes you feel happy here and now and you’re successful. Not too many people ponder the core values of life these days. The success-driven society will tell you at all costs it’s necessary to get what your heart desires (Jr 17:9) and not to worry about the way to make it happen. And most importantly, do it fast! After all, you only live once, right? Live like there’s no tomorrow, right? The more eloquent a manipulator you are, the better, right? If this is your “gift”, you’ve got to use it, right? NO! It’s a massive lie. 2*
It’s evident people nowadays aren’t as much interested in the profound knowledge of the mechanics of how stuff works, as they are in just-tell-me-which-buttons-I’m-supposed-to-press kind of “knowledge” to jump to the desired end result quickly and without any personal involvement whatsoever. 3* In other words, nobody wants to know what’s under the hood, as long as you give them 3-5 most primitive steps to keep the thing going. Products and tools need to be designed fool proof for the hands of dumb users (but they’re OK to fall apart under normal working conditions). And really, who needs skills when money can buy everything? In everything people are becoming ‘end users’ and consumers. Detached. Dumb. Deceived. This manmade 3D false reality translates well back into the spiritual realm to reveal man’s inner corruption and separation from the divine truth. What we see reflect in the physical on the outside, actually originates from the spiritual on the inside and thus the outer neglect of even the basic school knowledge accompanied by mindless consumption of commercialism is a physical manifestation of man’s inner separation from true wisdom and running amok in useless hope to fill the void. Man turns astray from diligently seeking the truth of his Maker from his heart. Instead, the heathen rage and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord (Psalms 2:1-4). They defile themselves with whatever they come across on the way while still desperate for the real thing. This will happen when you turn off wisdom and are left with stupidity. So, they try to invent manmade shortcuts into the Father’s bosom without personally getting to know the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6). Then man will get all philosophical and try to define life as we know it. But guess what! We’re unable to know it apart from the Creator of life and what we think we know based on our science is utter foolishness (1 Cor 1:19-20). If you allow me the comparison, we’re as smart compared to the Maker as our smart phones are compared to us. Would you honestly expect your smart phone to awaken, come to self-realization and deny your very existence? Will it be able to repair or modify itself? Who do you think it would call and what would you, the owner, think of that? If it will suddenly stop responding to you, would you not try to get it fixed or throw the malfunctioning nuisance away before it starts sending you bills? … The fallen man has cost dearly to God; nothing less than the very life of the Son of God. (John 3:16, 1 Cor 6:20)
The trending mentality of shallowness in most aspects of life is but another way among many how the enemy of the soul is blocking the passage unto finding true wisdom, which is Christ (Colossians 2:3). Man no longer knows where to turn for wisdom, no longer cares. He invents his own – the dung (Philippians 3:8). The kind of people who throughout times have diligently sought to extract the gold grains of true wisdom out of the ore of life at the cost of losing everything else in this life are gradually being replaced with the generation of spiritual gamblers who keep stuffing the spiritual slot machines of the devil in hope to hit the jackpot of life by happen chance, as if there was a lucky combination to unlock the gates of heaven, or a cheat they could use against God. Such a mind frame sure helps to keep the personal Communion with the true living bread from heaven – the Word of God – down to being nonexistent and the way of wisdom will forever be unfound.
The world is a supermarket and everything earthly in here has a price tag. Wouldn’t it be nice to purchase the eternal life voucher just by paying a reasonable price for it at the cash desk of any grocery, kind of like an occasional lottery ticket people throw in together with their weekly ready-made frozen food supply? Kind of like,
“Let’s see, here’s my microwave pizza for tonight, a 5-minute mashed potato with weenies and tomato sauce for the next day, some strawberry flavored jelly powder dessert with some whipped cream right from the can, instant coffee 3in1, a six-pack of light beer, lottery tickets (in case I get lucky), chewing gum, cough pills (in case I catch a cold), a dozen other things, and, oh, almost forgot, the a … what’s it called … “Guide to Heaven” with a free monthly subscription of online maps (in case I die), some more beer …”
This way you could, among other things you consume, actually fit the eternal God into your shopping cart real nice! But that’s not how it works and it shouldn’t be surprising considered that the eternal life is all about knowing Him (John 17:3).
“Oh yeah, but don’t say! There are many good and really wonderful websites that teach about faith and stuff, daily devotionals to give you guidelines to the spiritual world! I’ve been really blessed by those and spend fifteen minutes each day to keep me on the good course in life.”
True that. There are lots of them on the internet, also some very good books that lead you to a personal relationship with God. In fact, I could recommend some.
BUT! Fifteen minutes?! Fast food. How does man expect to know God in heaven based on the knowledge of God by some guy he doesn’t know? It’s going to take more than a mere daily devotional message of faith by other guys. Do not be deceived! They may be the real thing for them who, having spent a lifetime seeking Him, personally know the Lord, but for you they are only good for deceiving you into a false impression of redeeming yourself a bargain ticket to heaven, UNLESS you know the Lord personally, UNLESS you go deep seeking Him, UNLESS you’re willing to give up everything else on the way to find Him (Matthew 13:44-46). And for that kind of growth you need true spiritual wisdom (Colossians 2:2-3), no junk food (Colossians 2:8). You need to know the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6). And don’t for a second think that you choose to know Him! He chooses you to be known by you! (John 15:16) The same way you don’t redeem your ticket to the eternal life, but are redeemed by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. It’s a gift. If you’re willing to walk that way (Matthew 7:14).
And finally, not many boys and girls have home-baked bread and fish, which they caught from the lake in the morning, on their diet nowadays (John 6:9). The commercialized spiritual fast food is everywhere around us! With its shining labels it looks appealing on the shelves and makes the truth of the eternal God become increasingly more difficult to find. As things progress, the times of confusion and overall spiritual darkness lie ahead. So much genetically modified deception is around, nicely wrapped, seasoned with stabilizers, poisoned with preservatives and flavor enhancers. Even a good ready-made devotional once a day, nutritious as it may be, is in no way going to fuel a Christian for a prolonged ride through the dark valley of everyday life. The fast food places, although seemingly saving the day for the moment, eventually take their toll as they’re no match for a fine home-cooked meal, which is carefully prepared in the intimacy of your home. You’ve got to take time to prepare it, seek out the ingredients, be diligent, season it with salt (Leviticus 2:13). And then when you eat it with your family at your supper table, breaking the bread, that’s Communion.
* * * * *
1* And who can blame them? While we should have tried to do everything in our power to get our kids out of harm’s way, that junk food along with other modern time traps for kids (violent computer games, sexually explicit content on TV, etc.) is there and waiting to be devoured by our children only because we, the grown-ups, have utterly failed to care enough not to let that happen. That is exactly the type of the world we hand over to them and they have no choice but to accept it and are likely to take it a step further. As the saying goes, our children will take to excess whatever we allow in moderation.
2* The system is so completely caught up in the lie, ungodly man has no goal left in life but to be his own master, serve his own ambition and meet his own needs. If your need is the only thing that ever drives you, then you’ve become a slave of your own great ego, haven’t you? We bring up our children teaching them they need to strive towards self-realization, to stop idling, to push their limits! And that’s good because idle hands are the devil’s tools. Look at the young today. We want them to become decent citizens, don’t we? Most of the under-age of the civilized west have it all taken care of, there are no duties, no responsibilities. What could possibly go wrong?! Nothing, except themselves! Just a handful of them really put some effort in their studies at school or training in sports. While they have all the time in the world at their disposal to spend on self-realization, the bigger half of them goes spoilt. They don’t know how to cook, how to clean after themselves, how to run their lives. We teach them to be dependent on the system to reproduce the flaw. Quietly and steadily they turn into the mob, to be ruled over by the powerful of this world, the highly educated manipulators and greedy self-seekers who are even worse in the evil of their heart. But guess what! Man is not called to self-realization in the first place, man is called to self-expenditure. How about pushing your limits to give up your right to your own life in serving your neighbor? … That, my friend, is absolutely, completely, definitively a different ball game never to be understood by the spirit of the world (1 Cor 2:14).
3* For instance, in many computer games the extra power and goodies you get just by typing in a code and not achieving them by successful application of the game rules are called ‘cheats‘. And that’s what they are, pre-programmed ways to manipulate the system, shortcuts to score high by cheat.