Truth

Employees are very fortunate where I work - one small reason being that we have coffee machines that make good, free coffee - with several choices, including tea, decaf versions of both, and Dove hot chocolate. Plus they provide sugar, a sugar substitute, and even little packets of lemon juice. It's really one of the nicest coffee setups I've ever seen.

And they even have truth in labeling - the packets of powdered stuff you can use in your beverage are not called creamer.

A bit startling, but much more accurate.

Brussels sprouts with toasted hazelnuts and maple syrup

This is a simple and delicious recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts. You start with a little bag of sprouts.

Cut off the stem ends and remove the outer leaves. Miraculously, you seem to end up with more stuff to throw out than was in the bag to begin with. By the way, I recently purchased those flexible silicone sheets to use for cutting boards, and highly recommend them. Very easy to pick up and bend the sides to turn the cutting board into a pouring utensil.

Even though you are throwing out so much stuff, you do have some cleaned, halved sprouts to work with. And, if you put them into a deep shiny bowl, you discover that this bowl creates wonderful reflections.

Toss the sprouts with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then spread them out on a piece of foil on a baking sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, turning every fifteen minutes. During the last 15-minute segment, drizzle some maple syrup over the sprouts and bake that into them.

While the sprouts are roasting, toast hazelnuts in olive oil and salt, and then chop them up.

Take the sprouts out of the oven, add the toasted hazelnuts, and serve. 

Yum.

When things are dark, look down!

Colorful print shoes seem to be fashionable among Penn and Drexel students, and I for one really appreciate this trend. I'm not likely to buy them for myself -- can you see the price tag in the back of the (discount!) shoe in the photo above? But I do like to see them on other people.

And on dark, rainy days I particularly like to see the bright, whimsical boots so many young women are wearing these days.

And then there are the goofy advertising gimmicks that I also appreciate, such as the giant red shoe outside Union Station in Washington DC.

Bright lights, night lights

Now that it is mid-November, and we have entered into the shadowy world of Daylight Savings Time, my walk from the office to 30th Street Station at 5:00 pm has become a thing of beauty. The sights along the Market Street that are normally dull, washed out, or insignificant in daylight have become mysteriously lovely. To wit:

 The climbing wall at the Drexel gym glows against the dark sky.

Neon signs give up their glamour in the dark (love neon):

The Drexel school of law is humming along with legal energy:

The Drexel school of engineering showcases pipes and fittings and assorted structural elements:

And even the lowly subway entrances seem to be pools of welcoming light:

In 20 minutes or so I arrive at 30th Street Station, where the Cira Centre lights twinkle behind those massive pillars.

Union Station

I was in Washington, DC this weekend. I love, love, love Union Station - and while there I walked by a shoe store with a Shakespearian tie-in!.

Nice work if you can get it

About once a year I get to travel for work, but this year our event was in Philadelphia. So, no travel. Then, at the last minute, a room became vacant at the Rittenhouse.

The Rittenhouse! A luxury boutique hotel. I had heard people rave it about for many years. And I would get to stay there for three nights!

What would it be like?

Well, for starters, they gave me a glass of champagne when I checked in.

And yes, the Rittenhouse is listed in The Leading Hotels of the World.

Second, the reception area featured a gorgeous buffet of cheeses, pate, roasted artichokes, etc. I took full advantage.

I was tremendously impressed by the bathroom, which has its own television set in case you don't want to miss the news while you get ready for the day.

That little green frog in front of the TV, by the way, is to place on your bed if you want to be "green" and not have the bed made up with fresh linens (which I used). And I am always impressed when I get the nice thick white bathrobe to use while I visit:

I'm easily impressed.

That evening, we dined at the City Tavern, the site of the original tavern where the founding fathers planned The Revolution, which has been restored by the National Park Service to (they claim) the original specifications:

So, for the first time in my life, I drank from a pewter goblet. My companions and I did not plot any revolutions, however.

Later during the weekend I walked around Rittenhouse Square, where I took these photos of tree sleeves:

I wanted to post these photos for my crochet artist friend (you know who you are).

Well, it doesn't take much - a free drink and the loan of a bathrobe, and I'm duly impressed.

Some days are good days to stand in the yard and look up.

 And to look down:

Twenty minutes from my office

The weather is so beautiful lately - on days like these I love to take walks during my lunch hour. And west Philadelphia has some very interesting places to walk around.

For example, just five minutes away is this street art titled Re:flect, several tall shiny rectangles filled with live plants.

And just past Re:flect, a church that has recently lost its steeple. I don't think they are planning to replace it.

It's an old church, originally built by German worshippers, now home to a Baptist congregation. The little wooden angel still greets everyone who passes by.

It seems as though there is a church on every block, sometimes two or three of them. I pass a few, then come to The Cloisters, one of the most interesting housing projects I've ever seen:

It's a Catholic cathedral that was sold several years ago and turned into an apartment complex for low-income residents. What a spectacular apartment entrance!

The box to the right of the front doors contains buzzers for the apartments.
The neighborhood is not too great, in spite of those elegant cathedral apartments. Mysterious warnings are found:

It's hard to believe that anyone lives in this building, but apparently someone is viewing satellite TV around here:

There are uplifting murals:

But also lots of buildings that have been abandoned for so long that quite large trees have grown through them:

I head back toward the office, stopping once again to Re:flect.

Patience with others is love, patience with self is hope, patience with God is faith.

"I think Tomáš Halík has produced one of the best and most beautiful responses to the new atheism, in his recent book Patience with God (Doubleday 2009). His argument is that the real difference between faith and atheism is patience. Atheists are not wrong, only impatient. They want to resolve doubt instead of enduring it. Their insistence that the natural world doesn't point to God (or to any necessary meaning) is correct. Their experience of God's absence is a truthful experience, shared also by believers. Faith is not a denial of all this: it is a patient endurance of the ambiguity of the world and the experience of God's absence. Faith is patience with God. Or as Adel Bestavros puts it (in the book's epigraph): patience with others is love, patience with self is hope, patience with God is faith."

From Benjamin Myers' excellent blog, Faith and Theology

Street art - three pieces

One of the nice things about walking around Philadelphia is that there is lots of art - in fact, I think there is a law that every new building must include public art. Here are three that I walk past every morning.

This emaciated naked running man is in front of the new Drexel law school building. I like it, but it seems all too easy to conclude that this is an example of someone being pursued by lawyers - unless it is supposed to represent a first-year law student, feeling as though he is running desperately just to stay alive.

Also in front of the Drexel campus, Mario the Magnificent, their mascot. Perhaps it's good luck to see a dragon every morning!

And this abstract sculpture, which looks to me like the skeleton of Snuffleupagus. This morning he is eagerly greeting the morning sun, pointing his yellow nose toward its rays.