A Shauna Niequist-Inspired Post

I just closed the pages on Shauna Niequist's new book Bread & Wine, a gathering of snip-its of her life 'around the table.' Her passion for food just leaks out all over the pages. The whole book made me drool!  Not only did her recipes at the end of each chapter sound delicious, Shauna Niequist speaks my "I'll love you by cooking for you" language.

"What makes me feel alive and connected to God's voice and spirit in this world is creating opportunities for the people I love to rest and connect and be fed at my table."

She might as well have been defining Annie Warner. Nailed it.

And for this reason, I'm channeling my inner Shuana Niequist tonight and writing my own chapter.

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It was a normal day like all the others, just a few months after we had gotten married. I spent the day in front of a computer screen and Josh spent it out on the baseball field. But when I got home around 5pm, I got that urge to do something special for the hubster. I always operate on the thinking that love = food, so I decided to make sesame beef for dinner. I turned on the fireplace, pushed our coffee table a little closer and snuggled two chairs up beside it, lit some candles, added plates and champagne glasses, turned on some Brian McKnight. Josh came home an hour later to his newlywed-wife with dinner-plated and sparkling cider poured... Just one out of a hundred times we've eaten sesame beef. Did I also mention Josh made sesame beef for me for our second Valentine's Day together? It's one of those easy, can-eat-it-every-night meals, but also one of those meals that can be souped-up and made fancy for company or special-occasions.

It goes without saying that sesame beef is one of our favorite go-to meals. Josh will waver between sesame beef and poppyseed chicken as his ultimate favorite, but I personally think sesame beef takes the crown, rules the whole palace, and makes everyone its servant.

It has morphed over the years too. My mom always made it with sesame seeds on top (hence the name), served with buttered potatoes, steamed green beans, and a green salad.  Josh and I have adopted a more Asian style, serving it without the sesame seeds and on a bed of brown rice. We often steam up some veggies to add to it - broccoli, green beans, water chestnuts, peppers.  And the very best thing about sesame beef is that it can be made ahead of time.  Often I buy a package or two of pre-cut stir fry beef and throw it in the marinade as soon as I get home from the grocery store.  Then I pop it right in the freezer! Then, on a weeknight, I take it out of the freezer to defrost, cook up some rice, and brown the meat in the pan. Walah! Tastes like I slaved over it all day.

So, friends, here is the recipe. May you eat it with your hubby around candlelight dinners, on Valentine's Day, and every other day of the week.

Sesame Beef 
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons oil
1/4 tsp pepper
2 garlic gloves
3 green onions
1 lb. beef

Dump all the meat and marinade in a frying pan and brown on medium-heat. To plate, throw meat over brown rice, allowing some of the juices to flavor the rice. Add veggies too, if desired!

Notes: When marinading, I throw it all in a ziploc bag. I like to have it marinade at least a half hour if you are in a hurry; all day is better; all week in the freezer works too! I buy the stir-fry cut beef from Winco. And I hold off on the green onions when I know I'm going to be freezing it. They get a little funky in the freezer.  (Oh and the original recipe is from a Betty Crocker cookbook. Thanks, Betty!)

Guess what's for dinner tonight?

With the recent revamping of my blog, this post seemed to fit perfectly as my first of many Throwback Thursday re-posts.  I wrote this December of 2007 as a freshman in college. I can't help but think God must have given a little chuckle, knowing all my future would hold. It is important to note that I did not
know Josh when I first wrote this.

I put a sweatshirt on. I am bundling up for the cool night air I will soon encounter.  One step out the door and my bones are chilled.  But with every step, my body begins to generate heat. I walk down the old, crumbling Aagard steps, painted white on the edge so as not to trip. I decide that tonight is a night of risk, as I mosey into the road. I perform a balancing act on the two yellow lines in the middle of the pavement. No cars come. It's just me and the yellow-lined road. The gravel crunches underneath my feet when I come to what was at the beginning of my trip a far off parking lot. It is now just beneath my toes. I'm almost there. I place my foot on the middle bar and hurl my leg over the pointy edge of the gate. I land with a thud on the cement pad. I have successfully jumped my first chain link fence.  

I breathe in the cold night air. I am now in my sanctuary. The blackened night sky goes on for miles above me. Glimmering stars are painted across the great expanse. Below, green grass stretches right up to the farthest fence, a fence that urges the team to "go hard or go home." A raised dirt mound finds its place in the center, where the focus will remain on one man in tomorrow's game. Four white bases stand out in the darkness of the night. Will you be called safe? I make my way to the dugout.  The discards of sunflower seeds litter the ground.  I sit. The metal bench is like ice to my legs and back, even through clothing snuggled up to my skin. It is said that my first trip out of the house as a newborn was to a baseball game. 
I remember that and smile. 
My life has always called me 
back to the baseball field.

I am an accountant. I am a closet hip-hop dancer. I am a decorator. I'm a gym-goer. I'm a veggie lover, and a pizza lover. I am a Jesus-believer. I am a sister. I am a nail biter. I am even a baseball coach's daughter. But the most important thing that I am is a baseball coach's wife.

I am a warrior wife.

It took me a year and a half of marriage to figure out what that really means. And it all occurred to me during girl talk on the way to church with my kindred-spirit Jennifer. She's the only one who really GETS my crazy love and passion for the game of baseball. She is a warrior wife too, in everything meaning of the word.

She said it so matter-of-factly.  "Baseball is #1. He's gonna tell you, you are number one. But you and I both know, we're not. And that's ok."

A baseball coach eats and breathes baseball. And so must his wife.  I think I had such a hard time with baseball/tax season last year, because I wanted to be number one - and there was just not enough time in the day for that. When I changed my attitude, and let baseball be #1, and supported Josh in all his goals, passions, and aspirations, all of sudden I started to feel like #1 again.  It was that whole love-and-respect thing. He felt respected when I finally understood that he still loved me, even when he was at the field or on the phone with recruits all day. Being a baseball coach means sacrifice, and long hours, and little pay. And the most loving thing I can do for my husband is to get up and go to work every day, be in the stands as much as I can, and be understanding when he has to take the recruiting phone call at 11pm at night.

But it's not all sacrifice. It is moments like this weekend...when I'm gripping the seat in front of me, bases loaded, one out, in the bottom of the 13th inning against the #8 ranked NAIA team in the nation, and we're tied 3-3.   And one of those Corban recruits Josh talked to at 11pm at night smashes the ball to deep right center for the game-winning hit.... it's all worth it. Jennifer and I fist pound and agree, we could spend EVERY DAY at the baseball field.

When Josh is a coach of a D-1 program or an MLB team one day, and someone is willing to pay money to hear our story, I'll tell them, it all started right here.