What I had at Omar Khayyam that day was one of those defining moments of the palate of a 16-year old: it was wondrous, perfectly cooked, and served on a pilaf that was delicate, and delightful.

In his cookbook, Dinner at Omar Khayyam’s, which was first published in 1944 to introduce Armenian and Middle Eastern cooking to Americans, Mardikian provided a simple recipe for shish kebab. It goes like this:

• 1 leg of lamb (5 to 6 pounds)
• 8 ounces onions, peeled, sliced
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/3 cup dry sherry
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon oregano

This simple recipe was aimed at the kinds of things an American housewife might know about and have on hand, but certainly could not have been what he was using in his restaurant. As I got a little older, I had a certain nostalgia for the meal I enjoyed there, and in around 1976, after Leslie and I were married, we had a subscription to Bon Appetit magazine (which I now get online). Every month, they had a feature where they would get a recipe from a famous restaurateur, and somewhere around that time they printed the “real recipe” from George Mardikian for his famous shish kebab. I was elated.

We made it many times through the years, and it was close to what nostalgic memory recalled, but without the elegance of actually being in that basement restaurant on Powell Street (which sadly burned down in the mid-80’s).

In the last several years I have been curating my own recipe for lamb kebab, and it has been a staple of the summer grilling months here. I thought I would share it here. I have to warn you, however, that the quantities of the ingredients are somewhat unknown to me. I throw things at the lamb without measuring and do the best that I can. Experiment and have fun!

Lamb Kebab recipe

For a while, I was buying boneless leg of lamb at Halal markets, and have also had fresh leg of lamb cut up for me. In my location, I find that when you ask for boneless leg of lamb at a Halal market, you will get the same thing you get at Costco. It’s not fresh, as in, it was walking around minding its own business yesterday fresh. However, there are good sources of lamb that don’t have to be sitting on a container ship from New Zealand. Lamb freshness matters. If the lamb tastes “gamey” or “lamby” then it’s been waiting to clear customs too long in the harbor. My favorite question when I serve this to guests is: “what kind of meat is this?” That’s how you know it’s fresh.

Get the freshest lamb you can. If you get a whole leg cut up, with the bones attached, it will be fantastic, just more challenging to eat. I mostly go with 5-6 lbs of boneless lamb leg, purchased either at the Halal market or Costco.

Instructions

Marinate the following

• 5-6 lbs boneless lamb (or cut up lamb leg)
• 1/2 bulb of fresh garlic (about 6 cloves)
• 3 tbs of chopped rosemary
• olive oil
• kosher salt

Cut up the leg into 1 – 1 1/2 inch cubes, trimming fat and gristle. Put the lamb into a large bowl, coat with kosher salt, and toss by hand. Add the garlic and rosemary, and toss again, then add enough olive oil to coat when you toss again.

Cover the lamb mixture with plastic wrap and allow to marinate for 1-2 hours. I do this outside the refrigerator. If you’re the nervous type, put it in the fridge.

Spice and honey the lamb

Here’s the dirty secret to this: I use Penzey’s Turkish seasoning for the spice mixture. It’s a mixture of salt, garlic, cumin, Tellicherry black pepper, Turkish oregano, sweet paprika, sumac, cayenne red pepper and cilantro. It’s great.

Coat the lamb liberally with this spice mixture, tossing all the while (glove up for this, unless you like your hands looking orange and dogs following you).

Once you feel like the spices are well distributed and the lamb well coated, drizzle honey over it as you toss it. You want just enough honey to add a sweetness to the charred lamb.

Skewer and grill

If you want vegetables with your kebab, place them on separate skewers. Lamb and onions don’t cook at the same rate, and you want to avoid that whole “burned tomato” experience. What I often do is prepare the vegetables by roasting them in the oven in a more controlled, flame-free environment.

Skewer your lamb on their own skewers, being sure not to make them press tightly into each other. Put the skewers on the grill, and turn them every couple of minutes until you pretty certain that they’re cooked on all sides. I go for somewhere between medium rare and medium.

Serve with a rice pilaf, and roasted vegetables, and you have a feast.

My wife made a simple Pho a while back, which was really good, but I wanted to kick the flavors up. My first attempt was good, and so was the second, and the third. Each time I was playing with ingredients, and I think I’m getting this down. Each time I make it I’m pulling things out of the refrigerator that we simply have around. I believe we call these leftovers, like a single T-bone steak in the fridge (what else are you going to do with that, except munch on it late at night?), or a bone-in pork chop. The one meat base that I use more often than anything is shrimp.
Let me share my recipe, and you can decide if it’s worth it.

About some of the ingredients

For a lot of these ingredients you will probably need an Asian market nearby, or you might find them in your local grocery. I have thoughts about some of them, that may help you decide where to get them.

Bok Choy

The best part of the bok choy is the leaf. It absorbs flavors and heat beautifully. A lot of bok choy and baby bok choy in the regular supermarket is mostly stem. At my local Saraga store, there is lovely baby bok choy that is very leafy, and works the best. Asian grocers will also have much better bok choy, and probably fresher.

Banh Pho (Vietnamese rice noodles)

Most Asian markets have several brands of good quality. I prefer the thinner noodles (linguine or fettuccine size) to the thick ones. The thick ones don’t slurp as nicely, and they clump together more readily. I find the linguine thickness is just right for pho.

Spices

For spice I use coriander, white and black pepper. I prefer to take the whole seeds of the coriander and whole peppercorns and grind them together into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle. You can also roast these before grinding them. Put them all on a dry iron skillet and turn up the heat. When you can smell them, they’re ready.

Ginger

Powdered ginger is a no-no. Get really fresh ginger at an Asian/International market. I know that your supermarket has ginger, but it’s already dried out. The way you can tell really fresh ginger is that the skin is smooth, not desiccated, and the flesh is yellow and looks almost wet. By the way, the best way to peel ginger is with the edge of a spoon, not with a knife. I did this the wrong way for years.

The Recipe

This recipe will feed six hungry people. Since we have four in our house, we have to fight over who’s taking the leftovers the next day.

• 1 package banh pho (rice noodles)
• 48 oz. chicken broth (about a box and a half)
• about 6-8 cups of bok choy (I also use nappa sometimes)
• 1 – 1 1/2 lbs of shrimp
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp (or more to taste) minced fresh ginger
• 1 tsp coriander seeds, ground up
• 1/2 – 1 tsp white peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 2 tsp chili garlic (sambal oelek)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (I use San J Tamari Gluten-Free Soy Sauce)
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp hoisin sauce (optional, I’m not sure it helps)
• about 4-5 scallions, cut up
• (optional: slices of jalapeno, or your choice of chili)
• (optional: cilantro for garnish)

Instructions

This should take about 30 minutes, depending on your prep and how fast you like to move around the kitchen.

1. In a pot, boil enough water to cover the rice noodles.
2. Get your ingredients ready while that boils. Cut the bok choy, peel the shrimp if you prefer, slice up that leftover steak, grind up your spices, etc.
3. Pour the 2 tbsp of sesame oil in a large pot. I use an iron/ceramic dutch oven for this. Once it shimmers, add the 2 tsp of chili garlic and stir. Add the freshly ground spices and ginger to it, and reduce your heat to medium.
4. If your water is ready, add the noodles to the boiling water. They should take around 8 minutes to cook, so set a timer; you’ll be busy, and you want them to come out of the boiling water once they’re ready.
5. Pour the chicken broth in to the pot with the oil/spice mix, give it a stir. Add the soy sauce, fish sauce and hoisin and bring it back to a near boil, stirring occasionally.
6. Once it’s starting to bubble, add the bok choy and the shrimp, any other meat, and the (optional) jalapeno.
7. When the rice noodles are ready, pour them into a colander and hit them with cold water. You want to stop them from cooking further, or they will fall apart.
8. Simmer the mixture for about 5 minutes. The shrimp should turn pink.
9. Sprinkle at the last minute with cilantro
10. Serve by putting some noodles in a bowl, and adding the mixture with some broth over the chilled noodles. They will warm up just fine.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!
Brian

I was never a diligent blogger, having many other responsibilities and less free time than it would require. Maybe I was doing something more important, and so it was a good thing. Since then, a lot of things have changed for me, and I have completed neglected this site for about 7 years. I have decided to broaden the scope of this site, not because I’m not interested in sexual health and recovery from addiction, but because I’m also interested in other things.

Earlier today I posted a recipe. I’m an avid cook, and read other cooking blogs, and thought I could use it to share recipes I’ve developed with my friends. Maybe other people will be interested as well. Then I decided that I was use this blog in a more general sense, rather than the very specific purpose I created it for. After all, if I’m going to pay the hosting fees I might as well use it.

So you will see new content here, and that means it’s time to re-brand. I hope the reader enjoys the difference.

The recipe below is a base: you can add a lot of other things to the salad that you enjoy. Also, the quantities and proportions are not very scientific. Use your taste buds to get everything right.

Ingredients

• 1 large bowl of a firm lettuce, such as Romaine – I’ve also added a smaller quantity of specialized lettuces for color and flavor or bitterness. Watch out for red leaf lettuce, which will turn everything to a muddy color that doesn’t look like it tastes good at all.
• About 10 dried figs
• 1 cup of crumbled plain chevre
• About a cup of glazed pecans
• 1 ripe pear (red, anjou, etc.) – make sure that it’s ripe, because you want the slivers to melt into the salad, not be crisp

Optional:

• Bacon crumbles – I forego this for a gathering where someone might not eat pork
• Mozzarella or Jack cheese, shredded fine
• Other things that go well in a sweeter tasting salad. Have fun with it.

Dressing

• 1/4 cup Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar
• 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil – use an oil that is meant for salads or drizzling. I use Lucini Premium Select Extra Virgin Olive Oil exclusively for this recipe.
• 1/4 cup Blood Orange or Cava Cava or Valencia juice- you want an orange that has stronger orange flavor, not some overgrown tasteless navel
• Pink Himalayan Salt
• Aleppo Pepper Flakes

Instructions

• Wash and cut the lettuce and put it in a large bowl. Make a lot, because it will disappear.
• Sliver the pear into very thin slices, and add it to the lettuce. Translucency is your friend.
• Dice the figs into 1/4 inch pieces; do the same with the pecans or put them in a plastic bag and bang them with a kitchen mallet until they’re all about that size.
• Crumble the goat cheese, or do like I do and buy it pre-crumbled.
• Toss the salad around until it looks like they are even distributed and there’s plenty of goodies
• To make the dressing, add the vinegar, olive oil, and orange juice to a bowl. Add a pinch or so of salt, and a teaspoon of Aleppo pepper flakes to the mixture and whisk until it’s smooth. Taste and adjust as necessary. Let this set for a while for the flavors to infuse.
• Don’t pour the dressing and toss until you’re ready to serve.

I hope that you enjoy making this and serving to your friends.

Brian

Why do we write New Years resolutions? It is because we try and fail. We try to lose weight, or read the Bible every day, or complete a project only to find that we put on a couple more pounds, miss our reading on Jan 11th, and don’t finish things. We believe it is our will and determination that makes the difference. Each year we fool ourselves into thinking we have more of those qualities on the first of the calendar year than at other times.

The greatest resolver I know of was Jonathan Edwards, who made his list in 1722-23. They were not for the New Year, but an expanding list of resolutions (eventually numbering around 70) that he added to for a period of months that detailed the principles and actions that would mark his life. There is no mention of how often he might do something (except a reminder to read these weekly), or for how long. There is no mention of fitness goals; in the 18th century it was sufficient to avoid dying.
Edwards begins:

“Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.”

He starts off on the correct footing. Edwards understood the battle between the flesh and the spirit, and did not trust that he could live a life worthy of his Lord apart from His help. His resolutions are anchored in faith. Of course there is work in faith (1 Thess. 1:3, 2 Thess. 1:11, James 2:26), but our faith is the basis for our actions.
His first is as follows:

“1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.”

That sounds like a taller order than losing twenty pounds. You should read the rest; some of them are quite interesting, such as the following:

“10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.”
“55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments.” July 8, 1723.

Many of the 70 are like this: focusing his attention away from the temporal world to the world to come. For Edwards, this was to see things as they are, not as they appear to our eyes. His passion was for the final glory of God, and he wanted to live his life in a way to increase his joy at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As I read them I realize that I need to keep seeking that things that are above, to walk by faith and not by sight, and to fix my hope completely on the revelation of our Lord Jesus. I can only do this through God’s power.

As far as specifics go, I resolve to blog more often, only one of many things I have determined to do at which I have failed in the last year.

Happy New Year to you all.

Update: It’s now available! Click here to order on Amazon, or go to the Costly Grace Media web site for more information.

Having said that, this project has been full of delays, but through it all I think you’ll be pleased with the results. The first manuscript was completed over a year ago, and the last year has been devoted to relentless editing and rewriting. I had a great deal of help, and learned many lessons. I’m quite used to speaking, but writing is not like speaking. My good friend Christine Walker, a content editor with McGraw Hill Publishing, had me rewrite a lot of it, and helped me become a better writer. I owe her a great debt for her patient assistance, and I have been blessed by her constant prayer for this project.

Right now, we’re working on cover design, and the last touches on the internal formatting. Then it’s off to Lightning Source, and on to Amazon. The book will be available in paperback and Kindle versions.

Watch here for news, or drop me a line if you want to be notified when it’s available. Thanks to all who have been waiting patiently for it.

I’ll start posting excerpts here so you can get a sneak peek soon.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the effects of our digital age on our minds, and especially on the spiritual life of the Christian. My primary ministry is with college students, and I see how important technology is to every moment of their lives. However, it’s not just they who are affected: I also breathe in the digital spirit of our age, and what I have been breathing in has changed me.

What I have noticed in my own life is that it is much harder for me to concentrate on just one thing without my mind wandering than it used to be. If I open my Bible to read and meditate for a while, another part of my brain informs me that it has been a while since I checked my email, or I remember that I need to send a text message to somebody about something. If I’m praying it’s even worse: a hundred possible interruptions come to mind when I am trying to seek the Lord.

Much of this cannot be laid at the feet of technology. I’ve always been highly distractible. As a child I was a daydreamer, and had difficulty staying on task, or remaining in my seat at school. We had no ADD diagnosis for me to hide behind back then, so I was left at the mercy of every teacher looking for an infraction of order in the classroom. Digital technology has not improved that for me. I can scan through a hundred blog articles in my RSS feed, but sitting down and thinking deeply about a verse of Scripture, or listening for the voice of God does not come easily.

Writing years before the digital age in his book, No Little People, Francis Schaeffer made the following observation:

“People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence… No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet — because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise… The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us.”

If only he had lived to see our generation, with its constant Facebook activity, Twitter postings, email, smart phones, and continual “connectedness” at all hours of the day!

So how do we quiet our souls before the Lord? How do we get the voices of the sirens of technology to still?

The technology is here to stay, so any thought of “disconnecting” will be fruitless for most of us. The Amish don’t want you in their community, and you don’t know how to do anything useful, like care for livestock or build a fence anyway. We have to find ways of retreating from our laptops and mobile phones to meet the Lord, if only for a while.

I find that taking walks helps, especially if there are few distractions like cars and people. For some reason, getting out into nature makes a difference, even if it’s the tiny acre of natural beauty at the little park at the end of my street. Lonely beaches, hiking trails, and (surprisingly) golf courses are good spots. But it’s not about the location.

What really makes the difference is being patient with your tendency toward mental self-distraction. In Psalm 131, David says that he has calmed and quieted his soul. For us, that will take time, and we will face a number of failures as we do so. If you take the time to quiet your soul before God, not kicking yourself every time another competing thought intrudes, but waiting patiently for the voices to subside, you will find that place you need to be in order to hear the voice of God. Cut yourself a little slack; you’re out of practice.

What has helped you? Leave a comment.

Level 1 – you don’t want to change at all, you’re enjoying your sin.
Level 2 – you realize you should change, but you’re not really ready to do anything about it.
Level 3 – you realize you should change, and you’re ready to take steps to do so.

At level 1, you’re not going anywhere at all. You’ve been deceived by sin to the point where you revel in it, as Peter says, “having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:9)”

Getting to level 2 usually involves some kind of wakeup call: you get caught looking at pornography by your spouse or roommates, or you lose a job because you came in late after another night of sexual excess, etc. At this point, you’re not really motivated to change; you’re just feeling bad about the consequences of your actions, and you know that you should do something about it, much in the same way you know you should fix that leaky faucet on the kitchen sink. However, the lure of sin is still too strong. It may take continued failure and loss before you come to the end of yourself, and reach out to God for his help.

Getting to level 3 is involves a conscious decision to make a break with your sin. You repent before God, and probably others, and decide to live a new way. This is the stage I am most interested in here. What motivation will get you moving forward, and keep you moving?

I have been reading John Owen’s work, The Mortification of Sin, and one thing he said really struck me:

“A man who only opposes the sin in his heart for fear of shame among men or eternal punishment from God would practice the sin if there were no punishment attending it.”

Owen’s understanding of our sinful hearts is dead on! For years I labored under this misunderstanding of grace. I tried to stop using pornography because I wanted to avoid the negative effects of this sin, but my motivation was ultimately legalistic, and those efforts met with failure. If I could sin all I wanted without any consequences, then I would gladly embrace sin. My heart hadn’t been set free by grace.

“Such a person has cast off, in this respect, renewing grace, and is kept from ruin only because of restraining grace. He has fallen a great way from grace and returned under the power of the law. Must this not be a great provocation to Christ, that men should cast off his gentle yoke and rule, to cast themselves back under the iron yoke of the law, merely because of their lusts?”

So what should your motivation be? “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)” Living a life that is pleasing to God doesn’t come from our iron will to abstain from sin because of our fear of consequences, but rather emanates from practicing faith in Christ because we love him. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)”

Only a motivation that is based on renewing grace will suffice. Having been accepted by God through the work of Christ, we determine to deal with sin because we are forgiven.

I would appreciate your thoughts and comments.