Word of the Week – Thing

by Roseanna | May 8, 2023 | Word of the Week

Thing.

It may be one of the most used (and overused) words in the English language. It’s so common a word that I’ve had teachers and editors mark it as something to be avoided. These days, and since the 1600s actually, it’s a word used to mean “things the speaker can’t name at the moment.” (Rather hilarious that the very definition has to use the word!) Random objects…unnamable items…vague ideas. It’s even been used pityingly or dismissively of people from the late 1200s!

But did you know that the word began with a very particular meaning? Thing dates back to Old English and was used to mean “meeting, assembly, council, discussion.”

Wait…what?

Yep. We can still this meaning preserved in the Icelandic Althing, their general assembly, though the meaning vanished in English when Old English gave way to Middle. In our tongue, it went from meaning that assembly to the “entity, being, or matter” discussed by the assembly, and from there it was simply applying to, well, anything.

By the 1300s, it was used to indicate personal possessions. In the 1740s, people called something “the thing” to indicate it was stylish and in mode. A rather funny one is the phrase “do your thing.” We think of that as incredibly modern, but in fact there are written records of it being used as early as 1841!

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Belgian Beef Stew (Carbonnade Flamande)

by Roseanna | May 6, 2023 | Codebreaker Recipes, Dinner, Recipes, Shadows Over England Recipes

Belgian Beef Stew (Carbonnade Flamande)

This melt-in-your-mouth beef in a thick, hearty gravy will have your taste buds dancing and pairs perfectly with crispy fries!

Printable Version

Makes

4-6 servings

Prep time:

1 hour

Total Time:

4 hours

Good For:

Dinner

Inroduction

About this Recipe

Okay, I admit it. I went searching for Belgian recipes solely that I’d have some things to tie in with A Song Unheard and The Number of Love, my books that feature Belgian siblings Lukas and Margot. I found some lists, paged through until some things caught my eye, and decided to experiment. Boy, am I glad I did!

Carbonnade Flamande is a Belgian beef stew made with a Flemish Sour Ale…but it’s not beef stew like I know it. It’s more like stewed beef in a thick, hearty gravy. And it has bacon. Need I say more?

Well, I will, LOL. I found this to be a combination of beef stew and French Onion Soup in some ways, but with a rich, complex sauce more like a gravy than soup broth. You don’t fill a soup bowl with it. You instead do a serving size like you would if you were eating pot roast. It would in fact be fantastic served over pasta or rice.

Traditionally, however, this Belgian Beef Stew would be served with Belgian fries…which are French fries, but the twice-fried variety. If you’re looking for a recipe for those, I already have one up in my Fish and Chips recipe! I used that same recipe for these and they turned out perfectly and paired perfectly too.

Curious about the sour ale? I’d never heard of it before, but we went hunting and found Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Ale, a red ale that has a certain kambucha thing going on. Definitely sour! My husband enjoys a nice hearty ale but had to sip this one for HOURS, it’s so sour. I don’t like much alcohol. I took a sip and puckered my lips. It really does remind me of kambucha, which I don’t love either, LOL. I was dubious, but it works really well in the stew! The brown sugar cuts the sour, and it adds a depth to it that had my husband labeling it one of the most complex-tasting and rich dishes I’d ever made, “restaurant worthy.” The beer is expensive though, making this a rich dish in more than one way.

It’s also time intensive, fair warning. None of the steps are hard, but definitely read the recipe to know how many hours you need for marinating and then simmering. I got started around noon and just got it on the table at 5. That’s not all active time, of course! But be prepared to go back to do the next step all along the way.

All that to say, it has its drawbacks, but it’s definitely worth it! We highly enjoyed it and plan to make it again!

Ingredients

Instructions

1 pound chuck roast, trimmed and cubed
1 11.2oz bottle of Flemish Sour Ale
4 slices bacon, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 onions, sliced or minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
¾ cup beef broth
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon ground mustard
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine beef, beer, garlic, bay leaves, and a pinch of salt in a large Ziploc bag or bowl and marinate for at least two hours or as much as overnight.
.
When you’re ready to begin cooking, remove the beef, reserving the marinade, and pat it dry with paper towels
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Using a dutch oven or big pot, heat the olive oil and then fry the beef until it’s browned on all sides and cooked through, around 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and put on a plate for later.
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Using the same pot or pan, fry the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon and add to the beef, leaving the grease in the pan.
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Add the onions and a pinch of salt to the bacon grease and fry until they’re tender and brown, about 10 minutes.
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Add the flour and stir to coat the onions, cooking for a minute.
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Add the beef broth to the pan, whisking and scraping the bottom to create a nice gravy. Add the reserved marinade, the beef, the bacon, and the thyme to the pan.
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Simmer for at least an hour, up to two.
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Add the brown sugar, the parsley, the mustard, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for another 30 minutes.
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Serve with fries.

Notes:

This is more stewed beef than beef stew—consider it beef in gravy rather than a soup. It would be great over rice or pasta but is traditionally served with a side of twice-fried fries.

Printable Version

From the Books

This traditional Belgian dish would have been a favorite of the De Wilde siblings, Lukas (from A Song Unheard) and Margot (from The Number of Love). While they’re from the French portion of Belgium instead of the Flemish side, dishes like this would have been enjoyed all through the country, and I know the recipe would have traveled to England with their family too!

A Song Unheard - Shadows Over England, Book 2

The Number of Love - The Codebreakers, Book 1

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Seasons

by Roseanna | May 4, 2023 | Thoughtful Thursdays

As I’m writing this (a couple weeks before it will post), I’m looking out my window to the view of redbud trees and wisteria in bloom. The world is covered in that fresh, new, bright, lush green of spring. And, yes, the cars are coated in a lovely yellow-green dusting of pollen. Despite the runny nose brought on by that last one, spring is my favorite season. I love all the new life, the blooms, the color reemerging after a long, bleak winter.

And to make it even better, we’re in the Easter season. Oh, you might be frowning and saying, “Um…it’s May. Easter was WEEKS ago!” and that would be true, even from when I’m writing this. But it’s also not. Because the Easter season lasts until Pentecost, fifty days later. We’re still in it. If you listen to the Liturgy of the Hours, you can tell it by the victorious “Allelujah!” that follows every line. You can tell it by the victorious Scriptures, all focused on Christ’s new life and, hence, ours. On the works of the Apostles in those first days. On the Church that sprang from that empty tomb.

I’ve always loved Easter, so stretching it out like this…it speaks to my heart. I brings me joy. It settles my spirit. It’s also, this year, made me think.

If I were to go around town now, I daresay most of the Easter decorations would be down, much like Christmas ones come down by or after New Years. Those same decorations were up weeks before the day. I’m not judging that. I love to see seasonal decorations! But it made me think, as I saw “He Is Risen!” signs more than a week before Easter. It’s true, of course–we live in the world where He is risen, praise God Almighty! But when I saw that sign this year, I was still in the penitential season of Lent. I was still focusing on the trials and tribulations He underwent, on the literal trial that led to His death. I was, in fact, about to spend an entire Friday fasting and praying and remembering the day when a crown of thorns was placed on His head, stripes were lashed into His back, and He was nailed to a cross.

He is risen…but He wasn’t. Not yet. He was still about to die. And the thing I love about all these liturgical seasons is that they invite us to dwell there, with Him and with the world, for a while. In Advent, we put ourselves in the position of a world without a Savior and yearn for His coming, prepare our hearts for His coming. Then there’s Christmas! Praise God, the Savior has arrived! And we rejoice in it not just for a day, not even just for twelve, but all the way until the Baptism of Our Lord, which is at the end of January.

Anticipation…and then dwelling.

The same things happens with Easter. We anticipate what He suffered, we suffer it with Him, because He told us to. He told us to take up our crosses and follow Him. And we do. Every day, yes, but every year, in its season. We walk with Him through His ministry, up to His final days, and we weep with the world as our Savior dies…so that we can REJOICE when He lives again! That rejoicing is HUGE, my friends! So huge it can’t be contained in a day. Not in a week. It needs FIFTY days, and we are still in those. We are still in a season of rejoicing. We are still in the spiritual Spring, when new life has come upon us!

This year, that’s especially poignant for me…because we’re in a new season in our family too. Our oldest, Xoe, is going off to college this fall. This past year was one of finding schools that appealed to her, putting in applications, making visits, getting acceptances…and then making decisions. In a few short months, we’ll be driving our girl to Annapolis and leaving her there. She’ll be starting the transition to full adulthood, taking care of herself, deciding who she wants to be for the rest of her life. And we’ll be deciding the same, in a way. Because in a few short years, her brother will be this age too. And then we’ll be empty nesters, still in our mid-forties. A lot of life still ahead of us, God willing.

The beauty of the changing seasons is that they bring new opportunities, they bring new life, new growth. They also bring times of drought or flood, times of death and dormancy. All in life isn’t redbud blooms and wisteria blossoms…but it isn’t all frozen puddles and brown leaves, either. Life is ever-changing, and enjoying each season–or at least learning from it and growing stronger through it–is what it’s all about.

It’s what the Church teaches me in its cycles–that there are days of self-examination. Days of penitence. Days of anticipation. Days of expectation. There are days of victory. Days of joy. Days of singing and dancing and crying out “Allelujah!” all day long. There are days of learning. Days of teaching. Days of victory and of defeat.

Some of them are going to be hard. Some easy. All designed by our Creator to shape us into people worthy of following after Him.

Spring is going to give way to summer, summer will wane long, Xoe will go off to college, our household will change. Easter will turn to Pentecost, Pentecost will fall into the routine of Ordinary Time, Ordinary Time will eventually lead us back to Advent. The cycle will continue, life will move onward.

We need to recognize the seasons we’re in in life, just as we do in nature. Make sure we’re “dressed” right. That we’re planning our days and setting our expectations accordingly. We need to examine our surroundings, our hearts, our goals. We need to know when to anticipate…and when to dwell in the being of a thing. We need to know when to move forward and when to linger where we are.

And when we do that, we’ll find the beauty in each season. The joy underscoring the sorrow. We’ll feel the pain and the sting and the sorrow…but we’ll know it’s for a purpose. That each seed that falls to the ground is there to spring up again. Every goodbye is also a hello. Every chapter ended is one begun.

Live in the season you’re in. Don’t be looking always to the next–don’t be wishing you were still in what’s behind. Be here. Be now. Be who God wants you to be today.

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Word of the Week – Mortgage

by Roseanna | May 1, 2023 | Word of the Week

We all know what a mortgage is. Or at least, the general idea. I admit that I tend to think of it as the loan on my house…but in actual fact, I have that a little off. The mortgage is actually the agreement that says my house is collateral for the loan.

But what I had never stopped to think about is the root of the word. As soon as someone points out that it’s from the French, I can see that root though…and at first glance, it’s startling. Because mort means…DEATH.

Um…this is beginning to sound a little frightening, right? What kind of collateral agreement did I get into??? 😉

No need to fear though. Mort does indeed mean “death,” but that gage part is from the French gaige, which means “pledge” or “deal.” Which DOESN’T mean “a deal of death,” but rather, “the death of the deal.” Which is to say, this agreement would be in effect until it was “dead” from being paid off or when payment failed. (Miss a payment, loan rescinded, all is due at that time.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty glad no mafiosi are involved. 😉