Posts filed under 'reviews'
I think Linden introduced me to PostSecret.com when we started grad school. People anonymously write their secrets on a postcard and mail them to PostSecret. Twenty new secrets are added every week.
In theory, this just seems like a place to air dirty laundry, but it has really opened my eyes to the needs of people around me. Seems like a good thing, right? As a Christ-follower I should see the needs of God’s children without this blog. After all, Jesus saw the crowds and felt compassion for them. Funny how I don’t see the needs of people until they’re made blatantly obvious. I’m a sorry excuse for a Christ-follower.
What’s worse is that sites like this have to exist. If we, as Christ-followers, were doing what Christ called us to do—loving him and loving people—there would be no need for people to cry out for help on a silly web site.
Check out this video from PostSecret.com. It’s the tip of the iceberg. I make a point to check out the site every week to remind me that people still need Christ and that he’s asked me to tell them how much he loves them.
P.S. PostSecret has a campus event on Tuesday, September 4, at Missouri State University. I’m going to try my darndest to get there.
August 30th, 2007
If you know me at all, you know that pizza is by far my favorite food. I love its versatility as the right pizza can double for multiple meals: dinner, midnight snack, breakfast, lunch. My favorite pizza hands down is a thin crust Hawaiian pizza with pineapple, red onion, and ham; however, I do branch out occasionally and I’m offering pizza reviews as I eat it.
Last night I shared a Papa Murphy’s Veggie deLite pizza with my old roommate Betsy. She introduced me to it earlier this year, and it will probably be a staple of our hang-out time for years to come.
The deLite pizzas have an uber-thin crust, which has half the carbs and half the calories as Papa Murphy’s traditional crusts. Now, I’m a proponent of the thin crust pizza because I can eat more thin crust slices than I can thicker crust slices. Some complain that thin crusts taste and feel like eating cardboard, but having never eaten cardboard myself, I can’t actually defeat that argument (though I imagine cardboard is a bit more fibrous than thin crusts). When you cook it just right, the deLite crust is just the right consistency—not too crunchy and not too soggy. Papa Murphy’s have mastered the art of “take and bake” pizzas, so providing you know how to use your oven, it’s easy to get the pizza crust just the way you like it.
The pizza toppings include fresh spinach, sliced fresh mushrooms, fresh diced roma tomatoes, three 100% whole milk cheeses, and a creamy garlic sauce. Together, all these toppings are delightful. I’m particularly fond of the mushrooms, which have fantastic flavor (as a note, I usually don’t like mushrooms on my pizza—or ever for that matter). The creamy garlic sauce is a nice change from traditional red sauces and has excellent flavor. I tried recreating this sauce at home earlier this summer and failed miserably, so trust me, just drop the change and get this pizza instead. I like olive, green pepper, and onion on my veggie pizzas, too, so next time, I might add them to mix things up.
My only beef with Papa Murphy’s is the use of 100% whole milk cheeses. I won’t stand on my soapbox long, but I’d like to see the company switch to skim milk cheeses. I always appreciate companies who make “eating right” decisions easy. And after all, don’t whole milk cheeses sorta defeat the notion of ordering a light pizza? Papa Murphy’s pizza topping are so flavorful that they really don’t need high fat cheese (and really, how much more flavor does whole milk cheese add to a pizza over skim milk cheese?).
Veggie deLite Nutritional Information
Have you tried this pizza or other pizzas from Papa Murphy’s? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
August 29th, 2007
I’m the kind of person who chooses whether or not to do something based on whether everyone else is doing it. In high school, I chose not to wear anything Tommy Hilfiger because all of my classmates wore Tommy clothes (so you don’t miss the irony, I’m writing while wearing my favorite Tommy Jeans). A few years ago, I chose not to watch The Passion, Mel Gibson’s movie about Jesus’ crucifixion, because all of my Christian friends went to watch it (and because I’m not into gruesome violence).
This isn’t much of a segway, but last night Chris and I watched United 93 at the $2 movie theater. I don’t know what most persuaded me to really want to see it, though I suppose I could attribute it to a good review I read in the Springfield Business Journal, the idea that none of my close friends had seen it, and the fact that the videos from 9/11 are still rather foreign to me. See, on 11 Sept. 2001, I was in the middle of a fast from television, and I simply wasn’t glued to the television like many of my friends and family (though I did get in about 30 minutes).
So we’re sitting in the theater watching the movie, and it starts early in the morning with the terrorists saying their prayers and prepping for their day. We watch them go through the airport security (which is practically non-existent) and sit with the people they will soon be entombed with. We watch the air traffic controllers, military personnel, and FAA folks come into their offices for a normal day of work.
As we watch the passengers board the plane, we get clips from the ATCs as they struggle to figure out what’s going on with the first two planes. We watch the ATCs in New York or New Jersey (I’m not sure where they were) watch the second plane hit the second tower. As I’m watching the FAA people try to figure out what to do, and as I’m watching the military personnel try to get their airplanes in the air and get their rules of engagement, I’m thinking to myself, “What the hell has to happen for them to shut down the airspace? Why aren’t they doing anything?”
About the same time, the final passengers board the plane, and the door to the airplane is sealed, and because I know what’s going to happen, I’m thinking, “It’s like their tomb is being sealed.”
We continue to see events unfold on the plane: the hijackers take their time getting into the action; they take over the plane, killing the pilots and a flight attendant; the passengers get wind of what’s happening from their families; the passengers say their final good-byes to their families and friends, as other passengers and flight attendants plan to fight the terrorists.
As they made their attack, I’ve never been so proud to be an American. What other country so enables its citizens to take action in the face of danger? We’ve never gone down without a fight, and that’s what I love about America (regardless of the political situation right now). I think I bruised Chris’s hand as we watched the final minutes of the movie. Those men and women are heroes, and I am thankful for their fight to the end.
I’ve never felt so many emotions during one movie before. My heart raced, I was angry, I was sad, I was horrified. I was speechless at the end. It’s an awful story with a terrible ending, but I’m so glad the director and actors decided it was a story worth telling.
June 9th, 2006
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