Baked Eggs with Onions and Cheese

This is a great, quick, and easy classic recipe. You can really use any type of white cheese--Gruyere, Pepper Jack (if you want to kick it up), or even Swiss. I don’t like to substitute the quality Parmigiano-Reggiano, but in a pinch, you could.

You also can cut the recipe back a bit and make it with 4 or 6 eggs, modifying the other ingredient amounts as well.

The only trick is to not overcook the eggs! Keep them moist when you take them out from the broiler, as they will continue to cook for at least a minute.

4 tblsps olive oil
4 cups thinly sliced Vidalia or other sweet onions
Salt and fresh ground pepper
1 1/2 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (I just use whole grain bread, or even some nice crackers...sometimes stuffing cubes done quick in the Cuisinart)
1 cup grated cheese...Gruyere or any type of white cheese you have on hand
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
8 extra-large eggs

Preheat the oven to 450F. Put the olive oil in a large, ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and plenty of slat and pepper, cover the skillet, and the turn the heat to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are very soft and tender, but not browned, about 15 minutes.

Combine the bread crumbs and cheeses and sprinkle half this mixture over the onions. Using the back of a spoon, make little nests in the mixture and crack an egg into each. Top with salt and pepper and the remaining breadcrumb and cheese mixture.

Pop the skillet into the oven and bake for 5 minutes or until the eggs are barely set; turn on the broiler and brown the top for about a minute, being careful to not overcook the eggs.

I serve these with skillet fried potatoes or fresh fruit, or sliced tomatoes.

Wait two hours, then go to the gym!

Running and Friendship

Several years ago, actually almost 10 years ago, I co-facilitated a men’s retreat for college-age students. The retreat came about as the result of my work as a counselor at a small, private, Catholic college. The charge given to me was to increase the number of men who might benefit from individual counseling. When I began I had no male clients, but very quickly my calendar filled. Most of the men were 18 to 22 years old and shared common concerns: how to be more expressive, how to be more successful in relationships, how to reconcile religious values with sexuality...everything poignant, but nothing more than the normal existential emptiness of braided youth, masculinity, and spirituality. Yet still chronically troubling to these men.

I worked with all the male faculty and staff on campus to develop a weekend men’s retreat that would explore spirituality and masculinity. Each meeting allowed for a core of interested and available men to emerge as participants and co-leaders. We finally emerged as a group of about 26 students and facilitators--all equally fearful.

We invited a Zen master, a Catholic priest, and a Native American shaman to share their ideas of how men could more authentically express masculinity and spirituality. One lesson offered by the shaman was the observation that many men desire friendships with other men, but then push those away. He went on to describe how in some native cultures, it is custom to express friendship through an embrace. However, sincerity and authenticity are noted by the duration of the hug. He suggested that a true embrace allows for enough time to pass that each man can feel the heartbeat of the other.

Immediately the younger men in the group looked at once validated and fearful--exposing the space that is often left behind when we know how to be expressive and fear the very action that would allow for that expressivity. That space then becomes our own personal emptiness.

Running seems to me to offer an opportunity for authenticity. When we allow ourselves to run with a friend who stays close enough that the two of us share a rhythm--our paced and heavy breathing being the aspiration and inspiration of our combined hearts’ work--then we have expressed friendship.

Awakening to Desire (inspired by the writings of Diane Eshin Rizzetto)

Given the opportunity to put activities, at least work-related ones to rest for a few days, I find my mind electric with energy and ideas. Energy is not the most accurate word, it's really chaos; and ideas is not the most accurate word either: fragmented, sharp, jagged thoughts holding this thinker in a bind.

Most of these chaotic thoughts are desires:

more career success
more intimacy
more friends
more creativity
more time
more projects

Even more desire to be expressive (to blog in a way that is interesting). I allow the desires room to roam about, although my initial reaction is to calm or more accurately, squelch the desires. Instead I allow them space to breathe. Perhaps as each desire is given space it will begin to dissipate or become diluted with calm, clarity, or some level of peace.

Perhaps career success is temporal; perhaps a more skilled way of viewing career success is to observe it as a sequence of moments. Moments of sincerity--speaking to each colleague deeply and sincerely, helping each student and parent with pure commitment to their concern--responding to each email with care and focus.

In a broader, perhaps more universal sense (a more infinite sense) desire is the lion to which we bring milk. The difficulty that never leaves, allowing us to develop a calmness that coexists with desire.

Think openly about all your desires. If there are too many to hold in your mind all at once, just capture a few. Feel the energy they express--then, breathe with them; make friends. Be with your agitation, anxiety, fears, and hopes. Know that you need not do anything--including criticize the desire for being present. Just allow each of them to be fully present. Feel yourself broaden as the stress or presence brought in by the automated, additional desire to control the desires.

The desires will not go away, but we need not find them as enemies.

'Til Tuesday

Another evening of vivid dreams. The world is clearly on many planes with myriad opportunities for us to merely open our eyes more freely and notice.

Monday, Monday

Last night's vivid dream: In line at the airport (Boston-Logan) where I purchased an expandable belt as a gift for someone. In an effort to take a picture of it, fully expanded, I sought the help of a woman who broke the belt by pulling it too taught. I then almost missed the flight, being the last person to board the plane.

Inland Hurricane: Storm in Southern Illinois

On May 10 an unusual storm hit southern Illinois. These pictures were taken nearly a week later in my hometown of Marion.

Fifth Third Riverbank Run, 2009