LENT Photo #31 'Salted' Caramel

   I'm a day ahead with these posts and as we close on Easter I will post the last few all at once, the photos/videos are mostly chosen now... This is a "Salted Caramel" milkshake from New Lambton's "The Locale" which is an unnecessarily quirky name for a sparse Aussie homestead styled conglomeration of concrete and timber, old farmhouse glass and intentionally random timber ceiling, walls and light fittings. The food has a unique twist and it's a nice place to spend an hour when it's not frantically packed out... guess where I'm ging today after this...
   As a person with plain taste in food some of the meals have that one ingredient rendering it inedible [like the humble mushroom or too much tomato relish or...] but when you find your favourite in combo with sourdough toast, the result is a nice treat!! The hash browns are unique but would be better served in half dozens!!
   So, the salted caramel... very 'in' right now and no wonder... the recipe creates a full flavoured caramel with a sweet bite. Served in a curious jar with a handle I know a 9 year old who must order one even though she has never finished one yet...
   Salted Caramel, savoury and sweet, the salt doing what it was designed to do and bring out the flavour that's already present...

Here's Bill Granger's take on it:

5 tbsp bought thick caramel sauce

6 scoops vanilla ice-cream, slightly softened

375ml milk

Add a good pinch of salt to the caramel sauce and stir well. 

Put the ice cream and 3 tbsp of the salted caramel in a blender.

Whizz until well combined then add the milk. 

Pulse to combine, adding a little extra milk if the mixture is still too thick.

Spread the remaining caramel sauce on the inside of four tall glasses. 

Pour in the milkshake and serve immediately.

Here's Jesus take on it:

From Matthew 5: 13-16

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven...

   However you can't read this without at least taking note of the broader teaching it follows in the 'blessed r's'..

One espouses the values of God, the other is an encouragement in how we can participate in bringing those about... not fearful of a wrong word, or a human action, but filled with grace, compassion, hard work and a desire to actually hear other people's stories, share in those and be about the work of helping their stories be the best ones they can be... that's a call to follow...

   IT also recognises that this is about flavours already present... the creativity of God, no matter how obscured by circumstance and choices... an invitation to be free of concern for eternity and to embrace discovering with others, what God's life looks like in very human terms. Like wise a chance to be apathetic, take a wrong focus, become judgemental or to simply live life as an exercise in missing the point. For others there's good intention derailed by their own pain and struggle.

   Seems to me a 'salted caramel' milkshake offers a glass jar 3/4 full of possibilities and responsibilities... to recognise flavour where and when we see it and to be people trying to allow that flavour to be known. You can't do that with asking questions about the story of the other, to 'walk in their shoes', to ask "how can I enter into other people's experience of life?"