Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ti7ZHA2Fso&feature=related. Aus Tiefer Not. The English translation is "From Depths of Woe I Raise to Thee" and it's written by Martin Luther during the reformation. I found it listed on a church site for hymns from The Trinity hymnal of 1990. http://songsandhymns.org/people/detail/martin-luther. I sang along with it in the German. It wasn't very difficult to figure out the pronunciation after awhile, I made some good guesses and then I repeated the song many times.

I have never heard the hymn before but felt an affinity with it instantly. I found it while looking up hymns and out of 5 listed that were written by hymn during his persecutions, I chose this one and then I didn't find what I was looking for until I found a German version. I liked this one and then there was one other which I liked, but I like this arrangment for her voice and arrangment. This is a song that can be made very dull sounding and plain (I think) or beautiful.

I listened to this and sang with it several times last night, inbetween Skillet's "Awake and Alive" and "Monster".

And I drank apple cider vinegar with honey and lemon (diluted in water), coffee, ate chocolates from a box of chocolates, and did a lot of cooking. I also listened to Sade's "Jezebel", "Lover's Rock", and "King of Sorrows" feeling the most mood with King of Sorrows and able to sing with it, and then I listened to Edith Piaf too.

I made a beautiful red beet borscht last night while I listened to music and had a red candle burning. This borscht was different from the ones I've made before, which were much more complex and, I think, amazing. I just made a simple borscht focusing on beets primarily last night. I grated them and, I've never had a recipe book but in the past I've made it according to specs, I later discovered. This time, I save the stalks and leaves to steam and cook later, and then I grated the beets and set aside while sauteeing fresh garlic and onion in olive oil. Beforehand I made a fresh tomato base, boiling whole tomatoes, peeling the skins off and then pressing them through a strainer so it was just the juice lightly salted, with no seeds. Then I sauteed the garlic and onion in the pan and added the tomato juice over it. After a small time, adding grated beets and water and cooking for more than an hour. I strained out the shredded beets with the garlic and onion to have for something else and kept the pure tomato and thick beet juice. Then I added ribbons of red cabbage, chopped, and cooked and a little onion again and a tiny bit of red pepper and that was it. I had a small pan though, so I had to cook the beets in sections of 3 and then combine the juice in the pan after straining the beets.

The other borscht I've made is much richer and complex, but this one is delicate.

The other one, I imagined sour cream with and was right, looking at recipes. This one is different. You could still add sour cream to it, but I think I would pair it with different side breads or dishes.

This morning I am listening to Aus Tiefer Not again and cooking. I missed church having slept in because I was awake until 1-2 a.m., and even took a bath after cooking and then all the lights went out while I was in the tub, throughout the house. I had to find a flashlight and turn the breakers on and I had moved from making beet soup to split peas, so I took them off the stove.

This morning I put a batch of split peas in the freezer (cooking some legumes ahead of time to save time later) and then made lentils, and am now cooking brown rice in broth of lentils.