Try Our St. Joseph's Sawdust Pasta

 

For years now, my children have enjoyed St. Joseph's "Sawdust" Pasta at our St. Joseph Table events.

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Yesterday, as we shared some at a potluck for the feast day, a friend asked me for the recipe, which made me realize I had never shared it here for easy-access. So, I am doing so now.

• 2 bags of your favorite gluten-free  linguine or spaghetti (We typically use the Sam Mills, which can be found at a local-to-us discount store, but can also be purchased on Amazon)
• water
• 1/2 cup soy-free Earth Balance
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4-1/2 cup raw local honey (depending on how sweet you like things)
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley (can use fresh if desired)
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
• crushed gluten-free, casein-free crackers - or GFCF bread crumbs (As much as you like)

1. Cook the pasta according to the directions. Then, drain.

2. Meanwhile, sauté garlic in Earth Balance.

3. Stir in honey and herbs.

4. Pour over drained pasta, stir together, and sprinkle with "sawdust" (crushed crackers or breadcrumbs).

We hope you enjoy this dish as much as we do.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

It's Time to Begin the Seven Sundays of St. Joseph

Here we are, seven Sundays prior to St. Joseph's feast day.

It's a prime day to begin the Seven Sundays Devotion - a long-standing tradition of the Church in preparation for the feast of St. Joseph on March 19.

The devotion honors the seven joys and seven sorrows that St. Joseph experienced as husband of the Mother of God, faithful guardian of Christ, and head of the holy family.

To pray the devotion, attend Mass and receive Holy Communion in a state of grace and pray the prayers in honor of the seven joys and seven sorrows of St. Joseph.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

4 Ideas Celebrating a St. Joseph's Table while Social Distancing

For a number of years, our family has enjoyed a tradition of celebrating St. Joseph's Feast Day with a St. Joseph's Table potluck and play with friends.

This year, of course, the COVID-19 (coronavirus) has put a damper on such plans. So today, I've been thinking about how we might observe a family St. Joseph's Table social distancing style while staying true to the idea of community charity and thanksgiving.

In doing so, I went back to read different legends about the origins of the St. Joseph's Table, and, as I did, many ideas for St. Joseph's Table sharing social distancing style popped into mind. I am sharing them here in case that might inspire you to reach out in charity through doing a modified St. Joseph's Table.

Firstly, I am thinking that at home we will simply have a small, three-tiered table with a few symbolic foods and prayer of thanksgiving.

Secondly, I am thinking that we can reach out to others somewhat like we have done in the past with Love Buckets, egging on Spy Wednesday, and St. Nicholas baskets in secrecy with prayers and gifting. Along those lines, we might:

Offer prayers and food for 12 elderly or orphaned people in the community. 

In one origin legend, it is said that "When the rains miraculously came the landowners set up huge banquet tables in the public square and invited all the poor and served them themselves...Particularly invited were orphans or elderly folk who did not have anyone to care for them properly. There were always twelve in number." 

How about preparing a bag or basket of St. Joseph's Table foods and/or items people might appreciate while social distancing and drop them on the doorsteps of 12 people's home?

Share your surplus.

It is said that, "Farmers in a particular area experienced a crop that would not yield anything. At the same time farmers in other areas had an abundant crop. Knowing of their neighbors' plight they decided to give a feast for them in the piazza directly facing the church of their village. The meal consisted entirely of meatless dishes because meat was not easily obtainable and a very uncommon staple in their diet." 

In memory of this, with inspiration of little free libraries and little free pantries, how about setting up a little free "St. Joseph's Table" in your front yard or in a common space on your street or in your neighborhood where people could give and take freely during this period of social distancing? It could be as simple as a small table with a plastic bin atop it that you put some water, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, shelf stable foods, or the like in.

Donate canned fish and other goods! 

Another story relates, "The fishermen had been having very bad luck in catching fish... The fishermen promised St. Joseph that if he gave them fish, they would make a feast for all the people of the village. They caught a great amount of fish and fulfilled their promise by having a feast in the village square. Because the first Table was done by fishermen, this is why fish, not meat, is always served at the Table."

Canned goods have been out of stock in many stores. If you have canned fish - or other canned goods - consider donating some to a local pantry or gifting neighbors or community members in need with them.

Drop cheese, crackers, bread, and fruit to community helpers.

In still another story, it is said, "The people were starving and St. Joseph told the mothers to 'spray their milk'- (in other words the women were told to make cheese from their milk to feed the people) and from that time they had the Table".

Think of people who help keep your community safe and healthy - doctors, police officers, EMT's, lab technicians, firefighters, etc. - and drop a platter of fruit, cheese, bread, and crackers to them.

I pray these ideas get you thinking about meaningful ways you can celebrate a St. Joseph's Table and extend the reach of charity and thanksgiving during this time of social distancing.

I'd love to hear your ideas, too.
You can find all our past St. Joseph ideas and posts here.

St Joseph, pray for us!

Get Inspired for a St. Joseph Table

Happy Month of St. Joseph!

One of our favorite ways to celebrate St. Joseph each March is with a simple St. Joseph's Table Potluck and Play with friends.

This year, we won't be able to enjoy this tradition on St. Joseph's Day itself, but I am hoping to do an early or late St. Joseph's Table, and, thus, have been looking back at photos from last year's table as well as from year's prior.
If you'd like a little inspiration for your own planning, enjoy the following snapshots from last year:

Three tiers are traditional.

Lilies are traditional, too.

Produce helped us remember the harvest that spurred the original St. Joseph's Table.

"Sawdust" Pasta reminds us of St. Joseph, a carpenter.

More pasta reminds us of the St. Joseph Tale originating in Italy.

Fish is traditional on a St. Joseph Table

Fish made by your son is even sweeter.

It is traditional not to serve meat, so we had beans. Fava beans would have been even more traditional.

Twisted and shaped breads, plus pastries are traditional, but we had few due to the number of gluten-free folk...

Fig pastries are traditional - and these are easy peasy!

We always make some sort of St. Joseph flowering staff.

An Italian fruit flag reminded us where St. Joseph's tables originated.

Since fruit flags are easy, more than one friend brought them to our potluck table.

Fig preserve is yummy and figs are traditional to the table. We had grape juice instead of wine.

More inspiration from prior years:

Our 2nd and 3rd St. Joseph Tables

Our 4th Included Prayers, Crafts, and More

Our 5th Brought Fond Memories, Too

St Joseph, Pray for us!

4 Easy Steps to Planning a St. Joseph's Day Feast

I was asked recently for a step-by-step of how I organize liturgical year gatherings. So, today, I am sharing the simple process that friends and I went through to pull together what turned out to be a fun and faith-filled St. Joseph's Table last year.

The Solemnity of St. Joseph is coming up on March 19 - a perfect day for getting together with friends to pray, eat, and observe this special day of the liturgical year through enjoying a St. Joseph Table - and a time you don't need to sweat the prep.

Trust me on this!  

You can delight in a fabulous feast day celebration as a family or with friends with very little advanced planning. 

In fact, last year, friends and I put together our St. Joseph table with but 24 hours advanced notice!

Three tiers represent the trinity.

A white tablecloth represents the pure love of God

Fish remind us of the apostles.

Fruits and vegetables remind us of the abundant harvest that was shared after a drought when the first St Joseph table happened.

Pasta with "sawdust" reminds us of St.  Joseph and
beans recall the fava beans that people ate during the period of having no food before they prayed for St. Joseph to intercede and the rains and harvest came.

Cupcakes bring cheer with their special toppers.

Flowers should be lilies for St. Joseph, but, instead, are just what we had.

Cookies and fruit make a flowering St. Joseph staff of St. Joseph.

More pastries and savory dishes were added as more families arrived.

How did we do it?

We used four easy steps you can follow:

1 - Get Word Out that You'd Like to Enjoy a St. Joseph Table

Of course, if you plan to celebrate St. Joseph's day as a family only, you can skip this step.  However, if you'd like to enjoy a St. Joseph Table with friends, getting word out is your first step.

In the past, I have personally invited friends to my home or secured a host family and planned a group St. Joseph Table with plenty of advanced notice.  That is, until last year, when I found myself posting the following in a local Catholic Facebook group on March 18:

LAST-MINUTE ST. JOSEPH'S TABLE GATHERING ANYONE: I got behind in life and failed to suggest this earlier, but am throwing it out today in case anyone would be up for an impromptu gathering.

Tomorrow is St. Joseph's Feast day. Would anyone like to host a POTLUCK St. Joseph's feast day table anytime from 4 p.m. forward? If so, give a shout here in a comment with time and location, and others who'd like to go, comment with what you'll bring.

I can provide the a white table cloth and 3 tiers for the table, a candle, a gluten-free, casein-free "sawdust pasta" dish inspired by tradition as well as some sort of "flowering staff" (though not my usual one as I could not find the cookies this year) and perhaps some other things. I just cannot manage to provide the hosting location right now. 

 

Within an hour, someone responded with an offer to host!

You could do similarly - getting word out via Facebook, texts, phone calls, emails, or just chatting with friends.

2 - Set a Time and Location, Making It an Official Event for Your St. Joseph Table

Once we had a host location and time, we made our St Joseph Table event "official" by creating a Facebook event page and inviting all the local Catholic homeschoolers we knew.

If you do not use Facebook, you could use a free planning tool such as Perfect Potluck or just go with good old fashioned phone calls and face-to-face chats to make official invitations.

3 - Share Ideas and Resources to Get Guests Excited and Thinking about What They Might Add to the Feast

While some of our invited guests were already familiar with St. Joseph Tables from past celebrations, others were brand new to the idea.  So, my next step was to shard the following ideas and links with our guests.

(Note: The photos were not part of what I shared as ideas and links, but, rather, examples of how people responded.  Each photo is something that was brought to lay on our table. Yum!)

Find pictures, explanations and links of some of our past St. Joseph Tables at our 1st St. Joseph's Table, Our 2nd and 3rd, our 4th, and our 5th.

If you do not know much about St. Joseph's Tables, here is a great explanation! 

A Slice of Smith Life has shared about her beautiful table, which is inspiring! 

Catholic Cuisine offers wonderful recipes and more! 

Some things that could flesh our our table if you'd like to bring them are:

• flowers, particular lilies
• a St. Joseph statue or peg doll
• oranges (traditionally given to children on this day)

 

• St. Joseph prayer cards (mine are missing)
• any great St. Joseph story you have 

• traditional breads (or cut outs of fig newtons or gluten-free tortillas) in symbolic shapes, such as lilies, sandals, ladders, saws, hammers, nails, beards, ladders, canes or staffs of St. Joseph, crosses, palms, wreaths symbolizing Jesus, artichokes, grapes, and twists

 

• grapes or other fruit and vegetables, symbolic of an abundant harvest shared

 

• beans (Fava beans are traditional, but any can do!) 

 

• 12 whole fish (to represent the twelve apostles or the miracle of loaves and fishes; or one, if that's all you can manage: tuna, sardines, white fish, whatever....shellfish and seafood, particularly Baked Red Snapper are often traditional)

 

• pastries, and possibly symbolic pastries with fig in the following shapes: Monstrance, chalice, cross, dove, lambs, fish, Bible, and hearts. (GFCF fig newton-like cookies are an easy one to shape!)

 

• Pupaculova: bread baked with dyed Easter eggs reminding of the close approach of Easter (or just any festive pastry)

 

• grapes, olive oil,olive salad, and dried figs: which are reminders of vineyards and orchards of Sicily
• Pignolatti: fried pastry in pine cone shapes, reminders of the pine cones Jesus played with as a child. 

 

• Mudica: Pasta Milanese with browned and seasoned bread crumbs sprinkled on top to represent the sawdust of St. Joseph, the carpenter - or a GF version

 

• a fruit or veggie Italian flag (green-white-red) 

• fruit in a serving dish (to remind us that saying "yes" like St. Joseph brings fruit to our lives

• wine (traditional and reminds us of the Miracle of Cana) 

• no meat 

As you can see from the photos above, the ideas shared offered plenty of visuals, background information, and recipes for each participating family to be able to think of something to gather, make, or buy to bring to our table.

Feel free to simply copy and paste this idea list for your guests!

4 - Leave the Rest to the Holy Spirit 

Once the ideas were shared, we left the rest of our planning up to how the Holy Spirit moved each family and simply trusted that those who were able to make it would bring enough food for a beautiful and filling table and that we would all be blessed by a time filled with faith, friendship, fun, and, of course, feasting.  

We were not disappointed!

We actually ended up with more food than the table we had set up could hold...

... and learning more about the feast day.

Granted, as the person leading the "teaching" portion of our celebration, I had forgotten to get my favorite St. Joseph book - Joseph's Story by Patricia Pingry  - out of our library in time, and also was not able to unbury both of our copies of Prayers to My Favorite Saints and Prayers to the Saints before we left for the gathering, but I was still able to use print outs from some of the links above, a saint book, and the children's background knowledge - plus God's grace! -  to offer a decent chat anyway.

Everyone, then, was able to focus on praying and a chat about St. Joseph and the history and traditions of his feast day.

Then, the children enacted Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the saints, and angels coming to the table...

...before digging in!

Then, everyone chatted and played right through when it was past-time to go home.

Truly, our St.Joseph's Table gathering was a blessed and beautiful time - all coming together in 24 hours.

If you'd like to put together a St. Joseph Table this year, then, take our testimony as proof: Enjoying a St. Joseph Table with friends does not have to be a huge, time-consuming undertaking.  It can come together quickly and meaningfully.

We encourage you to give it a try!

Need More Ideas and Inspiration for Celebrating St. Joseph's Feast Day?

This year will mark the sixth anniversary of when my children and I began partaking in the tradition of a St. Joseph Table.

In the past, I have shared about each of our tables, including pictures of what we ate, descriptions of our activities, and links to specific books, prayers, and resources.

Come now, and take a walk with us down Memory Lane...

Our First St. Joseph's Table

Our first St. Joseph Table was super simple - and super fun to share with friends.  It included coloring and a construction-themed playdate!

Our 2nd and 3rd St. Joseph Tables

Our second St. Joseph table was even simpler and celebrated as a family breakfast while our third began to get a little bigger and included a playdate with prayer, drawing, crafting, and more.

Our 4th Included Prayers, Crafts, and More

Our fourth was one of my favorites! A friend hosted it, and we were able to involve whole families - even Dad's - in plenty of prayer, crafting, and eating!

Our 5th Brought Fond Memories, Too

Our fifth was filled with delightful dishes and good company! 

And, our sixth, as I already explained was a fine example of the Holy Spirit helping last-minute preparation turn into a lovely time honoring the Solemnity of St. Joseph with friends.

We hope this walk down memory lane provides you with plenty of inspiration for beginning, reviving, or sustaining your own St. Joseph Table traditions.  

St. Joseph, pray for us!

Celebrate St. Joseph's Day with Food and Friends

Are you a last-minute mom like me, trying to decide how you will celebrate the liturgical year feast day of St. Joseph tomorrow?

If so, perhaps a peak back at our belated celebration from last year will offer you inspiration - as it is doing for me!

Last year, we enjoyed celebrating St. Joseph's Day with friends one day late as a part of our then-monthly Boys' Duct Tape Battle Club and Girls' Club Meet Up. At our gathering, the boys made Celtic swords (since St. Patrick's day had just passed, and, in their club, they always made armor or weapons inspired by history)...

...and the only big girl who was able to make it helped me put together a St Joseph table while the little girls played...

Then, after all the children played for a while...

...everyone in attendance came together to pray and chat about Saint Joseph and the tradition of the St Joseph's Day Table.

We examined some of the things laid out on the table and shared ideas about their symbolism.  

In the center on the table was our now-traditional "flowering staff of St. Joseph",  which recalled the legend that Joseph was selected to be Mary’s husband after his staff “blossomed” as a sign from God that He had chosen Joseph for this responsibility.

My helper decided to encircle the flowering staff in "12 fish" (cut from gluten free tortillas) since shaped bread are traditional to St. Joseph tables as is serving 12 fish to represent the 12 apostles.

Gluten-free and regular fig cookies had simple pictures cut into them, since pastries with fig in the shape of monstrances, chalices, crosses, doves, lambs, fish, Bibles, and hearts are common to St. Joseph tables.

Honeyed pasta with seasoned bread crumbs sprinkled on top, represented the sawdust of St. Joseph, the carpenter.

The remainder of the tortillas were laid out in a design (instead of being cut into symbolic shapes like lilies, sandals, a ladder, a saw, a hammer, a nail, a cane or staff to remind us of St. Joseph; a cross, palms, or wreaths or crowns to remind us of Jesus; or artichokes, grapes, and twists, which are also traditional to st. Joseph tables.)

Near them were chick peas, because we did not have any fava beans, but wanted to recall how they are known as “Lucky Beans", since legend has it that you will never be broke as long as you carry three fava beans and a myth tells how, during a famine in Sicily, the poor began to prepare beans fed to cattle (fava beans) for themselves, and, thus, we able to survive.

Breadsticks, grapes, and other fruit - all traditional to St. Joseph tables - were also out, with the fruit reminding us of the fruit that can come if we say "yes" to God's will as St. Joseph did.

There was also more fruit, grape juice (reminiscent of traditional wine), and tuna dish (to remind us of the 12 fish and their symbolism).

Since we had no lilies, pink carnations substituted and were put out with images of St Joseph and a brief biography of him.

All these were set on a 3-tier table -reminding us of the Holy Trinity, covered by a white table cloth - reminding us of God's pure love for us, with a St. Joseph peg doll statue at the top - centering us on which saint we were recalling and how he points us toward God.

Once we had chatted about these things (with patient children ready to dig in to eat - instead of just talk - about the food!), we had the children exercise just a bit more patience by stepping outside, and, then, reenacting Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the angels, and the saints coming to knock on the door.

Finally, all prayed grace and goodies were served - and devoured - with delight!

We felt so blessed to celebrate with friends from our local Catholic homeschool community, and hope this look back hopes you plan forward - as it is doing for me.
I am looking forward to a just-planned gathering for the feast day tomorrow.
If you'd like other ideas, feel free to take a peek at our past St. Joseph food and fun by clicking through the photos below.

Enjoy a St. Joseph Table with Friends

Celebrating St. Joseph: A Look Back as We Look Forward

Host a St. Joseph Tea and Playdate

However you observe St. Joseph's day, may your day be filled with grace and beauty!

  
St. Joseph, pray for us.