Corn bread

Well, I have another round of sourdough. I have been misting the oven, as suggested by another faculty member in my department, and it has resulted in the nice crispy crust that good sourdough requires. I took a loaf over to the new pastor's house last night (what are the odds that in a 3,000 member church, the pastor is our neighbor???) and then had a ham and cheese sandwich with the other loaf. It continues to rise nicely and has a very hearty taste. Food critics might complain that it's not sour enough but it works for me. I bought some whole wheat flour today and will attempt a whole wheat variety this weekend. We are meeting Christy's aunt for dinner on Saturday and would love to take some for her.

But tonight, I wanted steak -- and for me, nothing goes better with steak than corn bread. I may be alone in this sentiment, but the balance of textures and sweetness is just perfect. Cooking for just myself while Christy is out of town, I saw no need to spend a lot of money on meat and bought the least expensive cut that Publix had in the Greenwise section (see, Hon, even though it's steak, I'm still thinking of the animal...) and then marinated it in a syrah wine and Chicago spice mixture for a couple hours before throwing it on the grill. While it marinated, I mixed up some corn bread using a very basic cornmeal, flour, shortening recipe. Poured it into an iron skillet and baked for 25 minutes. Perfectly crusty and VERY tasty. It will do nicely for breakfast tomorrow as well.

Meanwhile, as I was scouring the web looking for information about sourdough, I was curious about what a starter ought to look like. Here are some pictures in case you are looking for the same.

Here is a picture of my starter in a plastic tub after fermenting in the fridge for a week. The layer of yellow liquid is known as "hooch" or as I prefer to call it, yeast urine. I've seen lots of discussion about yeast urine. Some say pour it off. Others say it's a sign that the starter is not being fed well enough. Still others say to stir it into the starter before baking the bread. As I understand it, hooch is basically hop-less wheat beer, so I do the only responsible thing a beer lover would do. Well, the really responsible thing to do would be to drink it but since it has no hops, I stir it in.

And then it looks like this.

So the last batch, I started with a lump of dough that looked like this. I let it sit overnight and when I woke up, the dough had risen above the lip of the bowl. Sorry I didn't get a picture of it, but it was quite remarkable.

"I've got the wonderful love of my blessed redeemer way down in the depths of my heart! (Where?)"

Last week I was playing with Peter in the family room and we had put on a CD of Sunday School songs. It's been a while since I spent time with SS songs, but listening to these at times silly, at times profound songs brought me back in my mind to my childhood.

I have known many Christians, men and women, who have faith crises and struggle to comprehend God's love in a fallen world. Is it any wonder? As I listened to these songs I heard the repeated theme: I have Jesus. I am happy. End of story. If this is the way Christians are programmed, it's little wonder that when bad things happen, when life doesn't turn out as we had hoped, when our children get rushed to the hospital at a week old, when our parents die before they get to meet all their grandchildren, when our friends disappoint us, that we feel guilty for feeling sad and anxious. Because deep down in our souls, where we can't even make out the sounds any more, we feel the beat of the Sunday School songs, "and I'm so happy, so very happy, I have the love of Jesus in my heart!" The subtext is that if I'm not happy, I must not have Jesus in my heart.

Now, I understand that the primary goal of young Christian education is to provide a place where children can experience the unconditional love of God, find that church is fun and hopefully a place where they can experience God's love through the Scriptures and the teachers and their friends at a young age. The songs may facilitate this fun aspect. But they sell our children a cheap gospel. A gospel that doesn't allow us to mourn death, disease and suffering. That simplifies the message of Christ as a religion of happiness, rather than a religion of Kingdom living and changing and redeeming the world.

This is a place where the Psalms would help us. Our children might be warped for life if we focus exclusively on Psalm 137, to be sure. But are we warping them for life by focusing only on the good things about the Christian life? We need to teach our children from a young age that the Christian life is the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of service. A grounded exposure to the Psalter doesn't leave us hanging in misery, though. It reminds us that though we suffer, our salvation is made sure. We don't enjoy the full benefits of it yet, but in this miserable life that sin has brought about, we can hope.

Here's the beginning of my campaign to change the words of the Sunday School songs: And I'm so hopeful, so very hopeful, for I have been baptized and belong to Christ. What does it mean to have the love of Jesus in my heart anyway??? Can a child really understand this?

Quick update

I'm trying to meet deadlines for two papers for which I am lead author and one paper where I'm advising a grad student, which is the explanation for my sparse postings this week. That, and, Christy got a job! I'm thrilled to no end for her new opportunity but it adds a constraint to all available time in the family until Peter starts school in August. I guess it eases up a little since Peter determined that he's not that into t-ball and would rather not stay on the team. We pretty much agree that he's not ready for that yet and I'll be working with him to build the skill and discipline that he'll need to play next year.

My latest news is that I joined a gym. I've been a member of one gym or another most of the time since 1999 but this one far outshines them all. Besides about 30 treadmills, each with their own personal TV, they seem to have about every piece of lifting equipment known to man, and a way cool rock climbing wall. What surprised me most, and what I will likely never use, is the full size billiard table in the men's locker room. My new membership came with 3 free training sessions and my trainer just about killed me tonight. I feel great right now but I expect I'll be cursing him in the morning.

I hope to blog about the role of the Law in the Christian life, as soon as I have a few minutes to put the thoughts together carefully. For now, you can read what my college classmate friend Christie (no relation to Christy :) wrote on the subject earlier this week.

Never trust a bearded man

I never thought I'd be a facial hair guy. My father wore a beard for probably the last 15 years of his life (and I think it took five of those years for it to grow in fully), and the primary reason was to keep his face warm on cold winter mornings during deer season. Since I was not afflicted with a hunting hobby, that was not a good reason for me. And as a morning runner, facial hair can be more of a problem than a help since it tends to freeze up and develop rather uncomfortable icicles. Finally, Christy was pretty adamant that she didn't care much for facial hair.

But then, I realized that the two Red Sox players Christy found most attractive (Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield) both had goatees. I wasn't sure if I could grow one, but during the summer of 2006, I was studying wall to wall for qualifying exams and didn't really care to shave anyway. Why not give it a try? I think it took a full two months to grow in well, but Christy actually liked it and that's all I needed to keep it and learn to groom it well.

Although she's hinted at it in the past, she finally admitted tonight why she thinks it works for me... "It covers a multitude of chins." Ouch. :)

Obama

I have sort of liked Obama from the beginning. I still remember sitting in a hotel room in Rockaway, NJ trying to get some work done when I heard his breakout speech at the DNC in 2004. That was the same trip in which we got bad news about the work we needed to do on our house if it was to sell, and in which I almost saw the Yankees get no-hit from the nosebleed section. Definitely one of the best-pitched games I ever saw. Nothing like a Red Sox fan leaving Yankee Stadium to the sounds of "New York, New York" NOT sung by old Blue Eyes (back then, at least, they played the Sinatra version after a win and the Liza Minelli version after a loss).

I think he offers a vision, and a moderating voice for me, a disenfranchised conservative. After Bush II, I am very worried about investing too much hope in a good outcome when the candidate appears to be faith-driven at some level. And of course, the Wall Street Journal is giving him a daily skewering for his vacuous rhetoric.

Obama's rhetoric may be vacuous, but every time I see McCain speak, his head seems vacuous. I know McCain is a genuine American hero, but that itself doesn't make him qualified to be president. And he has a record of working with both sides to achieve common goals. But whenever I hear him speak, it's obvious those aren't his own words. Even Ronald Reagan had a gifted speech-writer, but what made him the Great Communicator was that his speech-writer had a way of getting his words on the page, and he was then able to deliver them passionately and convincingly. I don't get that sense with McCain -- it seems like he's touting someone else's ideas and is not completely convinced himself. Hasn't 8 years of a puppet presidency been enough for one generation?

Count me as firmly undecided. At least until I figure out what Obama actually believes.

What they say

People at the office seem to like the bread. Not too many people around today and it was almost gone when I left.

I got frank feedback from a senior faculty member who seems to know something about food. First, it is not sour enough. The starter has been developing yeast well, but is not yet old enough to have the sourness from the bacteria. So time will hopefully address this problem.

Second, the crust is not hard enough. I need to mist the oven. Something I've thought about but didn't think I needed to do. I'm still not sure I want to do that but I'll keep thinking about.

Finally, it was a little underdone. I realized that too and planned to bake the next loaf another five minutes. Maybe I need to mist the oven to keep the crust from overcooking while it hardens.

On the plus side, he said it rose well, which he has never been able to do.

The result

My most recent loaves come out looking very nice indeed. We'll cut one of the loaves to have with spaghetti tonight and take the other to work tomorrow.