Best and worst sports moments

In college, the Bills were winning left and right, and we were a mere 60 miles from what was then Rich Stadium. With the Bills on tv every single Sunday and surrounded by Bills fans, it wasn't hard to start rooting for them. I've lost track of the Bills, and in many ways most of pro football in the last 15 years, but I did watch MNF last night. I was unfortunately reminded of one my worst sports memories when the would-be winning 47-yard field goal attempt sailed wide to the right. It brought back a crushing moment in 1991 when I was in DC with a bunch of rabid Giants fans watching Super Bowl XXV. It also caused me to think for a few moments about where Wide Right fits on my list of worst sports moments. Here goes:

5. 19-8, when I sat in the grandstand at Fenway Park for game 3 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. It was downright depressing, but I was still at Fenway in October, so it couldn't be all bad. The Sox didn't lose another game the rest of the post-season.

4. Former Pirate Barry Bonds leading the San Fransisco Giants beating up on the Pirates in the first ever major league baseball game I went to with my father, in the pouring rain.

3. Wide Right 1991.

2. Aaron Boone hitting an 11th inning homer off Tim Wakefield to end the 2003 ALCS.

1. Former Pirate Sid Bream sliding under the tag in the 1992 NLCS game 7. I STILL can't stand the tomahawk chop. I still hate the Braves with a white hot passion and root for the Yankees when they play each other.

But not to be too negative, here are my top 6 best sports moments:

6. Going to Camden Yards with my dad and brother. Still not sure why we had to wait 30+ years before the three of us went to a game together (something about beer, I think), but it was special.

5. 51-3 1991 AFC Championship. I spent $50 on a single seat, carpooled with a bunch of others and ignored signs offering $500 for a single ticket. Never regretted being at such a landmark game for my first NFL experience. Will always remember the crowd's cheer when OJ Simpson walked onto the field for a pre-game report. Still wonder what the reaction would be if he came to Buffalo now???

4. My first baseball game at Three Rivers Stadium vs. Houston Astros. Field looked like a pinball game from way up in the rafters.

3. The look of amazement on Peter's face when he first saw the field and left-field wall at Fenway, and his insistent search for Wally the Green Monster, all through the ballpark.

2. Foulke to Mientkiewicz to win the 2004 World Series.

1. After my dad spent two weeks in the hospital for treatment of a gall bladder problem in October 1979, he surprised me the morning after he came home with the news that the Pirates had won the World Series.

No-knead sourdough

I used my sourdough culture to re-create my fabulous attempt at no-knead bread. The results were encouraging. The only trick is finding the right consistency for the dough (since everyone keeps their culture at a different consistency, you can't exactly replicate someone else's no-knead recipe, and I haven't done enough standard no-kneads to recall exactly what the consistency should be). I think I left mine a little too watery, making the bread a little bit spongy and preventing a full rise. But it still crusted very nicely and has a better crumb structure than any previous sourdough. Christy noted that the loaves looked very artisan, and more like ciabatta than anything else.

Sometimes maybe I try too hard

A couple years ago, I read an interesting article that taught me a lot about the chemical process that bread making involves. I was intrigued by the article but the accompanying recipe seemed just too easy compared to how I had taught myself to bake bread. I always thought I'd try the recipe, but kept putting it off because, after all, I liked the kneading process. Bread-making should be complex after all.

Then a college friend suggested the recipe again, and I thought maybe I'd get around to doing it when I could manage the 18+ hour process (that is, when I could fairly accurately predict that I'd be home at the appropriate times over the next 18 hours. So I fed my sourdough starter, split some off for another baker buddy, and put it back in the fridge without using it. Instead, I pulled the yeast out of the fridge that I'd sworn off for anything but waffles when I started the sourdough life and did this no-knead recipe.

The results were astounding -- by far the best bread I have ever baked. The crust crumbled like I've been trying in vain to achieve with pans of water and spray bottles and baking stones. The "crumb structure" was appropriately moist and not too dense and the loaf just looked beautiful. I'll be baking this one again. And I'm going to attempt a similar loaf using my sourdough starter, and maybe check out some of the Cooks' Illustrated modified recipes on this theme. I think I'm on to a new frontier in bread.

But it made me think about other areas in life where I try too hard and end up with something less than I could have. More specifically, when I try to help God along and end up taking the very long way to get to where he wants me to be. What about you?

More in common than not...

On my bike ride into work this morning, I was thinking about why I am not a liberal. I ought to be, given that I grew up in a low-middle (at times near poverty) class union home, am passionate about a reasonable approach to sustainable, organic living and stewardship and deliberately chose a mainline denomination church upon our move. I share Christy's passion for animal welfare and environmental sensitivity and when I do eat meat, I value knowing that the animal lived and died well. I oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and believe that corporate welfare and corporate tax breaks are evil. These are all liberal viewpoints.

This morning, I attended the PTO coffee hour at Peter's school, where the speaker made us aware of the Stable Foundation, which is seeking to eradicate homelessness in Athens. I share the values of this organization, and in fact have been a long time supporter of Habitat for Humanity whose mission is similar.

For the coffee hour, I parked next to an active PTO mom whose car was plastered with liberal bumper stickers and who was wearing an Obama t-shirt (bringing to mind this Onion satire piece, lol) and from conversations and a follow-up e-mail on the PTO list about the impact of the new administration on education in general, and the likely effects on our own school. The entire group had a real crunchy sense, discussing how to help feed hungry by collecting day-old baked goods that would otherwise be discarded, how the local caterer often donates left-over chafing dishes and even the parent-coordinated gardens that had planted around our newly-rebuilt school showed the sensitivity to sustainable and natural living that also helps lift others up.

I realized how much I had in common with this group, yet I felt like I was almost certainly the only Bob Barr voter in the group and most definitely the only one who was very nervous about an Obama administration. Why am I not a liberal anyway?

As I pedaled hard up the hill, I realized that it was wonderful that no one made me get my bike out this morning and that I had been free to choose whether to use my car and save about 30 minutes of commuting time today. And I could also choose whether to buy a fuel-efficient smaller car or a large gas-guzzling SUV. And the reason I am not a liberal is that I value that choice. I believe that if we eliminated farm subsidies and allowed the market to work, we would have far less high fructose corn syrup in our diets and childhood obesity levels would fall. If we eliminated corporate taxes and shifted the tax burden to investors (the double-and sometimes triple-taxation of dividends and capital gains is an issue for another day), corporations would have fewer incentives to avoid taxes through accounting shell-games.

Representative democracy does a few things very well -- protects individual freedom and regulates "natural" monopolies. Whenever government attempts to force redistribution of wealth, the incentives get all screwed up. And though I share much in common with the other parents in my school, I guess where I disagree is that I don't think government is the answer. Indeed, there is so much we could do if government could just get out of the way.

Getting ready to bake again

Refreshed my starter over the weekend and getting ready to proof the sponge tonight. I'll try to update later.

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?