Pitchers, Catchers and the smell of barbecue

On this coldest date of the year, two observations.

1) I stepped off the bus this morning in -17 temps. Was hit by the smell of barbecue coming from who knows where and immediately felt 100 degrees warmer.
2) Pitchers and catchers report in a couple of weeks. Kudos to the Arizona Diamondbacks for reporting the earliest of all, Feb 6th, followed by the Dodgers on the 8th and the Cardinals on the 12th. Everyone else in the National League is still sleeping in on those days and show up sometime around the 14th. It will still be cold here, but somewhere there is the whizz of a pitch, the smack to the glove and the crack of a bat that all sound like spring around here.  

Sub zero dreams

"It's a little chilly out there", is a much-heard phrase in the winter. Minnesotans have a way of not admitting its really cold. But when it slips to double-digits below zero, we finally throw in the towel and confess that just like the rest of the country, we're cold. It may have taken us longer to get there, but we are shivering. School is closed today, and we are secretly a bit ashamed.

I stand in my living room and look out the window. My smoker has snow piled around it from earlier days spent shoveling snow on the patio. I have since given up on keeping it clear. My trusty Weber grille has a nice round mound of snow on the cover. A container of lighter fluid is nestled in the snow nearby, a silent sentry in the barbecue army.

Looking toward the woods there is not a single sign of life. No birds. No squirrels. No red tailed fox hunting mice under the snow. As I drink a cup of coffee I am the only thing moving as far as I can see. 

My deck gives a loud pop, as it does when we get below zero. Like I need a reminder of how cold it is out there. Looking across the lake it is hard to imagine that in a few months there will be boats and water skis and canoes. First will come a hardy canoe or two. Soon after the docks will begin to appear, mysterious fingers coming up from the soil and stretching out into the water.

But for now, on days of minus this or minus that, we simply look out the window, taking a little solace from the fact that the sun is now out at 5pm and that wondrous rotation of the earth is turning toward summer. Mr. Winter is at his strongest this week. But he is getting old. Soon he'll glance to the north and take a tiny step in retreat.

Burning the red sox hat 2014

No better way to start the new year

I'm not the reader I think I am

Just finished browsing the Modern Library's 100 Best books list. It's embarrassing. I've read 3 from the non-fiction list and 4 from the novels list. What's worse, all were read in high school and college. None since then.

Hmmm, perhaps some sort of fodder for a new years resolution, some reading to do by my ample supply of incandescent lights.

In DC, dim bulbs are always in fashion

When the new light bulbs came out I thought they were a great idea. Bought a bunch of them. Decent lighting and money saving in the long run. Great innovation. It was easy to see that they would eventually replace the old bulbs.

But some people couldn't let consumers decide. The government had to mandate that the old bulbs go away. Tomorrow they are no more. So for people like me who can afford to pay a little extra its not big deal. For the very poorest however, the cheap bulbs at a quarter a piece, would always be the way to go. So much for the compassion for the poor that the government claims. It wasn't there when this mandate (aka "efficiency standards") came out under the Bush Administration and it isn't there today.

One of the fundamental problems of liberalism is this smug self-righteousness. The attitude that not only do we have ideas that are better than yours, but we are better people than you because of them. And we will make you accept them.

I was glad to buy the new bulbs when it was my choice, not so happy when I found out my choice had been taken away. So today I cleaned out the stock of 60 watt bulbs at Fleet Farm. I have 164 of them that should last me for a few years, or until Atlas finally shrugs.

Brining the turkey

I always brine a turkey when I am smoking it. This year we brined and then roasted in the oven. I am now convinced that brining is one of the keys to a great turkey.

What was interesting was that we cooked this turkey a day before Christmas in order to free up the oven for other things, and it was just to cold to enjoy smoking it outside.

This was a 20 lb turkey that was brined for 48 hrs. There are several good recipes online, ours was simple with 2 gallons of water, a couple of cups each of salt and brown sugar, and some sloshes of worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and a couple of oranges.

On Christmas day, we looked online for advice on how to properly reheat day old turkey and keep the flavor. Found some good advice from the New York Times (finally) and followed it. They suggested focusing on the big meaty chunks of the turkey and not try to reheat the whole thing. Good thinking. Got four big chunks of the turkey, two breast halves and the two leg/thigh pieces. Turkey was nice and moist and while not exactly the same as usual, it was very close.

The brining kept the turkey moist and with a full rich turkey taste. It is several days later and the turkey is still almost as good as on day one.

Another Christmas Past

Another Christmas is past. Another one for the ghost of Christmas past to visit if I ever find myself reliving the story of Scrooge.

This was a good Christmas. Times shared with family and a time to share both Christmas eve and Christmas day with friends of my children.

2013 was a year full of trials, not so much for me but for those I love very much. It was a year to pray hard for those close to us.

There are several moments about this year that I will never forget. One in particular was a prayer I heard over the phone. A prayer that hard times, terrible times, would be turned to glorious times as a period of great spiritual growth.

It was a year when I learned why God created and blessed the family. This year brought some of the hardiest laughs and most heart wrenching tears our family has ever heard. Through it all I tried to give thanks, which is so much easier when you are a bystander and not the sufferer. The one who suffered the most in our family is my hero, who is showing me day by day what true surrender to the will of God involves.

It was also a year to find Jesus in places I did not expect and in faces I did not know.

Finally, I'm fat.

About six weeks ago my doctor told me that, based on my body mass index, I was obese. That's a hard word to take. But hey, according to the chart, I had spent the last two years steadily creeping from fat to obese.

Don't even ask me how this happens to a guy who runs every day. It should be impossible. But not for a guy who loves to smoke pork as much as I do. Running just helps me eat more. Anyway, for the last few weeks my goal is to be fat again. Not obese, just fat.

Hooray. Oh frabjous day, callooh, callay. I'm FAT!

And after two days on the road with Mother Delta, traveling fat is much easier than traveling obese.

Oh, Thanksgiving, get behind me, fast.

Baseball season is over, again

Baseball season is over. At least it is for the Cardinals. For the other team the season will linger a little while as they enjoy the aura of success that surrounds them. For a few days their fans get to contemplate a possible repeat next season. It is nice that my team was playing until the last pitch of the season, but terrible that they were not on the winning side.

They had opportunities. The team that won was not that much better, but was better when in counted, in four of the past six games. For the Cardinals the hits were not turned into runs and the pitching did not dominate like it could have. So it's over.

As bad as this day is, in the big picture it is a minor event. It still hurts, though Jason Motte wasn't bothered too much by the loss and was quick to tweet congrats to the sox. From his twitter feed...

• "It's officially offseason baseball fans!!! "
• "1st: Congrats @RedSox on great year. 2nd: I had a blast watching our @Cardinals this year. Great guys. Happy to be a part of this team."

Well that's sweet. Maybe he can just stay in Boston, eat some beans, dig some clams, make some chowdah, take a woodworking class at Harvard, vote for every socialist on the ballot, put a JFK picture on the mantel and pretend to be an American.

Sigh.... cubs fans never get to go through this. The winning or the stench of losing. A cub would be happy just to be there, but not a Cardinal (except of course for Jason Motte).

Why do we get so emotionally wrapped up in the results of a game?   Its not like I lost a loved one, or a job, or wrecked a car. But in a way that's what a lot of life is like, a river of small victories and defeats that viewed individually don't amount to much. But when added up they tip the scales in a way that determines how much of this life we enjoy. 

 

Baseball seems more real than it is. It becomes part of how we measure ourselves. I tell you I am a Padres fan and you know I live in San Diego. I tell you I am a fan of the Cardinals or cubs or braves or yankees, or any of the other big footprint teams, and a different picture is painted. 

 

The love of baseball is good. But in a negative sense, it has a way of tying us to this world, of making us feel comfortable in a place that is not our home. Like we belong here.  

A Weber Grille makes a fine smoker, in a pinch

There are times when i'm away from home and wish I had my clunky old smoker with me. That's not possible but there are great ways to improvise when the real equipment isn't available. A Weber grille makes a great smoker for when your needs are small, the weather is great, and you just want an afternoon to show off your improvisational skills.

There's no real magic to this. You just put a dozen coals in one corner of the grille and light em up. Add the meat on the far side of the grille. Feed a few coals from time to time and keep the wet woodchips piled on. Turn the top vent so that it's about halfway open and on the opposite side of the coals and woodchips. That forces the smoke to travel over the meat and out the top.  Keep an eye on the temp for that magical 225 number.

We did this over two weekends at my brother's house in Charlotte. Last weekend it was a small pork shoulder and a chicken. This weekend it was two chickens and a pack of bacon. All of it came out great and my brother now thinks I'm the McGuyver of barbecue.

The bacon was a last minute thing. We bought a pack of the cheapest bacon and tossed it on for a few hours. After about three hours we started sampling and had eaten most of it by the six hour point. The chickens were smoked for about six hours. At the five hour point I stood them up on their legs to drain all the juices that had accumulated in the cavity. The little pack of tin foil that you see has the liver, gizzard, etc. They weren't that great and I wouldn't mess with them next time.

Two brothers, a makeshift smoker, perfect fall weather, cigars handcrafted by Onyx and Hoyo DeMonterey, an always-brewing pot of fresh coffee, and Cardinals baseball in the background. Top that off with a growing list of answered prayers and its hard to imagine a better weekend.

Post season

It is almost October and my team is still playing.

Rummaging through a storage bin yesterday I counted the numbers of gloves.

Nine, including one catchers mitt. Perfect.

 I wonder where they were when last used in a real game? The field at Fishpot Creek? Ballwin, Ellisville or Manchester ball parks? That information is long lost, but not the love of the game.

Go Cards!

In all things give thanks

Is the woman in this picture praying for healing, giving thanks for a coin dropped in her cup...or, might she be giving thanks for her affliction?

The Bible says Christians should give thanks for all things. A very hard command to follow.

So we thank God for things we don't understand, for the pain of a loved one, for personal hurts and crises, for being mistreated.

Too often we wait until a crisis has passed and then give thanks, a sort of "Whew, God, thanks for letting me get by that one!" Real faith is shown by the one who gives thanks in the middle of the darkness, before knowing the outcome, when at his weakest, lifts his face to heaven in thanks.

For the victories we do not see, for the work of God withheld from our eyes, for the joys that are still far away, for the purifying work of tribulation on our souls, we thank you God.

I am witnessing this true faith in the life of someone I love very much.