What an exciting Army-Navy game!

Refreshing

As expected, Oregon's QB took the Heisman. He comes off as genuinely humble in an age of jock superegos.

Marcus Mariota

Notre Dame women bball team ...

Upset weather

Navy has won 12 in a row, big favorites and bowl bound. But I smell a big upset.

Pageantry. Rivalry. Ritual.

Army Navy, what's left of college football. Blackeyed peas simmering, first bowl at kickoff.

I can root for the Ducks Jan 1 despite Nike - because I dislike Florida State so much. Be fun. Football at the Rose Bowl, something else I grew up on.

Go Navy! Go Ducks! Go Bruins against KSU!

OK, time to shut up

Yet another great loaf, Buckwheat ... to go with blackeyed peas tomorrow .. well, I am on a roll, so I'll just assume it's "great" bread from now on, until I screw up.

Bread dough and slow rise, the ways to go.

Now more subtle things to improve ...

Dance of death

Republicans now can present the dying gasps of empire, rigidly on the wrong side of history. Even Catholic bishops now argue for Zero Carbon and the incompatibility of this with capitalism.

We are the problem, not the solution, but you'd never know it in the designer brew pubs and trendy green businesses. We're a clone of the Roman Empire, going down in an orgy of self-indulgence. The hippest corpses in history.

I'll likely pass before its ugliest moments. As I read history from the p of v of the losers, it's clear we were doomed from the moment we decided God was on our side. Nothing new, poets have been telling us this all along.

The inevitable gets boring to follow. I'd rather bake bread. This morning's loaf of buckwheat looks good.

Coming next: soy, quinoa ... beer cheese ... olive.

Hear, hear!

Why Math Might Be The Secret To School Success http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-why-math-might-be-the-secret-to-school-success/

We need both the sciences and the arts. Science trains the mind. Art trains the heart. Science without art is arrogant. Art without science is self-indulgent.

Our culture fails on both counts, hence our arrogance and self-indulgence.

Waiting for the storm

Late afternoon wind storm getting major hype ... We'll see.

Making buckwheat bread tomorrow to go with blackeyed peas.

Wonder if there are any game parties in town.

Another great loaf of bread!

I made good bread before but I really have reached a new level of excellence by using bread dough and now with the long, slow rise. This first try is outstanding!

Army Navy

My solitary highlight of the season, memories of dad, blackeyed peas ... Army hasn't won since 2001 and I doubt if this is the year. Go, Navy!

Is this the last shmaltzy ritual in my life? Appears to be.

Jivin Johnny Etheredge

A Christmas ritual is receiving a DVD of holiday music, a lot of it hard to find, from my favorite DJ. I've been a fan for almost half a century now, since discovering his Oldies show in Eugene as a graduate student. From fan to friend. He remains a true believer, and I remain a fan. This year's music just arrived. Always a special treat.

Right on, TS!

TS's rant here ... http://roundbendpress.blogspot.com/2014/12/bad-apples.html ... makes perfect sense to me.

Telling it like it is

33 years ago in My Dinner With Andre, Andre explained that we have entered a new Dark Ages. We who defend the arts have to hide out and protect what we have until these bad times pass.

However, this was said before Nature's rage entered the equation. Saving culture may be irrelevant.

What to do? Bake bread. Listen to Chris Connor and Gerry Mulligan.

So far, so good

Good oven rise on first slow rise loaf ... 8 hr rise on next, now into refrig.

Taste test at breakfast.

Heard from former student. Nice to be reminded I helped some folks. I sometimes forget.

I need to read these remarkable testimonials to remember:

http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/wright/reviews.htm

Baffled

C’est la plus prestigieuse école de théâtre française. Le Cours Florent, qui a vu passer depuis un demi-siècle les plus grands comédiens (Adjani, Auteuil, Gallienne, Podalydès…), a ouvert à la rentrée 2013 une antenne à Bruxelles. Un choix que la direction de l’établissement n’a pas fait au hasard…
Au 5 rue Charles Deemer dans le Nord de Bruxelles, un bâtiment en briques rouges attire le regard. Au fond d’une petite cour, une pancarte : « Cours Florent ». Depuis novembre 2013, la célèbre école de théâtre parisienne exerce son art au cœur de la capitale européenne.

????? ... another CD and coincidence, or ... ???

Beyond recipes

I bake bread the same way I make scrapple and cook in general: by the look and feel of things. I start with a recipe but it gets set aside as soon as I gain confidence. I still make minor mistakes baking bread but I'm really getting a tactile and visual sense of the process. The slow rise dough, for example, looks and feels great. Can't wait to use it.

With time on my hands, slow rise will become standard if quality says so.

Baking update

The 12 hr cold water rise is bubbly and active as I refrigerate it. Use it Friday, I suspect.

The potato rye had poorer oven spring than I like but texture and taste are good, so just a minor failure (if even that). Eager to see what difference a slow rise makes.

Next up, Buckwheat and flax seed.

Time to prepare for my Army-Navy game ritual.

Baking

Reading a lot ... I'm a beginner with much to learn, despite some killer breads. Going to try much slower first rise. From 2 to 8 or 10 hrs, after adjustments.

Disappointment

Feta spinach bread looks better than it tastes. Nothing extraordinary. Think it might be better as dinner rolls or gyro buns.

I'll add photo later.

Potato rye in the hopper ... then peasant bread bec I gave the recent loaf away. White and peasant (whole wheat rye) the staples to always have around.

And then buckwheat or quinoa. What fun, as the late Jimbo used to say.

A good moment

Baking bread, and maybe great bread again, sipping the best iced coffee in town, the west, the universe, this is as good as it gets for me lately. I'll take it.

Bread

Batch 2 (rye whole wheat) with KA flour looking good at rest, feta spinach in the hopper, next up Eastern European potato rye. My sanity! (what remains of it).

Nike sucks

Even worse than the Nike Oregon ballet, I mean football, uniforms is the Nike Oregon designer basketball court. A designer football field can't be far behind. I hope they keep their greedy hands off track and field.

Hear ye, hear ye

Let it hereby be known
that I am a man who
(whatever else might be said)
baked a Great Loaf of Bread
on Pearl Harbor Day, 2014,
(in honor of my mother
whose brother's bones rest
on the ocean floor).

Baking

Buckwheat oatmeal bread

3 pillars of sanity: bread, refrigerated batch for next loaf, coffee press for iced coffee

Best loaf I ever made

BREAD!!

Man, best bread I ever baked (just the basic white bread batch) ... better flour makes considerable difference, good bread becomes great bread.

Hype --> puke

Selection committee show full of the now habitual hype.

Ore v FSU, Ala v Ohio St

I hope Oregon wins big in the Rose Bowl. I dislike FSU and its chop far more than I dislike Nike.

But I'm more into women's college bball now ... and waiting for summer women's World Cup.

New dough

So far, great! Love the way it handles, its appearance, its good oven "spring rise" ... very impressive so far but bottom line is taste and texture, which I'll test later. What is the new dough?

Bread dough

Mixed first batch with higher quality flour ... looks "better" unless it's my imagination. Make first loaf tomorrow. Then mix "peasant bread", a rye, whole wheat dough. Then experiment, incl a feta spinach bread.

Absurd

That's the background music of my life.

New tactic

H ending all out patient sessions. "Not doing any good." Impossible to say, actually, because she never follows their "home work" ... how can it not work if you don't even try it? A lot of money for nothing, I guess.

International exposure

For one of my short films:

Heirs (2008)
暂无海报 添加封面
类型：短片 / 喜剧地区：美国 IMDb号：tt1733474
导演：Charles Deemer编剧：Charles Deemer (story)
演员：John Donnelly / Christian Lagadec更多»
上映日期：2008年

PSU women defeat Navy

Oregon blowing out Arizona, so I followed play by play text of the media-ignored PSU women, not sure for whom to root. 56-50, sloppy but engaging game.

Tonight

Baking refinement

Switching to a higher quality of white flour, test the difference.

Other flours I use regularly now are whole wheat, rye, soy, buckwheat, quinoa. Always experimenting.

Navy at PSU

Women's bball, an unusual matchup tonight ... while the Pac 12 playoff is going on.

In one week, Army-Navy! and my very last continuing ritual, making a pot of blackeyed peas for the game. Been doing it for decades, can't recall why.

Go, Navy! says the Army vet. Childhood trumps.

Free book

For a few days ...

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Read August 4, 2013

By Lori Biever Launder
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Mr. Deemer captured the spirit of Los Angeles in the '50s perfectly.

I enjoy the noir-esque hard-boiled detective immensely. The protagonist isn't tall, dark and handsome and he uses his brains instead of his looks to get the information he needs. He spends a lot of time in the bad parts of town, trailing a variety of unsavory characters to solve his case.

This is a great read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys Stuart Kaminsky, Raymond Chandler and the like.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGTVZFG?tag=ereaderpcom-20

Heroes

Heroes

Despite the delusion of forefathers
who defined our community
as a city on a hill;
despite our ambitious arrogance
to embrace a policy
of Manifest Destiny;
despite dismissive denial
of clear policies
of empire and genocide;
despite a national mythology
unsupported by facts;
despite our unfortunate history,
there are in this land
a large number of decent humans
who work with focus and dedication
to improve the lives of strangers
and bring health to
the fauna and flora
of our dying planet;
and they do so without fanfare
without fortune or fame
in a culture fueled by both;
and in this way
they give me pleasant distractions
from the many things
I don't want to think about.

// written in the waiting room ...

Baking

With a new element, recalibrated my oven temperature.

A new bread! Will become a regular: buckwheat with oatmeal.

H finally gets to talk to a shrink today. On a cycle of bad nights. We hang in, and that's about it.

Confession

I don't buy a lot of music. I've been listening to Chris Connor for over half a century. Who is better?

But now and again someone gets my attention. The new album by Annie Lennox of the Eurhythmics, Nostalgia, certainly does.

No histrionics. No gimmicks. Intelligent interpretations of standards. First rate!

Aint't it the truth

RBP appreciates Woody Allen and so do I.

http://roundbendpress.blogspot.com/2014/12/woody.html