Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

Well, there's not too much that makes a University of Alabama grad happier than the start of football season -- especially after last season's National Championship. Bama opens against San Jose State this Saturday minus Heisman-winning Mark Ingram, who's out due to a knee injury. It'll be interesting to see how the team adjusts.

Our family is thinking about watching the game with other Crimson Tide fans at the suburban gamewatch location in Downers Grove at a sports bar called Another Round. Wonder what Nicolas would think of multiple screaming Bama fans?

German Dutch Baby Pancakes

This morning is a quiet one. After a week with mom, College Boy returned last evening via Greyhound bus to Drury University. I do not recommend travel by bus, at least not Greyhound. When I was a college student myself eons ago, I once made the 90-mile-trip home from the University of Alabama to Prattville on a rickety old Trailways bus. Let’s say the trip motivated me to find another way home. I think I can safely say the same for CB, who definitely picked up a couple of stories to write about. Some things never change.

CB is good company though, and I do miss him already. We watched a couple of movies, Crazy Heart (recommended with a caveat or two: It reminds me of Robert Duvall’s 1983 Tender Mercies — whose plot summary according to IMDb is: “Alcoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.” Well, Duvall won an Oscar in 1984, and so did Jeff Bridges this year, and who I am to question reusing plot lines if it works. But I did ask myself what the heck moved a young thing like Maggie Gyllenhaal to shack up with a broken-down man like Bad Blake?). CB and I also watched Blind Side, and being from the South and loving football, how could we not like this one?

One night, elder son made us homemade pasta and sauce (Bolognese with pappardelle), and another night, I barbecued (a.k.a. burned up) some chicken slathered with the remaining Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce I was saving for a special occasion. The chicken was accompanied by my potato salad, which CB had requested.

On my morning off, CB and I went over to our favorite Batavia breakfast spot, Lume’s, and indulged in a Dutch Baby German pancake. If you have never had one, I recommend you try them. In these parts they are rather expensive, and I thought I’d give making them at home a try. And thus, I discovered, they are amazingly easy to make and right tasty too.

• Here’s my version with slight modifications to the recipe found at How to Make German Pancakes—Dutch Babies. I used the smaller version, which the author says serves 2 to 4. First revision: I ate the whole thing but would say it would serve 2 non-gluttonous individuals quite well.
• The eggs and milk were just out of the refrigerator. I am an impatient sort.
• Forget the business about bread flour as opposed to all-purpose flour. I can’t imagine my Dutch Baby any higher.
• I used more vanilla and skipped the cinnamon and added about a quarter cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of butter instead of 7 teaspoons, which might be the equivalent but I didn’t want to calculate differences in tablespoons and teaspoons.
• I used a well-seasoned 8-inch cast-iron skillet and would recommend a 10-inch instead simply for the reason that instead of a quarter-inch bottom, I ended up with a half-inch depth. Not bad—just might have been a tad better if it had been thinner. Be sure to follow the recipe as to getting your oven and skillet hot before adding the butter (probably ought to melt it) and then the batter. My Baby cooked in approximately 15 minutes. So, I would suggest you check on your pancake prior to 20 minutes just to be on the safe side.

Well, you can see from the photos the Baby turned out pretty pouffy. After sifting confectioner’s sugar over the Baby, I served it with lemon slices and syrup. Somehow I felt the Baby deserved an upgrade from Hungry Jack Lite syrup, but that was all I had in the house.

Happy Saturday!

Awesome Crimson Tide Christmas Present

Work with me here folks. I am supposed to be doing my annual Christmas Countdown and while one of my readers suggested I post a photo of the Christmas tree when I got it up, I'd rather post about a non-Christmas subject--football. Well, except I think I have found a way to tie the two together.

Here goes. I really was thinking about Christmas and visited some Web sites selling University of Alabama merchandise looking for ideas for gifts. No hints here, but I think the intended recipients are clueless since they don't usually read the blog.

But lo and behold, I discovered a new product which I think is worthy of comment. You see it pictured here. No intended gift recipient has a satellite dish, but I thought, "How neat!" Now you can show your team spirit and cover that boring dish with the Dishrag. I really liked the name too.

I will have some more Christmas posts--so many I am practically bursting at the seams. Only, I am so crazy-busy at work (I am one of Santa's Elves, after all), that it's hard to find time to write.

Meanwhile, Happy Shopping dear gentle readers.

Tide Swamps Florida

Pardon my brief deviation from the Christmas theme this morning, but in a way the University of Alabama’s rout of #1 Florida last night is an early Christmas present for the Tide Nation. Coach Nick Sabin coached like those with the big bucks hoped he would, and the players played with heart and desire. Doesn’t get better than this with college football. As much as I respect Florida’s quarterback Tim Tebow, his faith in God, and his talent, I just wanted to say to him, “Tim, there’s no crying in football.”

All is well—least football-wise. The New York Times summed up my thoughts: “In football-crazed Alabama, it will mark a return to order in the football universe.” Happy Sunday!

Bama Quilt Gets a Tryout

I finally finished the quilt for Nicolas. Here he is lounging around on it at a wedding shower last weekend at a wedding shower in his mom’s hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri. Nic was the only guy there. His dad was at Grandpa and Grandma Hammer’s house watching Alabama’s A-Day football game on ESPN. Unlike urban protocol, Mid-America small-town protocol still allows that men don’t much care for attending wedding showers. Personally, I agree, but Nic did not seem to mind one bit I am told.

Sewing Up Some Football

Months ago I wrote about my adventures in learning how to quilt. Maybe I should say my misadventures. I have ripped out more than I have sewn it seems (did that pun escape you?).

However, Nic’s quilt for Christmas, which I hoped to have finished by the Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl game—it’s today dear gentle non-football-fan readers, is coming along.
I have discovered that this project, launched with nary a pattern to guide me, has been immensely fun as well as immensely time consuming. My day job is interfering in the progress of this seat-of-my-pants project.

I am not your grandma’s quilter, content to choose a pattern someone else designed. I have chosen to design my own. Yet, what you see here is not what I set out to create. It was much more ambitious.

There is much left to do but I have finished the quilt top. Next, I will attach the back and inner batting to the top and then “quilt” the whole thing by hand. Thank God it is only a crib-size quilt. And thank God for the little Project Runway Brother sewing machine I recently bought. I used it to appliqué the letters and footballs.

I will let you know how it turns out, but I have a football game to get ready for. ROOOLL TIDE!

NOTE: I like the new sewing machine from Brother but do not expect to see me trying out for Project Runway. Now if they had a show about designing quilts and such, I might give that a shot.

Chasing Bear Bryant

“It’s not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” Paul Bear Bryant

Georgia Bulldog fans dressed themselves in black to psyche out Alabama’s Crimson Tide for the Saturday night game. Frat boys painted their shirtless bodies with black. Little did they expect the evening to turn out as more of a funeral. Bama, under Nick Sabin’s coaching, came to play and play they did, ending the first half with a 31 to zip lead. While Georgia managed to adjust somewhat the second half, the game ended 41-30. I’d say that’s a funeral.

The real story is that when the Tide rolls like this, fans dream that the new coach is chasing Bear Bryant’s legend.

In August, Forbes magazine featured Sabin on the cover with the headline, “Sports’ Most Powerful Coach.” The story begins with this question: “College football has long been a big business. But the money and control Alabama gave Nick Saban raised the stakes to an unprecedented level. Is he worth it?”

Football, and especially football in the South, is akin to religion, and I am very religious in autumn when the boys are on the field and the leaves have only begun to think about falling.

Make no mistake, Forbes is right. This is big business. As University of Alabama President Robert Witt says of the recent $500 million capital campaign, “We have had 100,000 donors in that campaign, and a major reason they support us is football.” Tight-fisted Alabama taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for Saban’s salary or the athletic program. A higher caliber of student is attracted to the university and fundraising is easier. And many faculty members have quieted their criticisms for these very reasons.

But Bulldogs, remember, the good guys always wear white (and red). Roll Tide!

Photo Note: Nicolas Bryant and his daddy were all decked out in Bama attire for Nic’s first game watched on ESPN.

The Tide Rolls at National Signing Day

According to rivals.com, my Alma Mater, the University of Alabama, is sitting at the top of the heap for National Signing Day. If you are clueless about what I’m talking about, let me clarify. It’s college football and today is the day top high school players signed letters of intent.

Coach Nick Saban and his recruiting staff snagged several amazing and highly sought after players like Julio Jones from Foley, Alabama. Jones is the nation’s number one receiver.

Roll Tide!

Dogs. In my opinion, how you feel about dogs and cats is sort of like how you feel about Alabama and Auburn. When you're born or move to the state, you are either Alabama or Auburn. You really can’t be for both. Doesn’t work that way.

Same thing with dogs and cats. You are either a dog or a cat person. Now, I grew up with both. Out in the country, we were always getting unwanted and discarded animals. Usually, just when the mama was ready to deliver pups or kittens. One time a huntin' dog had 15 puppies, and I have repressed from my memory what my daddy did with them all. I imagine he didn't take them to the humane shelter. I had cats too, but they were never as much fun to me since I could only dress them up and they'd never agree to be placed on my trike, and they were forever leaping out of the baby buggy. So, I grew up loving dogs better and consider myself a dog person.

I'm currently a dog person without a dog, though. Our English Springer Spaniel that we had for over 13 years died in February. I was the one who had her put down, and it took me at least two months before I could even go get her ashes at the vet’s. They finally called me and said, "Sam’s ashes are here."

And now I’m finally around to the news we got from Jeff and Natalie. They have a new home away from downtown Chicago and there’s room for a dog. They had thought about a rescue dog but found an ad in the Chicago Tribune for Springers. Last Sunday, they went out and picked out Sienna. So now in about three weeks when she’s ready to leave her doggie family, I’ll have a granddog. She really is too cute.