Baseball vernacular is great – so descriptive of the foibles we encounter while living.  Sometimes that ball comes charging at you going 95 miles an hour, other times you can hit it out of the park when it comes to you in a perfect arc. Vin Scully is my favorite broadcaster – he has a wealth of witticisms, and brings me back to listening to the games on a transistor radio.  Can’t stand to hear the way the game is called today on TV – different audience, different priorities, different game.  Have to go there in person to enjoy the play, or just turn off the sound.

Today’s title, though, applies to the Kentucky Derby yesterday, when Bodemeister was edged out of contention in the home stretch by I’ll Have Another.  Great race, even though Bodemeister hit the stat splits but came up empty at the finish.  I usually wear my hat during the broadcast, but we taped and watched it later and I didn’t have a pick going in to the race.  Didn’t have the ingredients for a mint julep in the house, but made due with a shot of cinnamon-infused Red Stag, courtesy of Jim Beam.  I am sure I will find out a way to use that stuff in cooking, at some point.

My day was a continuation from the previous evening, when I had mixed a starter for some home made olive bread…it rose beautifully, and I was able to reproduce it from my scratchy notes, which were attached to the King Arthur bagel recipe I had modified for the bread.  Love the texture of bagels, and thought it would be good in a bread, had a jar of greek olives on hand – you get the picture. Now all I have to work on is the right oven temp and baking time.

There are recipes that instruct you to heat the oven to like 5000 degrees (ok, I exaggerate, but you get the point when your jewelry burns your skin as you open the oven door and there’s smoke) and put a pan of water on the bottom (are you CRAZY???? this is a house, not a restaurant).  To get that crispy crust without killing the crumb, nothing less than a good spritz of water and baking at a higher temperature will do.  I concede the point. Note to self – 350 degree doesn’t do it.  Note 2 to self – a pan with ice cubes and water evaporates pretty fast and is not a good thing on the oven floor; makes for nasty stuff.  I like simple ingredients, a simple mix, and a painless delivery.

I also like Trader Joe’s Goat Milk Cream Cheese spread on my olive bread.  And when it’s toasted?  YES!  Pour some more tea there, will ya?

We’re past the picket fence on the scoreboard and that horse is coming in on the stretch…..