Diamonds and Dogs
When I think of June, I think of baseball.
Many afternoons you can find me nestled along the third base line, enjoying America’s Favorite Pastime in a bleacher packed with parents and grandparents.
Why does this crazy game resonate with me?
Maybe because there is an inordinate amount of failure in baseball. “It’s a swing and a miss,” I can hear the Dodger’s Legendary Vin Scully announcing from the memories of my mind.
Failing at bat most of the time is a “normal day on the job” in baseball.
And there’s been a fair share of failure in my life, too.
Divorce. Bankruptcy. Broken dreams. Heartbreak. Goals set and not reached. Grad school interrupted. Manuscripts rejected. Giving the ring back after a broken engagement.
Multiple swings and misses. A plummeting batting average. Dragging my bat back to the dugout, slumped shoulders signaling a strikeout.
Lesser creatures would’ve stopped trying…accepted the roadblocks and the disappointing outcomes.
What makes humans different from the rats in the maze who stop performing when barricades spring up along the way?
A sense of purposefulness and the resilience it fosters, hint at a unique quality in the experience of being human. If God has me breathing, I believe there is work for me to do, a discouraged pilgrim to lift up, or another heart to help mend. My faith simply will not allow me to give up or give in. Perhaps you feel the same.
Denied dreams taunt us to dig deeper and to apply trust to the Creator who has promised a larger story than the one the daily details tell.
Of course, this is the kind of discussion I love to have around the table. Dining and conversation belong together and there is a special anointing to our menus when they are featured with friends and food we love. Things just taste better.
When I owned a cooking school, I coined a phrase called “The Dodger Dog Effect.” I believed that particular plates, served up in the perfectly matched environment, took on a superior, otherworldly quality that could never be topped.
The foot-long franks that I ate with my dad at Chavez Ravine watching Don Drysdale or Sandy Koufax pitch would always be the “best I ever had.”
“Firecracker Franks,” however, give Dodger Dogs a run for their money. It’s fun to dress up a dog for the 4th, and accompanied by a slice of summertime watermelon and blueberry crisp with vanilla ice cream, this meal may just be “the best I ever had.”
Find those recipes here.
Now, “Play Ball!” And pass the mustard!
xo,
Carole