Thanksgiving Day, 9 a.m.

In the first hour of grilling, the outer flesh of the bird is seared, turning the skin a pleasing light gold. Given their relative fragility and close proximity to the hot coals, the risk now is burning the wings and drumsticks. Accordingly, I wrap the sides in heavy-duty aluminum foil. The resulting tent also convects the steam rising from the roasting pan up over the skin, and hence bastes the turkey for me.

I love smoked meats, but Mrs. Curmudgeon is not so enthusiastic. After my first turkey came out closer to bacon than not, I began adding hardwood to the coals only after the first hour of cooking. The smoke doesn't penetrate already-cooked meat as deeply, and the result is a very lightly smoked flavor, almost barely noticeable.

In recent years I've been using branches from an old cedar tree we took down from our front yard a while back, but, as previously mentioned, I have some crabapple branches with which to work this Thanksgiving. I place one on either side of the roasting pan, add some fresh coals, replace the lid, adjust the vents to a medium heat, and begin hanging Christmas lights on the house.

(Technically speaking, you don't need to hang Christmas lights in order to properly grill a turkey, but it works for me.)

Thanksgiving Day, 8 a.m.

In The Barbecue Bible, Steve Raichlen suggests from 15 to 20 minutes for a grilled turkey. In my experience, the actual range is anywhere from 12 to 25 minutes. The key factor appears to be cloud cover, with prevailing winds and temperature also strong contributors. This year's turkey weighs in at 21 pounds, and as it will have to be transported to an off-site dining location, I've decided to work with a conservative cooking time of five hours.

I grill the turkey on a rack in a roasting pan which rests on the Weber's charcoal grate; a turkey is too big to sit on the regular grilling grate and still fit under the lid. I pile the hot coals along the side of the roasting pan, in which I maintain about an inch of water to keep the heat from bending the thin metal. Turkey drippings in that water, happily enough, create an excellent stock for gravy. (This year, I strengthened the stock by putting the neck and giblets in the pan as well.) After a half-dozen or so turkeys, though, my roasting pan has begun to rust. This year, the turkey rested in a disposable pan liner. With water in both pans, I suppose I achieved a double boiler effect, although I can't imagine what that might have accomplished.

The turkey goes on, and then I wait an hour for the next step.

Thanksgiving Day, 7 a.m.

I light my coals in a chimney an hour before the turkey is to begin grilling, as the set-up is rather time-consuming. I do this on the gas grill in order to minimize soot on my Weber 22", which I use for all my artisanal grilling.

(Yes, that is an authentic set of vintage Korean barbecue tongs [circa 1968]: a legacy from Pa Curmudgeon's legendary bachelor days which I use to handle hot coals.)

Then I haul the brining bucket from the garage refrigerator (yes, I have to pull out several shelves and let my beer sit overnight at the garage's ambient temperature; no sacrifice is too great for a masterpiece) and drain the turkey in the kitchen sink. Most recipes recommend rinsing the brine from the turkey. However, I rinse the turkey before brining, and my theory is that any residual brine will merely add flavor to the pan drippings, and hence to the inevitable gravy.

Men start the turkey on Wednesday

If memory serves (and let's be honest: it rarely does), it was seven years ago that Mrs. Curmudgeon told me I would be making the Thanksgiving turkey on the Weber grill. After I stopped hyperventilating, I began obsessing, and now I have raised the grilled turkey to a fine art. Strangely, it only occurred to me this year that I have been depriving the world of my vast, hard-earned expertise. This year, I have decided to blog my highly-developed process for the world's benefit.

You're welcome, world.

Turkeys, whether in the oven or on the grill, easily dry out because of the extended cooking time. The solution: brine. The webernet is full of brine recipes, but all you really need is a cup of salt and a tablespoon of pickling spice per gallon of water. (Many recipes also recommend kosher or sea salt. Pretentious much?) This year I was given some crabapple branches to use for smoking, so I thought I'd try to accent the sweetness by adding a little extra brown sugar, along with a bottle of white wine which Mrs. Curmudgeon and I found overly sugared.

I have a 5-gallon bucket in the garage reserved exclusively for turkey brining. I recommend brining for 12-24 hours before cooking; today, that meant about noon.

This year, we're doing our largest bird yet (21 pounds), and it has to be ready (more or less) by 1 p.m. Since that means I have to prep the grill around 7 a.m. on Thursday, I also loaded my charcoal chimney and set out my grilling tools.

Only amateurs think turkeys are prepared on Thanksgiving Day.

Calvin and the Mystery of Believing (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition, p. 947 [vol. 2])

Every other Wednesday some of our congregation's members get together to discuss Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, and lately we've been in Book III, chapters 21-24, in which he discusses the doctrines of election and predestination. As it happens, just last week the Beeson podcast featured John L. Thompson's lecture "Calvin and the Mystery of Believing," itself a defense of the historic doctrine of predestination.

Sometimes the line between predestination and irony is wafer-thin.

At any rate, Thompson's lecture is a remarkably succint and clear presentation of the historic reformed understanding of the relationship between predestination and free will. Calvin deals with free will much earlier in his Institutes under the heading of anthropology in Book II, chapters 1-5; election is reserved for Book III because that section is on how believers receive God's grace in Christ. Nonetheless, the two doctrines are inextricably intertwined, and Thompson introduces them marvelously well. He is a model of Westminster Confession of Faith 3.8: "The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men, attending the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of the effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election."

Despite his Calvinistic emphasis on obtaining assurance, Thompson's lecture has an apologetic note, as he knows his audience will include some Christians hostile to the doctrine of election. To these, Calvin himself says, "Now when human understanding hears these things, its insolence is so irrepressible that it breaks forth into random and immoderate tumult as if at the blast of a battle trumpet."

[Updated on November 19, 2013]

Laying my reputation down

Don't worry: I am still a very, very cranky person. Nonetheless, the cockles of the stone which fills my chest cavity where a heart belongs were strangely warmed by this BBC story about the Batkid. Warning: those without curmudgeonly armor will certainly weep like little schoolgirls.

Oh, make sure to click on the link to the indictment against the Riddler and the Penguin. Awesome.

Man of Steel

I'm sure I've got the line wrong, but as I remember it, sometime after Diane Court dumped Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything, he said "If you start out the day with low expectations, everything after that is sort of a pleasant surprise." Thankfully, my expectations for Superman movies have become so low that I seem to be beyond disappointment. I'm able to take enough of a bemused distance to have something like a rational response to Man of Steel.

After the hysterical 300 and the tepid Watchmen (let us not mention Legends of the Guardians: Owls of Ga'Hoole), I feared what director Zack Snyder would do to Superman. He was delivered from his worst instincts, I think, by Christopher Nolan, who shares story and producing credits. Nolan was the visionary behind the latest Batman trilogy (starring Christian Bale in the title role), and his work there demonstrated deep knowledge of how that character had developed in comic books since the mid-80s, and particularly in the hands of Frank Miller. Miller's influence on Nolan is clearly evident in Man of Steel's third act: the vivid, nearly silent sequence of an enervated Superman flying haltingly into sunlight to be recharged and re-energized is taken directly from a scene in the third volume of Miller's landmark Dark Knight series. This is so much the case that I wonder whether those unfamiliar with the Dark Knight understood what was going on.

I never read Superman comics very much, but was drawn in for a time by the John Byrne revival/renewal, also in the mid-80s. Before that kind of thing was in vogue, DC Comics handed Superman over to Byrne, who completely rewrote the character and his backstory. As part of that project, he developed a rather complex history for Superman's home planet of Krypton. The Krypton of Nolan and his co-writers was clearly influenced by Byrne's, especially in its visual elements. The notion of a genetically-engineered and -determined civilization was also first developed by Byrne.

 My Superman is heavily influenced by John Byrne, who I believe got the American heart of the character which makes him so enduring. As Frank Miller also understood, Superman operates from an absolute moral clarity. His charisma is not his god-like power, but his absolute determination to serve and protect his nation and world. That fact makes Man of Steel's plotline somewhat confusing. The first act has young Clark Kent walking the earth (like Cain or Kung Fu), seeking his purpose in life. This makes sense only because this has become a modern-day storytelling convention, particularly in big costume action movies. My Superman has never doubted his purpose, not for a moment.

[As best as I can tell, this walk-the-earth trope is rooted in an over-simplification of the quest motif  as articulated in Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. Since Superman literally descends to earth, already equipped with all the powers he will ever have, sending him on a search for power and identity is particularly inappropriate.]

The confused-young-man bit is also at odds with what can be called a theme only if "theme" is defined as "a plot element with which you are hit between the eyes much after the manner of a 2x4." Superman-as-messiah has been an element in the character since at least the late 20th century, and was brought to the fore in his last film, Superman Returns. In Man of Steel, what had been implied and symbolized is made absolutely explicit by both of Superman's fathers, Jor-El and Jonathan Kent. Jor-El first tells his wife Lara, and then his adult son Kal-El (Superman's Kryptonian name) by way of Kryptonian interactive hologram, that the boy is being sent to Earth by design, and is to grow up to save the world. His adoptive father, the Kansas farmer, is equally convinced the boy has a salvific destiny.

If you ask me, better to keep messianism an implicit theme; cool as Superman is, Jesus makes him look silly by comparison. But I wasn't asked (again!), and I can live with it. However, I am nothing but aggravated by Jonathan Kent's insistence that young Clark keep his abilities secret, and even unused, lest he somehow get in trouble. This is just insane, and not just because IT WOULD BE VERY DIFFICULT TO CAUSE SUPERMAN TROUBLE. Superman is from Kansas as much as from Krypton, and as such is the embodiment of the middle-American virtue of reflexive patriotic service. Jonathan Kent would never hold his son back from helping others, and as good a performance as Kevin Costner turns in, what Man of Steel makes him do and say is entirely unfathomable and unbelievable.

For all that, the movie moves along nicely. It's anchored by excellent acting throughout, and all the outer space and special effects are credible and never become ridiculous. If you start out with low expectations, Man of Steel is entertaining; but that's all it is.

Voltaire's Bastards

On last week's Econtalk podcast, Russ Roberts spoke to John Ralston Saul on the occasion of the re-issue of his 1992 book Voltaire's Bastards. In it, and in the interview, Saul argues that rationality has displaced the old humanism, and a society which uses only the norm of rationality is a poor and deformed one. I would have enjoyed the interview without necessarily making a recommendation were it not for the close. Saul raises the example of Nazi architect Adolf Eichmann and Roberts replies with Saul's own point that technology has improved, but humans are still the same. Provocative.

Baking bread

It was Mrs. Curmudgeon who said, "You can't not buy that shirt."

The People vs. George Lucas

I saw Star Wars (no, not Episode IV: A New Hope; just plain Star Wars, you young wise-acre) for the first time when I was seven years old, and in Spanish. (Because my family was living in Madrid.) I didn't understand a word, and I don't think I breathed for the entire two hours. Like all boys my age, I was hooked and obsessed. But then Return of Jedi finally came out, it was okay, I was thirteen, and I moved on with my life. Then George Lucas re-released the original trilogy when I was in seminary in preparation for the prequel trilogy. With several classmates I went to see Star Wars (again, Star Wars, not Episode IV), and I was surprised to learn it was bad. I mean, bad as in not good, not bad as in "Han Solo shot first." This was my first inkling that maybe, just maybe, my seven year-old self was a tad lacking in aesthetic sophistication. Who knew?

Anyway. That's all to say that I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a Star Wars fan, but I was blown away by The People vs. George Lucas, which documents fandom's profound disappointment with what George Lucas did with the whole Star Wars franchise after 1983. It's a fascinating display of  love and obsession. Every moment is compelling, and most of it is very, very funny.

Watch and wonder at the human condition. Highly recommended.

A presbyterian asks about the BSA membership requirements change

Last Saturday I attended the Denver Area Council's University of Scouting, a day of coursework and training (some mandatory, some elective) for adult leaders in Boy Scouts of America programs. These annual events are, for me, a reminder of why I am a Scouter. Even as a hard-shell Calvinist, I am encouraged to be surrounded by the best of humanity, people who are sincerely interested in helping others and in enabling America's youth to grow into healthy and mature adults.

But then there's what is ungainly called the "BSA membership requirements change;" i.e., the decision to open up membership to boys of avowed homosexual orientation as of January 1, 2014. The DAC took the bull by the horns and scheduled a two-hour session during the University of Scouting to introduce the new policy and take questions. To my surprise, only a half-dozen or so Scouters attended, and, so far as I could tell from the questions and comments offered, I was the only one opposed to the change. I was listened to with courtesy and care, and my questions were taken seriously. (It may have helped that I was asking questions, not making speeches.) To his everlasting credit, the Scout Executive (i.e., the Council's CEO), John Cabeza, spent about a half-hour with me after the session broke up, as did the two presenters.

The new policy states that membership in the BSA cannot be denied to a young person on the basis of sexual orientation alone. My question was whether I, as an adult leader, would be constrained from clearly stating my Biblically-informed beliefs about sexual ethics (in appropriate contexts, of course), or whether a religiously-informed chartering organization could use its Scouting program to further its teachings on sexual morality. I knew both of these were fine on January 1, 2013, but I wasn't sure what would happen on January 1, 2014.

[Note: Scouting units are chartered by organizations such as schools, Churches, clubs, etc.; chartering organizations are free to use their Scouting programs to further their own agendas for educating young people so long as those are not in conflict with BSA policies.]

The takeaway: my conscience is not bound (an important issue for a presbyterian; see the Westminster Confession of Faith on Christian Liberty). I can continue to act with integrity when I put on my uniform. Moreover, Scouting units which would teach Biblical sexual ethics in the past can continue to do so. The only change is that they may not exclude youth on the basis of sexual orientation.

In fact, I was told that chartering organizations can put narrower constraints on their membership requirements for youth: for example, a Church could limit its Scouting program to its members. That was a surprise to me, and I have to do more research before I can say that's accurate information.

So, as a presbyterian clergyman, my membership in the BSA puts no constraints on my conscience. In that sense, I can continue to serve as an adult leader. Sadly, that narrow concern does nothing to allay my concerns over the BSA's future. One of the presenters at Saturday's session said, "It would be a shame if a 15 year-old boy had made Life rank and was well on his way to Eagle, but then had to leave the program because he decided he was homosexual." Replace "homosexual" with "atheist," and you can see where we're headed.

Salving my conscience may turn out to be cold comfort.