Last week I noticed that Anderson Cooper, on CNN, was doing a series of reports on location in the Congo. I really didn't have time last week to pay much attention. Something going on every night. But tonight, as I surfed around during football commercials, I noticed that they were showing Cooper's CNN reports. Something in me wasn't interested. It was Africa, and everything is dismal in Africa. Whereas NFL games are fun. My urge was to surf on by, and eventually meander back to the NFL game.
But I stopped myself. Why wasn't I interested in this report on Africa? We criticize news media for acting like Africa doesn't exist. And here was CNN, pouring no doubt millions of dollars into reporting on the needs in Africa (Sonjay Gupta was also reporting from Chad for Anderson Cooper). And I wasn't interested? I preferred football?
So I told myself, "Steve, you need to be interested." And I stayed. And I watched the report. And I was fascinated. This was really great reporting, and I'm better for having watched it. So thanks, Anderson, for taking such an interest in something which, sadly, doesn't interest too many of your viewer and may have even been a ratings loser for you. Thanks for taking more of an interest than I usually take in Africa. And thanks for putting yourself at risk to inform complacent viewers about the enormous human needs in the Congo and elsewhere.
Career-wise, I've been hanging around and writing about and cheering on churches and pastors for the past 25 years as my denomination's Communications Director.
I've been following Anderson Cooper's 360 blog on CNN.com. There's some good stuff on there from both Gupta and Cooper. You should check it out.
Brad Kreft
Morning Briefing
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I take pleasure in cooking with a Dutch oven, whether it be over a campfire or a camp stove. Dutch Oven cooking is an art form. Once you have some experience you can invent anything that can be cooked or baked at home with your modern appliances.
I have baked rolls, cake and even pizza in a Dutch oven. One dish meals such as stews and soups are the best when made in a Dutch oven. Meat, even the cheapest cuts can be made tender and delicious in a Dutch oven.
There are a few tricks concerning the cooking source that are important to flourishing Dutch oven cooking. They can be the difference between undercooked or burnt food.
When I am preparing for a delicious meal such as a meat dish such as ribs, chicken or roast, something that helps is brown the meat in the Dutch oven on a camp stove. Then the flavor from the browned meat is in the Dutch oven and the finished product includes all the taste. Another thing it does is this gets the Dutch oven hot so when it is placed on the coals, they advance the heat and energy so it isn't lost trying to heat the Dutch oven up.
You have to make sure the heat isn't too hot or too cold. To take a line from the three bears, it must be, "just right." This might seem hard to get perfect, but if you are using charcoal briquettes it is as simple as counting the number of briquettes to put under and on top of the Dutch oven.
Place as many as you would like of the briquettes under the Dutch oven as its size along with two more than that number on the lid. This will give you a temperature of 350 degrees. Imagine if if you are using a size 12 Dutch oven, put 12 briquettes under the Dutch oven and 14 on the lid. If baking is included at all I propose using briquettes.
If you are using a campfire you need to burn the wood down to coals and use the coals to heat the Dutch oven. I like to keep a campfire burning to replace coals as needed. Usually ever 30 to 40 minutes. This requires you to make a place outside of the campfire to place your coals for the Dutch oven. If you don't do this and leave the Dutch oven in the fire pit with the fire burning you will probably end up with the food burned on the side closest to the fire.
Traditionally I use a fire pan of some kind, I suggest using the lid of a garbage can, to put the coals in. This makes it a lot easier to clean up of the ashes and you don't have coals and ashes strewn all over your campsite.
Cooking with wood coals requires some skill learned by experience to figure out the right temperature for the food you are cooking. There are many types of wood that make better coals than others. Often we don't have the choice of having the best wood available every time and just use what we have. So it takes a little more concentrating to make sure the dish you are preparing gets done properly. I don't worry about this too much when cooking meats and stews. This may be more of a nuisance when baking food such as cakes and rolls. The consistent and correct temperature is more important when baking, so the item doesn't burn or become under cooked. Doughy rolls or soggy cake is a real discouragement after all the work you go through to make them.
You can also just use a camp stove and not have a fire or coals at all. This works wonderfully with one dish meals and dishes with a lot of moisture in them. A camp stove doesn't do as well for baked food stuffs though because there isn't any heat on the lid.
The best thing to do is just try it find Dutch oven recipe that looks good. They are on the internet or in special Dutch oven cookbooks. Follow the instructions and you will have a great meal that tastes better than anything you have ever cooked before. Especially if you cook it while camping in the mountains.