A FOOTBALL FAIRY TALE

For you Gentle Readers who are not a fan of the brutal American sport known as football, you may wish to scroll down to the food section of today's post.

For the rest of you, harken to a tale straight out of a book of fairy stories.

The mighty but aging knight, Sir Peyton Manning, and his remarkable defensive forces yesterday took down the Knight Errant, Cam Newton, and his streak of panthers.

(Yes, a group of panthers is known as a "streak", even though they don't travel in groups.)

It was an epic adventure of romantic fiction.

Not even the biggest Bronco fan I know, Timmer, thought Denver would win.

The scribes in the sports media were certain, dead certain, that young, sturdy, handsome Cam would take the day.

Everyone thought that Manning had lost too much over the past few years to rouse his team to victory.

Well, not quite everyone.

The man known as Cranky in the blogworld made this stunning prediction days in advance of The Big Game.

Congratulations to him!

And may all praise be heaped on the brow of Sir Manning, who by all rights should now announce his retirement and the end of a legendary career.

As for his postgame interviews all he would say was that he was going to drink a lot of beer last night!

THE FOOD SECTION

Okay, you fans of another subject - what treats we find in the Catalyst's kitchen - it is your time.

We did have oven baked baby back ribs slathered in Sweet Baby Ray's sweet and smoky barbecue sauce yesterday.

And asparagus and warmed-up macaroni and cheese and a salad and wine.

None of which I photographed, sorry me.

But I did get a couple of pics of  something I had baked up earlier in the day.

Home made baguettes.

They're sort of crude in appearance in part because the knife I used to slash the tops before baking was not nearly sharp enough to do the job.

But they were tasty accompaniments to SWMBO's wonderful dinner.

Nothin' like home-made bread.