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Food Thread: Football And Food...A Match Made In Heaven.

Maybe not that specific food, but I wonder why football food is so much more important than baseball or hockey or basketball (does anyone know if the NBA is still around?). Yes, the games are a bit longer, but there is an entire culture that has grown up around the football meal, and not just tailgating! It's in the home as well. Chicken wings, all sorts of dips, nachos, potato skins, chili, deviled eggs, guacamole, pizza, jalapeno poppers, pigs in a blanket, and on and on and on!

What is it about football? maybe that there are usually multiple games, so the games intrude upon normal meal time? Or the embarrassing pomp and circumstance of the games lends itself to food and drink excess?

Who knows. But it can be fun, especially since it is, in most homes, restricted to a Sunday or two, and not the interminably long entire season!

So what's your favorite football food? I am partial to pizza and wings! Pizza wreaks havoc on my waistline, so I try to limit it, but wings are almost always fun, and rarely bad. Hell, my local Applebee's has excellent wings! (Please don't tell anyone that I have eaten there)

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The new food pyramid is great, at least in comparison to the ridiculous one that emerged from the gaping maw of our government in the last century. And since it pissed off all the right people, I am thrilled! But it also makes me sad that Americans have become so detached from their food, from the farms to their tables, that they don't know how to construct a healthful diet.

Eat a wide variety of foods, cooked by you from fresh raw ingredients, be active, and don't eat too much. That's my method, and it seems to work pretty well. Sure, I try to avoid a lot of carbs, because they seem to make me fat, but if they work for you, go for it!

The insane focus on food misses the mark. It is supposed to be a pleasure. It is supposed to be a centerpiece for the family. It is supposed to be a respite from the insanity of the world. Instead, too many of us have dragged the complexity of the modern world into the kitchen, and it has made us fat and worried!

Relax, have a piece of bacon, and enjoy the bounty of our wonderful world!

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Because I am a cooking nerd I will often add complexity to a simple dish, because I think there might be some marginal improvement in the end result. So when I decided to sear chicken thighs in a Paella-inspired spice rub, then finish them in a warm oven, I realized that I could add significant time and a bit of complexity without an appreciable improvement in taste, well, I had to jump!

So I boned the chicken thighs so they could lay flatter in the pan and get more of the skin nice and crisp and crusty and gloriously brown. And it's easy, but time consuming.

Was it worth it? No, probably not, because the spice mixture worked great (a lot of Paprika, Oregano, salt and pepper), and finishing them in a warm oven kept them lovely and moist, and the marginal extra crisp skin was...um...marginal!

But it was fun to do, so I will probably keep doing it that way until I get really good at removing the bone, then I will never make the dish again!

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Speaking of Football Food! Here's a solid recipe from the website "Amazing Ribs." Easy BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe works well, although I think that he uses too much Rosemary in his signature rub. But that's just my personal taste...you might think that it is the Platonic ideal of dry rubs!
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That's a beef cut guide from South Africa! We are used to a particular way of butchering beef, but most countries have their own way of doing it, and the end result is just a bit different, but amusing and sometimes delicious.

For instance, the French cut their lamb into a shoulder roast (epaule) that is delicious, and amazingly tender in comparison to our traditional cuts.

Does anyone have experience with that sort of thing?

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Anne Burrell was a fine chef, whose recipes were also written well enough for the home cook to decipher, and not just roll our eyes and say, "F*ck off, there are too many steps and too many ingredients."

Her Focaccia recipe is a winner, and if you are feeling energetic, make her Ricotta the same day. The combination is delicious. Focaccia and Ricotta.

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It's a four-panel cartoon, so it's impossible to see on the blog, but click it and you won't be disappointed!
Calvin And Hobbes
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A friend graciously gave me some genuine grown-in-the-USA garlic, and I tasted one clove and planted the rest, because my pathetic failure last year is an anomaly...right? I hope so, because it's in the ground (actually, a large pot), and it had better work this time!

Send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!