Super Day...

After the team breakfast




we began the pre-game conditioning with a morning of hunting and gathering supplies for the game, and spent time prepping, poaching, grilling, mixing, combining, etc. to line up the various plays for the game. A couple attempts at watching the pre-game crap made it easy to stay in the kitchen so we were pretty well set and settled in by the time the “real” coverage began around six. Some unidentified fan showed up…



We stared the pregame warmup with the nuts, chips, dips, and orange puffs



All washed down with a hearty Smithwick’s. So, suitably salted and building an appetite, the serious televised pregame activity started with a pretty nice reading of the Declaration of Independence (which I’m sure you all saw) by various luminaries. That was the start of serious decline of non-football coverage, when Christina Aguilera provided what must be the worst rendition of the National Anthem seen (was she really in pain?) and heard (at least get the words right!!) in a long time. It was followed by a fly over of a stadium with closed roof. At least the fans whose seats were taken away from them and standing outside enjoyed that. Anyway, with the first quarter underway, so were we with the Gouda and Herbes de Provence Salami. Boy that stuff is good. Gets in your teeth though…



When the second quarter started we brought out the chilled shrimp along with the homemade pimento cheese spread. Our wonderful markets never heard of anything called “cocktail rye”, so we had to use Carr’s crackers instead. We finished off the ’03 Mumm Napa Blanc de Blanc that provided the team breakfasts mimosas..The shell on shrimp were boiled in some Zatarain’s which was allowed to reduce some before adding the shrimp, then plunged in ice, and peeled just before serving. The pimento spread was not quite as good as I remembered, but I halved the recipe and I may have overdone the cayenne, they were a bit spicy. But, the Mumms cut right through that. Champagne (or sparkling wine from here) is a wonderful drink. I don’t know why people treat it as a special occasion beverage.



At halftime the cheesehead in the room was feeling pretty frisky, so we retired to the kitchen to prepare the main course of poached salmon with dill sauce and sliced strip steak with herbed sour cream horseradish sauce. This again was fortunate, because we missed most of the bizarre exhibition by the Black Eyed Peas. As far as we could tell, it was just posing in weird costumes. I had the mistaken expectation they were some sort of Southern Band. Anyway, because of our extended effort in playing the first and second quarters, we dumped the starch side so we wouldn’t load up and not finish the game (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). Before chilling most of the day, we poached the salmon in white wine (vermouth) and water to cover with chopped celery, onion, some peppercorns, and slices of lemon. The (NY Strip) steak was grilled, and due to some poor decision making, got a little more done than I wished, but was still tasty. For this course we opened the ’04 Berrys Bridge “Pyrenees”, an inky fruit bomb syrah tipping the scales at a respectable 15.5%!. Probably not the best for the salmon, but was very nice with the steak..



As the Steelers mounted a comeback , the cheesehead turned a bit more silent, but in the end all was well. The cheese stands alone! Shouldn’t expect to turn over the ball three times for 21 points and win the game. We sort of combined the fourth quarter with the post game (getting pretty late), and had MFO’s chocolate pie (Crap! I forgot to take a picture!! Damn you Berrys Bridge!)



A small glass of the Rozes Porto finished the game and the team and it was off to bed..

And so Super Bowl XLV went into the record books, will probably more remembered in years to come for the weather, the amateurish performance of the National Anthem, and bizarre half time show than the football. The menu was all star however, if I do say so myself. And, I do.

DFF(ootball)

PS Buzz: in the course of the conditioning field trip for supplies, we found out that Woodburns will soon cease to exist as we know it. The shelves were nearly bare, the deli section was taped off with yellow tape. I chatted a bit with the young man (a grandson of the original store owners). Among other reasons (a disastrous relationship with Spiros) he said that people always thought of Woodburns as a “special occasion” store (kind of like champagne) and they couldn’t sustain their current business model. A letter at the checkout reported the will re-open in March as “Fresh Food and Café Marketplace”, that will be “uniquely with great food and a fun, friendly atmosphere”. The young man said they are contemplating having seating where you can pick out your meat/fish/poultry, and they will cook it for you for eating there or elsewhere. A different concept. I guess nothing is forever..