Adventures in Cooking: Super Bowl Time

I watch very little professional football, but I do watch the Super Bowl each year. Why? Because I like all the stuff around it. The ads. The halftime show. Sometimes the game. Yesterday’s game left a fair bit to be desired, unless you love a great defensive showdown, which I don’t. I was rooting for the Patriots, because there are two teams almost everyone in this area loves. The Red Sox and the Patriots. And since there’s no way I could ever love the Red Sox, I choose to root for the Patriots. (Which makes me an extremely unusual combination: A Yankee/Patriots fan. Yes, somehow I’ve become a mixture of two of the most-hated fan bases in the country. FWIW, I like the Eagles more than the Patriots, so there’s that.)

But I digress.

One of the other things I love about the Super Bowl is the excuse for a good party. I’ve been going to Super Bowl parties for years and years. Even when there isn’t one to go to, I try to make the event special at home. This year we’d just done Groundhog Day, so the Super Bowl turned into a family affair. I had plans, however. Chili, corn bread, brownies, chips and dips. It was going to be great.

Except a key player in that plan was Denisa. I could do the brownies no problem. Dips? Sure. In a pinch, I could probably even do corn bread, though I’ve never done it before. But chili that doesn’t involve just opening a can and putting it in the microwave? Chili that involves . . . cutting onions AND celery AND carrots? And even mincing garlic?

That is decidedly in the Denisa Realm, a land of mystery and wonder, where magically delicious things originate, though we’re not quite sure how.

And Denisa, even though she doesn’t like football, was up for it. Until she got sick. It was at that point that I had to decide how much I wanted this to be a real party event. Just how committed was I to the cause?

I made my first chili-from-scratch yesterday. I also made brownies and corn bread. In the end, it all turned out well. Denisa wanted to make a vegetarian chili, which I stuck with. I burned the vegetables some, and I almost burned the chili to the bottom of the pot. I also discovered we were out of chili powder, but I called an audible and stuck some taco seasoning in, instead. I was fairly worried that instead of chili, we’d be eating taco flavored water, but in the end it all turned out fine.

Did I develop a love for cooking in the process? Reader, I did not. But I was proud in the end that it all turned out okay, even if I was kind of grumpy and pessimistic in the middle of the adventure.

Would I do it again if Denisa got sick and couldn’t cook? Sure. Maybe next time I won’t even burn the vegetables . . .

As for the game and party itself, it was all just kind of okay. The game was kind of boring, the ads were mostly meh, and I really didn’t like the halftime show. The food was good, though. So there’s that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Leave a comment

×