Between the butchered national anthem, sub-par commercials, and embarrassment of a half time "show", there was a very good football game. Congrats to Aaron Rodgers, who apparently went to my rival middle school for two years, if middle schools even have "rivals".
Since moving out, I've always gone over to my parent's house for the Super Bowl festivities every year. My dad and I are more interested in the game, and my mom and sister are more interested in the food. In an attempt to out-do ourselves this year, on the behalf of Bacon v. Pie, I challenged my dad and my sister to the inaugural Bacon v. Pie Food Fight. The dish of choice: Chicken Wings. Classic football party food. We were each going to prepare our own chicken wings, plus a dipping sauce, and then cook and judge (and consume) in the hours before kickoff.
My toughest challenge as it turned out was just getting the damned chicken wings. I had planned to get all of my ingredients after work on the Friday before the Super Bowl. Fred Meyer's was packed and I didn't have the patience to deal with the hordes of shoppers. Then while standing in line at the register, the guy in front of me was buying an EPT test and two Toblerones. He definitely had the makings for an exciting Friday night, but probably a very different kind of exciting Friday night compared to the one he must have had two weeks ago.
I then tried to go to Haggen's to get my chicken wings. As I was walking through their sliding doors, I read a sign that said: "Only 8 days left!" My first thought was: "Well that doesn't make sense. The Super Bowl is just two days away." And then I read the giant, 15 foot, bright yellow banner hanging above me: "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!!" I rounded the corner to the produce/deli section and....nothing. No food. Just rows and rows of empty bins, shelves, and displays. No wings, but the wine was 30% off, so I told Mary and she went back the next day to help them clear our their wine inventory.
To make up for my two grocery failures, the next day I found success at Costco. 10 pounds of success.
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| Only slightly smaller than a Smart Car |
I went Mediterranean with my wings. The base of the overnight marinade was Greek yogurt, which worked fantastic. My dipping sauce, really more of a spread, was the classic Old Country recipe: "Roasted Until My Propane Grill Ran Out Of Gas" Red Pepper Pesto.
My sister went Greek-ish as well, but went with a cucumber tzatziki sauce spiked with some Tabasco.
My dad stayed true to the classic buffalo wing style preparation.
The scoring was out of 30 points, with up to 10 points awarded for the wings, the sauce, and overall respectively. After the votes were tabulated, the winner with a perfect score of 30 points was.......
Me. (yaaay!).
My sister came in second, ever though she said after the contest that she didn't even like her own wings, so, you know, whatever. This left my dad in "distant fourth place" as he put it. While it is great to start things off with a "W", win or lose, I was going to get to eat some wings. And by some, I mean many.
I think the Packer's wide receiver Greg Jennings summed it up the best during his post-game interview: "It is a great day to be great." How true that is.
--Isaac.
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