Great Eater Holidays: Super Bowl Sunday

It's a meat log. And it's delicious

Super Bowl Sunday often doesn’t live up to the hype, although the last decade was (mostly) kind to both TJSmoov and myself. The bottom line is the game will likely involve two teams you care little about or worse, hate. Many people watch for the commercials, but in the era of online video, it’s unlikely you’re going to see something funnier than that YouTube link your aunt gchatted you last Thursday.

Luckily the Super Bowl represents yet another opportunity for Americans to gorge themselves guilt-free on processed snacks, deep-fried delights and maybe a veggie platter with ranch dip if you’re feeling health-conscious. An added bonus is that your boss won’t be that mad at you if you show up to work hungover on Monday. How many days out of the year can you say that?
Below are the Great Eater blog’s recommended best practices for gorging yourself like a pig on Super Bowl Sunday:

1. Host the party. In addition to allowing you to strategically hide beers and food in deeper parts of your fridge, easy access to your bed can be necessary if you become trapped in a food coma and need a halftime power nap. Also you get to try all the dishes as they get brought over, giving you the opportunity to pick out all-star hors d’oeuvres and plan your attack accordingly. Plus you get the added benefit of getting to…

2. Call a good seat. Ideally you’ll have easy access to the food with a clear view of the game. If your team is in the Super Bowl, I recommend clearing a little space for you to pace around nervously. If you aren’t hosting a party, get to the location as early as possible to stake your claim. I remember at least an hour before the official start time.

3. Make at least two dishes. I’m lucky enough to have a group of friends who will bring their A game to the festivities tomorrow. I fully expect multiple delicious dips and desserts to fill my belly. But I also know that other people don’t put as much pride into their cooking as my peeps.

So the only way to ensure that you won’t get stuck eating popcorn and Pizza Hut is to make your own dishes. If you’re looking for easy, I recommend guacamole. Easy enough, but made fresh, it’s always a winner. And get creative with your dips. Spinach and artichoke is always a winner, but last year I went for Buffalo Chicken Dip. That shit is food crack. This year I’m staying with the Chili’s menu dip theme and making some mean Jalapeño Popper Dip. Both recipes can be found at the Noble Pig.

4. Make sure there’s pizza. The Super Bowl without pizza is like Thanksgiving without turkey. And don’t settle for your garden variety chain. Would you get Boston Market on Thanksgiving? (Ok that’d probably be delicious.) Get deep dish if you’re in Chicago or thin crust if you’re on the East Coast. Or make your own pizza, like we are this year. And by we I mean my culinary-inclined roommate and guest blogger Stuball321! I will eat it however.

5. Drink the right amount. Don’t drink so much that you get bloated and miss out on cookies or cupcakes. But definitely drink enough that any stomach pains are numbed and you don’t have a problem farting in a room full of people you barely know.

Follow these steps, and you should have a Great Eater’s Super Bowl. Enjoy the game, and I’ll provide an update of how my eating went next week.

Eating in the Car

Eating while driving should be more pleasant.

Eating in the car can be a hassle.  Depending on the meal, it can either be a giant hassle, or a mild hassle.  But rarely, if ever, is it convenient or leisurely as eating should be.  You’re hunched over with your legs pushed together holding the burger, there’s lettuce falling on your lap, napkins here and there, your honey mustard is delicately balanced on the door handle and you’re constantly keeping an eye on your cup of fries, worried that any overly sharp turn could send them flying.  And this is just if you’re the passenger and eating a typical burger meal, which generally is on the more mild side of the hassle scale.

In 1908, Henry Ford released the Model T, the car widely credited with making the personal automobile affordable and popular, and one would think that in the 100 plus years since then, SOMEONE would have solved this!  But no, we’ve all just accepted that this is how it is.  Why aren’t there more people working on it?  Does Great Eater need to open an R&D department?

First, let’s talk about cup holders.  Some of these are good, and some of them suck.  Why aren’t they all good?  It’s a cup holder, stop fiddeling around with it, it’s only going to get so good.  Some wealthy eater somewhere should hold the first and last annual cup holder world championships, award a million dollars to the best one, and from that point on every car should just use that cup holder.

And why are there no sauce holders?  Am I the only person dipping in sauce?  I don’t think so.  Why not just put a little cup holder like thing on the door?  I know some cars have something there, but it isn’t designed for sauce.  It should be.

As for the main food items, there are products out there that can help, but shouldn’t they be built into cars these days?  I don’t wanna have to bring a plastic lap tray on every ride with me anytime I might wanna get something to eat.  I somewhat blame the fast food restaurants for this.  Build a little cardboard tray, sell it for 5 extra cents and include it with the meal.  They can customize it for whatever menu item they serve.  Or better yet, car manufacturers could put all types of holders throughout the entire car!  I don’t want a smooth dashboard. I want it to have a multitude of insets designed for burgers, fries, tacos, fried chicken, Chinese food, and more!

If you have any ideas to make eating while driving more pleasant, please let us know!

Eaters Resolutions Pt. 2

Taking from TJSmoov’s earlier Eaters Resolution post:

1.) Deep fry a turkey. My girlfriend gave this Great Eater a great Christmas present that I have yet to put into use. That must be remedied.

2.) Learn Stuball321’s recipes. My roommate and guest writer for Great Eater is a cooking savant. Crucial recipes for me to learn include: beef with broccoli, ma po tofu, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, dump cake and pork fried rice.

3.) Make each of the major meats at least once: Ham, Roast Beef, Turkey, Whole Chicken, Lamb. Or make them all at once.

4.) Participate in the 50 nugget challenge. My co-worker and I have been promising to do this for a year. 50 nuggets as well as a super size fries and Coke. You can’t eat nuggets alone right? This isn’t a race but more of an eating adventure.

5.) Eat so much I puke. A guy can dream right? The 50 nugget challenge is a possibbility

6.) Explore the cuisine of several new countries. Ideally this would be local. I’m going to Mexico in March and one goal will be to escape the confines of our resort at least once a day to sample the local cuisine. Hopefully a return trip to China is in the works as well.

7.) Learn more about the science of food and eating. Knowledge=greatness.

Eater’s Dilemma: Side Dish Injustice

Although I generally consider myself an eater of the people, fine dining has its place in a Great Eater’s repertoire. Nice restaurants are good for two things: dates and interesting food combinations. Sure you may be splurging on an entrée but ideally the chef’s mastery of the art and science of cooking will make the meal worth it.
On a recent experience however, I came across a situation that angered me to my very core. I took my girlfriend out to dinner at the Chicago restaurant Knew. The menu looked delicious and it was hard to choose, but I finally settled on a venison rack with a described “side of pureed sweet potatoes and seasonal vegetables.” Happy with my order, and showing no symptoms of food envy, I enjoyed the appetizers and wine while waiting for my meal.

When it came out, I was happy to see two solid chunks of deer flesh awaiting my stomach. But my side dishes? Evidently “pureed sweet potatoes,” meant a golf ball sized orange lump. And I guess the two centimeter thick slices of carrot were the only things “in-season.”

Thus we have a meal far below Great Eater expectations. Your options are as follows:
1.) Nag your waitress. Toe the proper line between snark and innocence. For example you could ask warmly: “Excuse me, but I believe this game with seasonal vegetables. You appear to have given me the rejects of your pet rabbit.” Or “I’m sorry, I didn’t order the anorexic portion.”
2.) Demand to see the chef then scream “I Paid for this Shit,” while lobbing the sweet potatoes catapult style into his left eye.
3.) Say nothing, but make sure to get your money’s worth by stealing some silverware or centerpieces.
4.) Say nothing, but eat half of your girlfriend’s meal.

I opted for option 4. It was the least embarrassing for those around me, and our waitress was nice so I didn’t want to call her out. Still I left not quite as satisfied as I could have been.

Moving forward, I think it’s important for eaters to band together around this issue. Informing the wait staff that bigger side portions are always appreciated will help restaurants understand how to serve their customers better and help fight side dish injustice. Remember servers, presentation is nice, but you don’t ever want to have someone leave hungry. I don’t care how good a cook you are, if that’s happened, you’ve failed.

Slaying the Eating Paradigm.

We're not scared of you.

Imagine, a stark landscape.  A suffering peasantry scattered throughout, surrounding a large and very ominous fortress.  A fortress that houses an iron fisted lord who uses his wealth and might to oppress all those within the grasp of his army.  His soul is so dark, his methods are so brutal that most dare not to even consider that there might be a different way.  That there might be a light trying to peer through the forever darkened clouds of their lives.  The shadow of his dogma smothers all individual thought.  This dogma I refer to, is known as Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

Why do we eat this way?  Who decided this was optimal?  What dark lord from days gone past decreed that this was the way “Civilized” people would eat?  I propose an update:

Breakfast.  Brunch.  Lunch.  Linner.  Dinner.

Five meals rather than three.  And rather than three large meals, two large meals, buffered by three small meals.  Make Brunch and Linner the main meals of the day, with the old three as smaller meals or snacks.  The same total amount of food per day would be consumed, just throughout more meals.  Think of the benefits:

1)  Less time between meals.

Although I’ve read this isn’t necessarily true, some experts claim that smaller, more frequent meals help keep the body’s metabolism up and the pounds off.

2)  Less stuffing yourself.

You don’t have to fill your stomach, thinking that you have a ton of hours until your next meal.  The size of the two larger meals should also not be the size of one of the old three.  For example, let’s assign a size of 10 servings to each of the previous three meals for a total of 30 daily servings.  Then assign those same thirty servings to the new meals in the following way:

Breakfast: 5

Brunch: 8

Lunch: 5

Linner: 8

Dinner: 4

You’re still getting just as much foody goodness, yet you don’t need to feel full.  And because the time between eating is diminished, the desire to stuff yourself because you feel like you’re starving will also be diminshed.

3)  Go to sleep on a less than full stomach.

Dinner would be the smallest meal of the day, though you won’t be hungry when you go to bed because you got enough at Linner!  You get your calories earlier on in the day when they are more useful and you need energy, not late at night when you are winding down.

4)  More flexible meeting times.

Sometimes it’s hard to meet for lunch and when you do, it’s often crowded at a good restaurant.  But Brunch and Lunch would both be good times to meet and it spreads those meeting times to two different time periods, loosening the strain for restaurants too.

Now you are probably thinking that changing this paradigm would be too difficult.  Society is structured around the three meal day.  Things can’t be different!  No matter how awesome five meals a day would be, the dark lord would never allow it!  But now imagine this:

Upon the dark lord’s land comes an outsider.  Clad in bold shimmering armor and riding upon a valiant steed, his presence seems to break the cloud cover with every movement.  He rides directly up to the gates of the fortress and demands a duel with the dark lord himself.  And when the dark lord agrees and the two stand but a few feet apart prepared for combat, the dark lord unsheathes his weapon, an imposing blade stained and chipped from the blood and skulls of those who have opposed him.  But the outsider unsheathes an even more impressive weapon: a gun.  Because he is from the future and represents futuristic ideas, not outdated ideology.  And when the armies and the peasants witness the power with which that gun slayeth the dark lord, they proclaim from that day forward to throw off the shackles of the three meal day pattern and to embrace the new five meal day pattern.

Who’s excited?

My New Year’s Resolutions

 

Will you be a better eater in 2010?

1)  Find out exactly how many chicken wings I can put down in one sitting.

I’ve always been curious.  One of the issues is that chicken wings aren’t that cheap and I could find myself spending way more money than I want to.  Chicken wings also come in different sizes and thus the actual count of wings isn’t a good indicator.  I should probably bring a scale to measure the exact weight of  chicken meat that I eat.

2)  Grill an amazing steak.

What do all the great steak places do that makes it so tasty?  I don’t know.  I’ve made some decent ones, but I figure I should be able to grill an amazing one.  I just need to find the right recipe.

3)  Turn making sushi into a regular thing.

I’ve made sushi once before, and it wasn’t all that labor intensive.  The most difficult part was just learning exactly how to do it.  I figure once I’ve got the technique down, it shouldn’t be a hard thing to do and I can start experimenting with different recipes.

4)  Eat more beets!

Beets are good for me.  I need to add more variety to my fruit and vegetable intake in general.

5)  Find a favorite Chinese spot.

I need a local Chinese place that I love.  There is a good one in the shopping center right near me, but I need one that sets my stomach’s heart a flutter.  I’ve found a few contenders on Yelp, I just need to go there and try them out.  Maybe that will be a new Great Eater series: “Quest for a Favorite Chinese Spot”.

6)  Be forced out of a restaurant for eating too much.

A guy can dream, right?

7)  Eat something I’ve never eaten before.

It’s gotta be something interesting and good.  Maybe a new kind of animal, though not something that tastes like chicken or beef.  Maybe a new vegetable?  No wait, a durian.  I am going to eat a durian this year.  I’ve heard they smell awful.

8)  Find a third sandwich for my Subway rotation.

I have two subs that I almost always go with:  1)  Meatball, topped with lettuce, tomato, red hots, sweet hots and sweet onion sauce, which is a phenomenal sub, and 2)  The seafood sensation topped with lettuce, tomato, red hots and buffalo sauce.  What would number three be?  I am open to suggestions, but I warn you, it ain’t easy to get in my subway sandwich rotation.

Do you have any resolutions for the new year?  Let us know!

Sauce Comes and Sauce Goes

There, there, big guy. There's other sauces out there!

Recently, my wife and I drove across the country, and during our trip, we came across a store in New Mexico.  This store was selling a brand of sauce that I had never tasted called Cannon’s Sweet Hots.  Being the sauce lover that I am, I purchased a jar of this sauce and put it safely in the car.  A week later, when we finally arrived in Virginia, I decided to try a little of this sauce and I was not disappointed.  Never had I tasted such a sweet blend of green chiles!  “I MUST HAVE MORE!” I exclaimed and my stomach concurred.

Months later, I have finally gotten around to buying more.  As I expected, I have not found this sauce in any stores around where I live so I decided to try to order it online.  A case of 12 is about $59.  Include with that a $14 shipping fee and that’s $73 for sauce.  These aren’t huge jars either.  If I use the sauce like I usually do, I could go through those 12 jars in about 12 meals.  That’s over $6 a meal for some sauce, and well, I don’t know what to do!

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to jump hurdles for some sauce.  When I was in college, I found a wing sauce that I love, World Harbors Wing Sauce.  I eat it on pizza, macaroni and cheese (which is phenomenal), eggs, tuna fish, and more!  When I want to give barbecue sauce some extra kick I use it in there, and I also use it, as you might expect, on chicken wings.  I like this sauce.  But lo and behold, one day I went to the supermarket and the sauce was no where to be found.  Through the next few years, I relied on friends and family to supply me the sauce, but eventually, I had to start ordering it online.  It only comes in 64 ounce jugs online, which is actually better than having a bunch of small jugs around anyway.

There was also a time when I could get Sweet Baby Rays barbecue sauce by the gallon, which was good, because back then I used to go through about a gallon a month.  But of course, they stopped selling the gallons at the grocery store near me and I had to go back to the tiny little bottles.  Which isn’t a big deal now because I don’t think we have enough room in our fridge for 64 ounces of wing sauce and a gallon of barbecue sauce.  Maybe I should invest in a sauce fridge.

It’s tough being a sauce guy.  There’s so many out there, you never know which ones are gonna stick around.  I ask you, have you ever sat by a window, looking up at the stars, listening to “Somewhere Out There” from American Tale, and thinking about sauce?  I have.  And I don’t care who knows it*.  You kids out there reading this, listen up.  If you ever find some sauce that you really like…and you put on a lot of things you like to eat…you grip that sauce as tight as you can…and don’t ever let go.  You hear me?!  Don’t ever let go…

*Ok, I never actually did this.

The Aftermath: Thanksgiving Recap

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. With some time to reflect, I wanted to discuss my meal as well as the eating sensations it arose inside of me, and how it made me a better eater moving forward. Please take some time to enjoy my indulgences.

The MVPs of the meal were my parents, who did their usual fantastic job of preparation, and of course, the turkey. We went for an 18 pound bird for 8 people from a local farm in Boston. A little pricey but definitely worth it. Here’s how she looked prior.

No brining for my family who instead prefers to go with the cheesecloth/butter method. Keeps the turkey moist and adds an extra layer of fat (always a good thing.) A turkey is only as good as its stuffing and my parents favor a breadcrumb base with boiled chestnuts, celery and onions mixed in. The results are spectacular. (Eater’s Note: Supposedly you aren’t supposed to cook the stuffing in the turkey for salmonella concerns. Just the latest example of our society turning into a bunch of spineless eaters. I’ve put down over 30 turkeys without contracting salmonella and if I do get, it’d be worth it got damn it.)

Prior to the meal I snacked on some appetizers including guacamole and stuffed mushroom turnovers. Eating appetizers is always a good plan as it satiates the pallet and gets you ready for the richness ahead. You may sacrifice some stomach space, but it’s worth it.

The final meal was a work of art befitting the Louvre. Traditional fare such as mashed potatoes, squash and cranberry sauce. Family favorites such as creamed onions and date bread. And a little twist this year with the addition of aloo chole a spicy Indian chick pea dish. I was really surprised by how well the spicy flavors of the Indian food combined with the rich but blander flavors of the traditional Thanksgiving meal. What was also interesting was that the chole and the cranberry sauce had a similar consistency yet differing flavors, so they mixed particularly well. Scrumptious.

Eating wise I did manage to put down two very very full plates of food as well as another half plate of turkey, chole and cranberry sauce. While it wasn’t the three I was hoping for I was pleased with my effort. I was also especially proud of the fact that after the meal was over I stumbled into the living room, collapsed on the couch, then immediately summoned the will to lurch back to the table for dessert where I put down a piece of apple AND pumpkin pie. Plus I also had a turkey sandwich that night at 10. Now that’s great eating.

Overall Thanksgiving was a wonderful eating experience as always. Plus I got to spend some quality time with family and loved ones. As eating experiences go, Thanksgiving is hard to top but I look forward to Christmas dinner in the not so distant future.

Bringing your own sauce to a restaurant

Sometimes you gotta bring your own.

I saw a Seinfeld episode once where Kramer brought his own syrup to a restaurant and the owner of the restaurant got upset with him.  This seems to make sense on the surface but on the flip side, shouldn’t a restaurant want you to bring your own sauce?  They don’t charge you for sauce, so really, they are just losing money for every dip of your fries into their barbecue sauce as opposed to your own.  Now I guess maybe there are health code violations or something, but damnit, shouldn’t it be my right to bring my own sauce?

The only time I have ever actually brought my own sauce was when I brought Sweet Baby Rays to an all inclusive in Cancun.  They have a buffet with sub-par barbecue sauce (It’s hard to compete with Sweet Baby Rays), but all you can eat chicken nuggets.  It was a no brainer.

What about when I’m eating Hard Times Chili?  They give you a little tub of sour cream to put on the chili and I think they will bring you more, but I don’t wanna have to ask.  I want it all on there right now.  Sometimes the waiter or waitress won’t come by for a while and my food would get cold if I didn’t eat it.  Wouldn’t it be better if I just brought my own sour cream?

Oh, and get this.  This past week, I went to a certain unnamed restaurant that, while a great place I would recommend to all, does not carry either barbecue sauce or honeymustard!  What am I supposed to dip my fries in man?!

I have decided that I am going to start bringing my own sauce to places and report back to our loyal readers on what happens.  I would like to apologize in advance to my wife if this embarrasses her, but I’m doing it in the name of improving the eating experience, so I hope she understands.  I will try to be inconspicuous.  Here is the proposed list:

1)  Sour cream and jalapenos to Hard Times.  Hard Times only has the chopped up Jalapenos and I want to bring the slices that are soaking in jalapeno juice.

2)  Wing Sauce to a pizza place.  I generally only use World Harbors wing sauce on my pizza, and they don’t sell it in supermarkets anywhere that I know of so I have to order it online in these 64 oz jugs.  This may not be so easy to conceal.

3)  Sweet Baby Rays to a fast food joint.  The chance of them even noticing let alone having an issue is minimal.

4)  I’d like to get some of that Great American Restaurants butter (maybe I can make my own?) and bring it to a place that serves bread before the meal.  This could be tough though since butter would melt pretty easily.

I’d like to try more but these were all I was able to come up with this quickly.  Please give me any suggestions you might have!

The Art is in The Preperation

Thanksgiving is any Red-Blooded American Great Eater’s (RAGEr) favorite day of the year. It’s an unquestionable truth. For on this day, we appreciate what America is truly about: greed and gluttony. Best of all we get to do it guilt free, unlike Yom Kippur.

If you are any Great Eater worth your salt, you will have started the preparation process by now. Most of this is mental: you must prepare to deal with side-bursting pain and the risk of potential hospitalization to force yourself to go back for that third slice of mincemeat pie. As with many eating situations, having a system helps. Below are some helpful tips and suggestions.

First off, try and have one binge eating experience the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. For example my Saturday eating regimen consisted of BBQ Pork Nachos, a Baha Burger Value meal, a mega-appetizer platter spilt four ways and late night Waffle House hash browns all the way. And a waffle. A solid eating binge that prepared my stomach, brain, and most importantly, colon for what’s about to come.

Second, make sure to get lots physical activity the week prior. Lifting is good, power for the men, light weight multi-rep for the ladies. Plus post-lift hunger can produce the type of borderline psychosis you need to dominate the Thanksgiving table.

Third, make sure to have a full meal the night before. Some eaters may advocate a starvation strategy but I find that a normal evening gorging helps your body keep its normal rhythm. If you are a Great Eater, you should be used to gorging yourself at least once a day. This year I’m planning on Same Old Place pizza for my Wednesday night meal.

Fourth, show some discipline by avoiding the overhyped Wednesday night bar scene. Why risk being hungover and not at full eating strength? Would you go out and get plastered the night before the Super Bowl? I didn’t think so.

Finally the big day. Wake up and eat something minor…maybe toast with peanut butter. Be sure to drink lots of water. Around 11-12, go for a long run or bike ride, preferably 45 minutes. Shower up, put on your Thursday best and get ready to eat!

One last thing: Make sure to thank your turkey. He or She did give its life so we could enjoy this day. Be thankful it’s not the other way around, cause you never know when the turkeys will get the upper hand.