It's About the Food, not the Football
By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on Jan 23, 2007 7:30PM
With the Bears heading to Miami, some serious planning needs to commence starting, oh, right about now. Chicagoist is already getting stressed out. Where should we watch the game? Which friends should we invite over? And what should we eat?
Normally when we watch football, we go for the standards; ice cold beer, chips and salsa (no Dips, please) and the occasional pizza ordered in from down the street. This game is bigger, better and more important, so it calls for a rethinking of our normal strategy.
Two obvious choices come to mind: chili and hot wings. While we think hot wings are an excellent choice for watching the game in a bar, at home they can become a pain to cook, and even worse for clean-up. Chili is a football favorite for several reasons: it is easy (and cheap) to make, it can feed a ton of people, it does a good job soaking up beer, and once it goes on the stove, your work is done and you can get back to watching the game. Easy is good, as you don't want to be distracted and miss any of the plays on the field or other action. The Food Network has a nice collection of chili recipes to choose from. If you are looking into creating something a little more complicated, they and Epicurious both have a multitude of menu ideas. We also like the idea of making blue-corn chip nachos with cheddar cheese for the whole blue and orange effect.
Other options? Hometown favorite Manny's has teamed up with Frank's sauerkraut to create "the official recipe for hungry Super Bowl fans: the Ultimate Chicago style Super Bowl platter featuring the sandwich of the year: the Reuben." We didn't realize that 2007 is the year of the Reuben (we thought it was year of the boar), but Reubens rock, and so we aren't going to complain. We especially like how they recommend serving three different types of sandwich: "the classic corned beef variety, made with Manny's Brand corned beef, turkey for the health conscious, and new tofu version for vegetarians." For desserts, you know where to look.
While we love to eat as much as the next fan (and probably more), Chicagoist knows what will taste best on Super Bowl Sunday — the sweet, sweet taste of a Bears victory.