LEFTOVER FOOTBALL SNACK FOODS

Oh. My. God. That. Super. Bowl. Game.

I spend the entire fourth quarter not watching but watching the game.  Every time I watch the Patriots' possessions, they do something stupid, unbelievable, awful, or they are simply outplayed.  Yet, if I look down at the computer or away during a possession, fantastic things occur.  So, I spend the entire fourth quarter watching my son watch the game during Patriots' possessions.  His reactions let me know if I should look . . . or not.

Needless to say, my son and I have neither the strength of character nor the ability to break away from the game in order to make more Super Bowl snacks.  Oh, we eat plenty well: pot roast with veggies followed by fresh guacamole and chips.  But, that isn't the menu.  The menu includes smaller versions of honey barbecue calzone and teriyaki chicken calzone.

Rather than waste the calzone on a game that gives us both agida, I save the meal for this evening.  I use canned biscuits and canned crescent rolls for my chicken experiment.  No, I've never made these before.  As I prep the dough for my crazy and completely unplanned chef experiment, I watch the Patriots land at Logan Airport and hop on to buses to make their way back to Gillette Stadium.

I roll out the biscuits, one at a time, and fill each with honey BBQ chicken,  I fold each one carefully, crimp the edges with a fork, and top each with a milk wash.  I did not buy extra biscuits, but I did buy crescent rolls, so I jury-rig those for the teriyaki chicken.

The mini-calzones are delicious.  Next time I might try adding cheese or scallions or honey mustard.  Maybe I'll try ground beef taco-style mini-calzones or steak tip calzones.  Who knows?

After all, football season is over, and baseball season is just inches away.  Might as well experiment.

THE GUAC DROP

One thing about Super Bowl -- The food is great!

I spend the weekend plagued with mice in my kitchen.  They are coming in from the field stone basement and are remarkably bold in camping out behind my stove and refrigerator.  So I have to get creative with my food storage and prep to avoid seeing another mouse sitting on a pizza box like a damn boss.

I end up cooking a pot roast in the crock pot on the kitchen table.  It's an excellent pot roast, too, made with red wine and some extra spices, and I set dinner up in the living room, which is on the opposite end of the house from the mouse portal.  There's a shrimp ring, as well, so my son and I eat well.

Needing a little something else, I bring the fixings for guacamole into the living room.  I carve and chop and scoop and squeeze until the guac is perfect.  Tortilla chips are added on the side, and now we have an outstanding snack. 

I have both a bottle of beer and my laptop open on the coffee table, so I need to stand, lean over my station, and reach to scoop guacamole onto the corn chip.  As I start eating, I sense guac falling from my mouth to the floor.

Shit. 

The last thing I want is to encourage the mice to migrate to the front of the house before the exterminator arrives.  I search the floor.  Nothing.  Nothing on my sneakers, pants, or shirt.  Nothing on the table.  Nothing on my computer.  I cannot find the errant guacamole anywhere, and I start doubting whether any fell at all.

I continue half-working and half-watching the ball game.  I swig at my beer. Suddenly, I get something solid into my mouth.  My first thought instantly goes dark: I've swallowed a mouse.  I quickly spit whatever the solid might be into my napkin.

Surprise!  Guacamole!

Yup, the errant guac I spilled off my chip a few minutes before has landed exactly inside the neck of the beer bottle and splashed into my beer.  I am a reasonably good shot, but there is no way I could make that shot if I tried. 

If only I could send some of that great aim to the field.  Oh, well.  I'll enjoy that great play, just the same.  Cheers!

FEET ON THE FLYER

The good news is that today is Wine Tasting Day.  The better news is that my son and his girlfriend are going to meet me at my usual haunt.

We meet at the tasting station, grab our wine glasses, and pick up flyers off the counter so we can find out about the opened wines.  The three of us are a little over halfway through the tasting when I accidentally drop my flyer on the floor.  I reach over to get it, tug on the edge, and ... nothing.

A woman near me steps on the flyer, and I cannot get her attention long enough to have her move.  I stand back up straight and notice that my son and his girlfriend have witnessed the entire event, and this make us bust out laughing.

The sommelier gives us a curious look, so we clue him into what's going on.  I squat slightly, move my left leg out, put my foot onto the flyer, and attempt to tug the flyer from underneath the woman's foot.  All futility.  As a matter of fact, the woman pivots and plants both feet firmly on the flyer.

There is no way I'm getting that paper back.

The sommelier hands me a second flyer and we finish the wine tasting before moving on to the spirits table and to the register.  Leaving the store we notice the flyer is still on the floor, firmly under both of the clueless woman's feet.

PATS DAYS

In honor of the upcoming Superbowl, Today is Patriots Day at work.  I'm running a little late this morning, but I still have time to grab the #12 Brady jersey from the closet.  I throw it on over a long-sleeved white shirt.

Something stops me from wearing it out the door.

I need this jersey for Sunday.  What if I spill today's salad dressing on it?  What if I get caught on something (like I frequently do) and rip the jersey like so many of my sweaters?  What if I get whiteboard marker on it?  What if ... what if ...

Even though I'm pressed for time, I change out of the jersey and put on a Patriots t-shirt instead.

Don't judge us sports fans.  Our superstitions run deep and are rooted in decade after decade of extreme sports-related disappointment.  If I want to spare my Patriots jersey, it's not your business.  It's nobody's business.

Hey, we've had some low times.  We've also had some great times.  The one thing about Boston sports fans that is absolutely true: We  recognize greatness.  If the Falcons take that honor, I hope we will be chivalrous in defeat.

Come on, though; it will be fun to watch Roger Goodell squirm, and I'll get to do it in a Brady jersey that is clean and washed and ready.  Let's hope the team is ready, as well.

HAVING MY FILL OF PHIL

I honestly do not care what a groundhog has to say about spring, and I honestly do not know why we even pay attention to such a ritual in the beginning of February, which is barely six weeks into the heart of winter.

Apparently, some Romans brought this weird idea to the Germans, who spread it across western Europe, who brought it with them to America and, in particular, to their German re-roots in Pennsylvania that a groundhog somehow purports the seasons.  Of course it does . . . because relying on such scientific data as weather patterns and bird migration patterns would be so much less reliable than, say, a flaming rodent in a hole in a mid-Atlantic state.

Look, Phil, up here in New England winter hasn't even begun to shit on us yet, but it will; it always does.

Worse than the groundhog theory, though, is a local report I spotted on my town's "patch" (aka: lazyass news) website that winter is winding down.  Winding down from what, you frigging moron?  We still have a good nine to ten weeks of possible blizzard activity.  We have been hit pretty hard with heavy snow in mid-April.  Of course, it has also been over 90 degrees on the same April day just a year or two removed.

The point is that the minute someone says, "Oh, this is a mild winter," or "Spring is just around the corner," or "Check out that Pennsylvanian groundhog that actually studied meteorology at the local community college and has a degree in weather prediction," New England bears the brunt of it.  You mid-Atlantic states send us these monster rain storms that, by the time they arrive, are loaded with sleet and snow.  And don't you dare lie.  I lived through the blizzard of '78, and that was also post-Punxsutawney Phil, as well.  Bastard.

I don't need a radar map nor an advanced degree nor a large rodent to tell me this:  Spring will be here on Monday, March 20th, at 6:28 a.m. -- not a moment sooner, not a shadow later, not a snowflake wiser.

WINE FIGHT

Tonight I fight a bottle of wine.

It all starts out innocently enough.  A bottle of Barefoot Refresh Pinot Noir has been sitting in my fridge for about two weeks.  I know, I know.  Pinot Noir on ice?  But, it's the Refresh brand, bubbly and light, and it begs for a chill because it's really a blend of grapes and, when I put on my glasses I realize that it's actually a spritzer.

Pinot Noir Spritzer?!  Oh, for crimeny's sake.  Spritzer is supposed to be in the fridge.  Well, well -- look who did something right for a change.

The bottle is a twist-off cap.  I never have a problem with corks (except champagne or anything that intends to shoot my eye out).  Twist caps are so easy even babies can open them, right?  I attempt to twist the cap.  It refuses to budge.

Crap.  It's the kitchen faucet debacle all over again.

I examine the cap attachment and wonder how long it will take me to saw through the metallic ring with a serrated steak knife.  With my luck, the knife will slip and slice open one of my arteries and I will literally suffer death by wine.  Next, I try one of those floppy rubber openers, the gripper kind, but I'm still not making any progress.

This whole affair is now starting to royally piss me off.  I am a reasonably strong person.  I have decent biceps, have been known to lift boxes full of textbooks over my head, and I can still throw a credible o goshi if I have to.  I cannot believe that this damn bottle defies me.

I have small hands, though.  Sometimes I just cannot produce enough torque for a simple task like this.  I do, however, keep a pair of ratty old leather gloves for such occasions.  I put on the gloves and get better grip of both the bottle of wine and its cap.  I twist in opposite directions simultaneously.

Nothing.

I decide to combine the leather gloves with the rubber lid gripper.  I do not hold out much hope at this juncture and I toy with the idea of not having any wine at all.  Of course, this is completely nonsensical.  After the day I've had, there's no way this bottle is getting the better of me.  With a sharp intake of breath, I prepare to squeeze the living daylights out of the bottle.  The battle is on, and I am so going to win.

Easily and without pomp nor circumstance, the cap twists free and the bottle is open.  Just like that, the battle is over.

I don't need the gloves to pour the spritzer into a glass, so I clean up my work station before settling in for the evening.  Kind of ironic that a wine so difficult to open is named Refresh because right now I am feeling anything but.  It's certainly not the best glass of wine I've ever had, but after the work that went into opening
it, it's the best glass of wine right now.  That's all that matters.

IT'S A LITTLE PUZZLE-ING

What do I do after a very long day at work followed by a meeting followed by a trip to the grocery store followed by a long wait in the check-out line followed by a mad dash to get dinner on the table?

A puzzle.  That's what.

One kiddo is still at home, for the most part, and I like to tease him about taking the time to play cards or board games or such with his old mum.  We've tried the video game thing, but I cannot even master Mario Kart, so I'll probably never be playing Call of Duty or any of the higher caliber video games.  I can barely figure out the controller.  Okay, I did NOT figure out the controller, but I tried.

The one night I go out to dinner with friends, the kiddo tells me he wants to play Rummy, but too bad so sad, I'm not home.  I didn't even know that he knew how to play Rummy.  I usually have to play cards against the computer, and sometimes I even a win.

So, tonight, after another monster of a day, I am surprised when the kiddo sits at the kitchen table prior to being called for dinner.  He throws down a cardboard box. 

"100 or 300?" he asks.

I look at the box and realize he has produced one of the many puzzles that I sorted through over the summer.  I'm reasonably certain that I disposed of any puzzle missing more than one or two pieces.

"100," I answer, "and there may not be all 100 pieces, just so you know."

We have twenty minutes until dinner is ready.  We finish the puzzle in less than ten, and, yes, every piece is here.  Sure, the 300-piece puzzle would've taken longer, but we need the table to eat shrimp and stuffed clams. 

After dinner, the kiddo rinses off his plate and silverware then heads upstairs to do real battle against his cyber pals.  The amazing thing is that he can hold multiple conversations, including fielding phone calls, while playing video games and watching television, all without missing a beat.

I don't mind. 

We successfully navigate a puzzle, and we have another wonderful dinner.  It may be a step back in time and technology for him (akin to the Stone Age, I'd imagine), but we finally find something I can master and play just as well as he can.  Maybe even just a touch better.