It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

My first year out of college, my birthday aligned with Super Bowl Sunday. I had just broken up with my girlfriend, so to ease the heartbreak I invited a few of my friends over for burgers and dogs. A good time was had by all, so the next year I invited a few more friends and made some different kinds of food. Super Bowl at my house soon became an annual tradition. It grew bigger and more elaborate, complicated by the fact that after year two, I declared that I would never serve the same menu twice.

The Super Bowl party is one of the things that WonderWife™ inherited when she hooked up with me. However, since she's a foodie like me, it’s only gotten better since she’s been the co-host. I love throwing this party and despite my tepid interest in sports, Super Bowl Sunday has become one of my favorite days of the year.  It's my de-facto birthday party.  

The planning of the party starts around Thanksgiving, when WW™ and I will start to brainstorm recipes. We toss out ideas to each other, forget those ideas and have to think of new ones. We eventually hone in on our choices mid-January.

We spend all weekend cooking. Come game time, WW™ and I are so busy in the kitchen that we barely even get to see any of the game...or the commercials. (I know there was a Simpsons Coke commercial this year, but I didn't see it.)

This year, we finished early and I did get to watch the 4th quarter. And I finally won a bet against my friend KK, who has taken my money for about 5 years in a row.

Even though I was asked to do so, I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures of the spread, but because some of you were curious, this is what WW™ and I cooked this year:

• Clam Dip – This is my friend Dimo’s favorite. It's clams, butter, onions, baked until bubbling and served with Ritz crackers. 

• Deconstructed Potato Skins - Bacon, cheddar cheese, sour cream and chives served on top of a potato chip

• Caramelized Onion Flat Bread - Caramelized onions, Gala apples, crème fraiche on pizza dough

• Korean BBQ Short Rib Hash - Boneless short rib marinated in Korean BBQ spices, potato, onion, peppers

• Pate a Choux - Light pastry profiteroles filled with either spinach artichoke or smoked salmon dip

• Potato Chip Frittata - Mini Frittatas filled with onion, leek and carrot topped with crumbled potato chips.

• Chix in a Blanket - Chicken and bacon baked inside pockets of dough.

• Dessert Won Tons – Fried won tons filled with combinations of banana, strawberry, semi-sweet chocolate, Nutella and toasted coconut.

(I told you we go all out.)

Before I go, can we have a giant shout out to WonderWife™?  I know that I go on about her a lot on this here blog, but seriously this woman is kick-ass, she totally went above and beyond with today's party.  Girl can roll out a flatbread like nobody's business.  Totally put me to shame.

How I Spend My Commute

A little while ago, Sci Fi Dad posted this comment on one of my posts:

My challenge is on days where work is particularly shit-encrusted I have to both push that out and transform into "Daddy" on my commute home (my commute, mind you, with every stupid person who should never have been given a license in the first place).

I hear you loud and clear, SciFi. Most evenings, I spend 30-35 minutes in the car driving across the San Fernando Valley from my office to my house. I depend on that time to clear my head and get myself into daddy mode. Every so often, my commute gets congested like a nose during flu season and it takes me considerably longer to get to and from work. This is a lot of time to spend in the car, especially if you have a “shit-encrusted day.”

In my query for reader requests, I was asked what I listened to on my commute. I love music. There is nothing better than blasting some great music in the car, singing top notch in the audio cocoon that is the cab of your automobile. But the problem is when I listen to music my brain is still churning. Thoughts about work and the day creep into my head. I replay bad moments over and over. I worry about a project or plan for an upcoming meeting. These are the demons that will prevent me from being a good dad and husband when I'm off the clock.

This is why I don't often listen to music on my commute. I listen to podcasts. Words. Stories. News. Anything that forces my brain to process the ideas it's hearing and keeps it too busy to focus on anything else.

There are hundreds of podcasts out there and I have one for just about every mood I'm in. I find them to be nice, bite-sized pieces of radio, just the right length to finish in a drive or two. Here are a few of my favorites:

• This American Life – The granddaddy of modern public radio. I only jumped on this bandwagon a few years ago. Don’t know what kept me so long.

• Radio Lab – This American Life’s nerdy cousin. It’s a slickly edited, science geek-y show that covers science, music and so much more. You will learn things that will blow your mind and force you to rethink some things. (My favorite fun fact from the show: the amount of time you spend with your eyelids closed due to a blink while watching a typical movie is 15 minutes.)

• I Love Movies – Stoner comedian Doug Benson invites a few fellow comedians on stage to talk about movies. Sometimes they actually get around to talking about movies.

• The Moth – Stories told live in front of audiences by people from all walks of life. Some are riveting. Some are hilarious. All are true.

• SModcast – Director Kevin Smith (who is the king of all fanboys) and his buddy, Scott Mosier, sit around and talk about stupid shit for an hour. Sometimes it’s gross and sometimes it’s misinformed. But it’s always really funny. It reminds me of sitting around bullshitting with my friends.

Add a few shows from NPR and you've got my recipe to clear my head to and from work.

If you have trouble letting go at the end of the day, try listening to words instead of music. Maybe they too will help.

Inventing a Bar

One of the questions posed when I posted my recent experiment was: What candy bar or snack food would you invent?

Well, I actually did invent a candy bar.

It was one of those evenings in college. You know the ones where you stumble home after hitting the bars, and sit around getting the munchies and talking about stupid stuff. My buddies and I started a conversation about candy. We named ingredient after ingredient until we happened upon the perfect combination. It was deemed the world's greatest candy bar.

While our enthusiasm for this mythical candy bar was high that night, it faded in the morning along with our buzz. We never followed up on the idea.

Years later, I would stumble upon this:


This was our candy bar.

An Experiment

I have to be honest with you, this writing thing is hard. Coming up with two or three posts a week about my boring life is challenging. My kids are hilarious, but not all of the time. New food products only come out every so often and we're still a year and a half away from Michael Bay's next movie, so I have very little to complain about there. I sometimes think about taking a sabbatical when the creative juices start to run dry. But honestly, I love writing too much to stop.

So with that said, I need your help with an experiment. I would love for you, my awesome readers, to provide some grist for the writing mill and interview me. Ask me some questions and I will work to turn the answers into what I hope are entertaining posts for you. Is there anything you want to know about me? Are there topics you'd like me to write about? My philosophies about parenting? Music? Movies? Are there things you hate that I write about? Who would win in a fight, a Wookie or an Orc?

If you're interested in playing, leave a question in the comments or send me an email.

This is either going to be great or a total disaster. Either way, I thank you guys for continuing to read.

New Product Review: Kentucky Grilled Chicken

In the aftermath of my post about KFC’s new Kentucky Grilled Chicken, you asked me to try it. Since I crave your adulation and acceptance, over the weekend I scooped up the Bean and headed to see the Colonel in order to score us a bucket. Thus begins my very first reader request post. You asked for it...here we go:

Here’s how KFC tells you it looks:



And here’s how it actually looked:


Nutrition-wise, I have to admit that I’m impressed. Each piece of KGC has nearly half the calories of their fried counterparts and considerably less fat and saturated fat (we’re talking Original Recipe. You don’t even want to know how bad the Extra Crispy is for you). In fact, a breast of KFC’s grilled chicken is only slightly worse for you than a regular piece of grilled chicken you’d make at home.

But it doesn’t matter how healthy it is if it doesn’t taste good. Rice cakes are nutritionally sound, but I’ve had the same bag sitting untouched on the top of my fridge for over a year and a half. This is where KGC loses it’s edge. The taste is fine, though nothing spectacular. It doesn't have nearly the flavor of those fabled 11 herbs and spices that compose the fried variety (though truthfully I've really only ever been able to detect two--salt and pepper). I was glad it wasn't overly salty. WW™ thought it had a decent smoky flavor. The Bean couldn’t have cared less, but he’s a borderline vegetarian. Not surprisingly, Sprout, who we have dubbed “the human garbage disposal”, gobbled it up. While the chicken was fine in the taste department it was dry, which was a killer for the breasts and an utter catastrophe for the wings, whose meat was so crunchy they were practically inedible. As a huge fan of the chicken wing, this was a collosal disappointment.

I give KFC kudos for actually delivering a fast food product that holds up its end of the bargain health-wise. But at the end of the day, if I’m eating KFC and having to suffer through soupy mashed potatoes and day-glo mac and cheese, I’m having the fried stuff. My life is not devoid of tasty, healthy chicken (thank you Zankou), so I see no future need to fork over my cash for these birds. Kentucky Grilled Chicken has nothing on the rotisserie chicken from Costco.

Incidentally, if you want to try it for yourself, KFC is giving away free pieces of KGC today only. If you have some, tell me what you think.