'Taste of the NFL': My Super Bowl Party
OK, by the time I got to Phoenix ... it was late Saturday afternoon. I still had to write for the Sunday newspapers. So it wasn't as if I expected immersion -- or even much of a brush -- with Super Bowl atmosphere.
I lucked out, however.
Colleague Steve Dilbeck and I finished working at about 7:30, and we were talking about where to go to eat, whether to eat at all ... and I brought up the "Taste of the NFL" info I had seen in the main media work room.
Turns out, ,the event was being held at the OTHER part of the Phoenix Convention Center.
So, figuring all they could do was turn us away, we left the west building of the Center ... walked around the block and across the street and followed the well-dressed people.
It turned out to be a good move.
We hadn't set up a media ticket to the event, but after some sighing the people at the ticket window gave us tickets to enter.
What it was ... is an annual Super Bowl event I've never been to, and maybe never heard of before this.
It was a food-tasting, much like those cities and chambers of commerce might put on. It allows restaurateurs to get out and about, get some exposure, and it allows people at the event to taste one or two dishes from that particularly restaurant.
The way the NFL does it ... is put up a cooking/serving area for all 31 NFL cities. (New York has two teams.)
You would walk up, look at what they had, ask about it -- or if you didn't want to bother, you could just wait for the video board above each stand to tell you what it was they were serving.
In most cases, it was something native to the NFL city. Baltimore (Ravens) had "rockfish, corn and crab cake with 10-vegetable slaw and spicy remoulade" from a restaurant named "Pierpoint."
Each station had wine that was thought to go with whatever food they were distributing ... and also one player (current or former) from that team signing autographs at a bar-stool-height table nearby.
Among the players ... Jack Youngblood of the "St. Louis" Rams. (Jack played his whole career for the Los Angeles Rams, of course, and was one of the most popular Rams ever. He was a great defensive end who showed his dedication to team when he played in Super Bowl XIV with a hairline fracture in his leg. Asked about playing with a broken leg, Youngblood said, in his Florida Panhandle drawl, "Ain't no time for laggin' back now.")
Other players ... Tommy Nobis, Larry Fitzgerald, Gary Fencik, Dave Lapham, Chad Hennings, Karl Mecklenburg, Donny Anderson, Earl Morrall, Ottis, Anderson, Dick Anderson, Carl Eller, Pete Banaszak, Freeman McNeil, Brig Owens ...
OK, what did I eat? Let's concede up front that fine dining is pretty much wasted on me. But this is what I had.
(Arizona Cardinals) Braised oxtail with celeriac mousseline and black truffle vinaigrette. (The guy serving it said, "sort of like shepherd's pie, but you probably haven't had it with oxtail before.) Nice.
(Arizona Cardinals) Smoked pork loin on chili cheese corn bread with roasted corn, cress, grain mustard and apple cider succatash. The pork was almost all fat, so that killed the rest of the effort.
(Chicago Bears) West Town Tavern pot roast with garlicky Idaho mashed potatoes. Nice, but more fatty meat.
(Minnesota Vikings) Onio crusted walleye with wild race salad and watercress vinaigrette. Fine. A little bready, maybe.
(Oakland Raiders) Citrus pickled prawns with rice bean salad and chimichuri sauce. Five little shrimp, cold, but they had a nice lemony taste.
(Tampa Bay Bucs) Zatar lamb tataki with crimson lentil, cracked wheat salad and white truffle tahini yogurt vinaigrette. The lamb was mostly gristle, so that killed it, right off.
By this point, I was pretty much stuffed with niblets, so we bagged it.
It was a nice event. The concept is that it is a charity fund-raiser -- attendees could bid on oodles of memorabilia, as well as buy life-size football helmets for the players to sign.
Anyway, it was about as much "Super Bowl" as anyone could expect who showed up at 4:30 p.m. the night before the game.