21 Sundays of Fantastic Football Food: Celebrating the Foods and Follies of Professional Football

By Michael Sova

Based on title alone, you might be led to believe 21 Sundays of Fantastic Football Food is nothing more than a carefully selected collection of game day recipes. There would be nothing wrong with that, but this volume is on a far grander scale.

Do you remember when former Detroit Lions wide receiver Nate Burleson broke his arm in a hapless attempt to save a pizza? How about that time former Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Jeff Reed beat up a towel dispenser just because he couldn’t dry his hands?

Professional football players, coaches, owners, general managers and officials have, over the years, done some truly remarkable things. Author, foodie and professed football fanatic Michael Sova takes a look back at some of their more memorable, entertaining and often comical exploits. He serves up some pretty amazing grub too: perfect for any tailgate party, game day gathering, or lazy Sunday in front of the television.

As you kick back with a delicious Brunch Burger, some Super Supreme Mucho Macho Nachos, Over Stuffed Couch Potatoes or a big bowl of Mexican Corn Dip, you can also have a laugh at the good natured expense of those who play the game we all love so much. Spoiler alert—the term “butt fumble” will come up at least once.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Sova
• Release date: Jan 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370147281

Michael Sova

My first career aspiration was to become a college English professor. I did major in English Literature at the State University of New York at Oswego and graduated with honors. I then began my post graduate work at the State University of New York at Albany. What can I say? I sort of hated it which prompted a disconcerting period of reflection and re-evaluation, and I found myself at a personal crossroads. Next thing I knew, I was sitting behind the control board at a country radio station in Kinston, North Carolina. I didn’t know anything about the broadcasting business in general, radio in particular, and about my only prior exposure to country music was when Hank Williams, Jr. sang the theme song to Monday Night Football. The first time I ever spoke into the microphone, at around three in the morning thank goodness, it was to intro a Suzy Bogguss record but I called her Suzy Bogus because I honestly didn’t know any better. Here’s a little more honesty for you. It all sounded pretty bogus to me. I grew up on rock and roll. What did I know from steel guitars and fiddles? Nonetheless, several years later, I was working the mid-day air shift, carrying the titles of music director and promotions director, and bounding up the corporate ladder. That’s when everything changed again.The Clint Eastwood classic, “Play Misty for Me,” surely overdramatized the danger, but my first rule of radio was to never meet any of the women that called in. I made one exception, and she turned out to be the love of my life. We’ve been married over two decades now. Along the way, we relocated to Upstate New York and had two wonderfully talented children. I traded in my microphone for a paperback copy of “Parenting for Dummies.” Here’s what I learned. Becoming a parent is far easier than it probably should be, but being a halfway decent one is an entirely different matter. I know because I spent years as a stay-at-home dad. I did my best for what that’s worth and hopefully left no lasting emotional scars. And, to preserve my own sanity, I started writing.My first novel, a racing themed thriller titled “A Shot at Redemption,” took an embarrassingly long time to complete but was very well received. “Parlor City Paradise” came next. I then took a short break from suspense fiction, instead pouring my heart, soul, passion, long-standing Minnesota Vikings fandom, and the subsequent years of torment into “21 Sundays of Fantastic Football Food: Celebrating the Foods and Follies of Professional Football.” It’s not only filled with great tailgate-type recipes, but I can promise it’s one of the funniest cookbooks you’ll ever come across. My third novel, a thriller titled “Blind Switch,” was published in the summer of 2018. I believe it is my best work to date. It’s also semi-autobiographical in that the protagonist and I have something in common. We are both legally blind. Unlike her, however, I’ve never had a trained assassin after me. I would prefer to keep it that way if at all possible.

Book preview

Just within the past decade, fans of professional football have suffered through a hotly contested labor dispute, cheating scandals, replacement officials, high-profile arrests, a rash of disturbing domestic violence incidents and the list goes on and on. Millions upon millions of us are still glued to our couches, recliners and the odd Papasan chair each and every Sunday afternoon from September through January. Why? What has the NFL done to deserve such loyalty? Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt that football is the greatest sport in the world, reality television and a block buster action movie all rolled into one. But I think there’s something more to it too. If you ask me, it’s all about the food!

Football, to the best of my knowledge, is the only sport with its own menu. Yeah, yeah: baseball has its famed peanuts and Cracker Jacks. I like them both just fine but you’ve got to admit; they get boring pretty darn quick. Are there any foods you immediately associate with basketball, hockey, tennis, golf, bowling, water polo, roller derby, dressage, ice dancing, rock climbing, fly fishing, curling, or caber toss? I’m gonna say no. And to all the NASCAR fans out there, I am of the opinion that auto racing is not a real sport, and a corndog and Budweiser do not qualify as real food. Please don’t take that personally. I have no problem with racing. Heck, Cash Douglas, the main character from A Shot at Redemption, my debut mystery novel, is a race car driver. My respect for the... activity should be evident but we’re getting a little off track here, if you’ll pardon the pun. Football is almost synonymous with great food. You've got chicken wings, chili, nachos, brats, guacamole, the occasional turducken and so much more. Football fare is worthy of celebration and that, my friends, was my primary inspiration and motivation for this book.

Before we proceed, there is one thing I need to make abundantly clear. I am not a trained chef. I really can’t stress that enough. What I can do is promise I will not be throwing around a bunch of fancy terminology, referring to techniques you’ve never heard of, or using equipment most people don’t have. With the possible exception of cardamom, none of the ingredients you will encounter are even that out of the ordinary. I know my way around a kitchen; and I know what I like. Those are my chief qualifications. Beyond that, I take what you might call the Richard Jeni (rest in peace) approach to cooking.

Years ago, Jeni had a brilliant comedy routine called Platypus Man. It’s worth watching if you can still find it. Among other things, he discussed a cooking show for bachelors. I think he called it Bill the Belching Gourmet, or some such thing. He was referring to the stained t-shirt and underwear crowd and his first recipe was going to be Kraft® Macaroni & Cheese. I’m not providing cooking instructions for that, but if you can turn on a slow cooker, use the oven, and boil water without serious risk of bodily injury, I’m confident you can tackle pretty much everything in the pages ahead.

Emily Rowe

Okay, so now that we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way, it’s time to get down to business. Based merely on the title, you might be led to believe that what I’m offering here is nothing more than a carefully selected collection of game day recipes. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. My Cincinnati Chili recipe alone is worth the price of admission, even without the companion beer bread. However, this little volume is on a far grander scale. There are, in my humble opinion, two things most cookbooks have in common. They lack entertainment value, and they lack humor. My goal is to serve up Thanksgiving-size helpings of both.

You see, I’m no run of the mill football fan. I not only watch every game but I once brought a transistor radio and earphone to a wedding because the ceremony took place during the playoffs. I sat in the back so don’t judge me. I’m well aware that my NFL addiction could classify as a genuine medical disorder. I participate in fantasy leagues. My basement and office are full of what my wife lovingly refers to as purple crap. At last count, I had over two hundred bits of football memorabilia. I could wear a different Minnesota Vikings shirt/jersey/sweatshirt every day from now until a week from next Tuesday. I even run a football pool. In case anyone from the IRS reads this, it’s definitely for entertainment purposes only. But here’s the thing. My weekly picks stink; and the Vikings, much like my fantasy teams, always manage to come up short. This isn’t a recent development. It’s been happening for decades. That’s why, many heartbreaking seasons ago, I decided my Sundays would be more fulfilling if I devoted some time and energy to something more productive than swearing and throwing things at the television. Solution? I started writing.

The members of my football pool are, by now, all too familiar with my seasonal ramblings. Going back to I think 2003, I defiled their respective inboxes with a new update each Tuesday morning. Recurrent themes included former Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, the Detroit Lions, and the Detroit Lions. I had all those updates archived and a lot of the content was really good too. Alas, a hard drive crash eradicated everything prior to 2008. Five years of my blood, sweat and tears are gone forever. Thankfully, the well is still pretty deep and, provided NFL players and executives continue to do bone-headed things (seems like a safe bet), I will never run out of quality material.

Week 4 2008:

Until very recently, Matt Millen was president of the Detroit Lions. Some of you may remember him better, or at least more fondly, from his playing days. He was a Pro Bowl linebacker for the Redskins, Raiders and 49ers, earning a Super Bowl ring everywhere he went. He then spent time as an analyst for Fox Television. That makes for an impressive resume, unless you’re applying for a job as president and CEO of an NFL franchise.

Despite having no executive experience whatsoever, the Lions granted Millen near total control of the team. Not since Sarah Palin has anyone been offered a position they were so obviously unqualified to fill. The results were… predictable. I call it the Motor City Meltdown. Millen took a pretty average football team and single-handedly turned it into one of the worst clubs in the history of the NFL.

In seven plus years under Matt Millen, the Lions were an utterly uninspiring 31 and 84. That’s pretty dismal, especially when you consider the fact that nearly a third of those wins came last season (2007), the only season in which Detroit finished with a winning record. But if things were that bad, why was Millen able to hang onto his job for so long?

I don’t know. For the life of me, I can’t even come up with a good guess. In 2005, Millen was given a five-year contract extension. That’s when long-suffering Lions fans organized the Millen Man March in protest. Those same fans then coordinated an Orange Out, and everyone wore orange when the Bengals came to town. And when the Bears visited, it was a halftime walkout. Someone launched a Fire Millen website, and other similar sites soon followed. Fire Millen chants could frequently be heard at Lions home games, as well as games hosted by the Detroit Pistons, Tigers, and Red Wings, three teams Matt Millen has absolutely no association with. You can even purchase custom made Fire Millen signs, hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts and other goodies. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not making this stuff up. Every word is true... at least so far.

Okay, so I know things have been a bit rough for the Lions. Did Matt Millen really deserve to get fired? YES! The team went three full seasons without winning a road game. That is, by the way, an NFL record. They had the lowest winning percentage in the league, never qualified for the playoffs, and never finished higher than third in their division. Of course, thanks to things like the salary cap, free agency and the draft, every team has a chance to get better. Unfortunately, being given the opportunity to improve and then actually doing it can be two very different things. Millen’s greatest failures may have come in the draft room where he was responsible for some of the biggest busts in recent memory. They include but are not limited to Joey Harrington, Charles Rodgers, and Mike Williams. None of those players are even with the team anymore. I suppose they might still be in the league but I couldn’t tell you where.

At long last, the Lions ownership came to their senses and kicked Matt Millen to the curb. Nowhere to go now but up. And as for Millen himself, where do you turn once you’ve taken a strong, proud beast like a lion and turned it into road kill? No worries there. You’ve heard the expression. It’s good enough for government work. Yes, Matt Millen is already on a new career path and it leads straight to Wall Street. He’s been hired by our own misguided government as a motivational speaker. It will be up to Millen to breathe life and confidence back into our shaky economy. I’m thinking this might be a good time to withdraw all your money from the bank and hide it in your mattress.

So what happened to the Lions once Matt Millen was gone? Things had to get better, right? Well, no. I mean, not really. In 2008, Detroit became the first team in NFL history to complete an entire sixteen game regular season without recording a single win. They notched two victories in 2009, and three times that many in 2010. That still translates to a win percentage of just .266. Their last division title came in 1993. Since then, they’ve finished in third place or worse in all but four seasons… and so the struggles continue.

As previously suggested, this is something more than a savory compilation of mouthwatering game day recipes. Yes, I will entice you with my Extreme Tailgate Brats, Mucho Macho Super Supreme Nachos, Spicy Chicken Parm Meatballs, and, of course, Classic Chicken Wings. But while you’re patiently waiting for the peanut oil in the deep fryer to get up to temperature, you can peruse and hopefully be entertained by some of my grid iron musings. I promise they won’t all be about the Lions, although I have a sneaking suspicion they will come up at least once or twice more... possibly very soon.

On that tasty note, I think we’re ready to get started; but before you get your hands dirty, there are a few ingredients you’ll want to make sure you have on hand. They include ground beef and/or sausage, an assortment of cheeses, hot sauce, jalapeño peppers, corn chips, more corn chips, and an ample supply of cold beer. Oh, you’ll want some salsa too. I prefer to make my own so let’s get to it, shall we?

It just so happens that the start of the NFL season conveniently coincides with the fall harvest. I don’t know who planned it that way but I sure am thankful. All of my football seasons kick off the same way. I make one big ass batch of salsa and it typically yields enough to give me a pint a week all the way up to the Super Bowl. In terms of ingredients and time invested, this is the most ambitious recipe in the entire cookbook but believe me when I tell you it is well worth the effort.

Although it’s not listed below, you will need a couple dozen pint-sized mason jars with matching lids and rings.

SUNDAY #1

BLACK BEAN & CORN SALSA

Prep Time: 90 minutes

Cook Time: 5 to 6 hours

Total Time: 7½ hours (plus canning time)

Yield: about 20 pints

Gotta Have:

30 Large tomatoes

4 Large bell peppers chopped (choose your favorite colors)

3 Large onions, chopped

12 Jalepeño peppers, seeded & chopped (USE GLOVES)

12 Hungarian wax peppers, seeded & chopped (KEEP THOSE GLOVES ON)

3 Cups celery, chopped

2 Cups red wine vinegar

1½ Cups sugar

1 Cup shredded cilantro

1 Cup garlic wine vinegar

½ Cup lime juice

2 Tbsp. salt

2 Tbsp. garlic salt

2 Tbsp. minced garlic (more garlic never hurts)

8 Generous dashes (at least) Frank’s Red Hot Sauce®

1 29 Oz. can of tomato paste

4 Lbs. frozen corn

5 29 Oz. cans black beans

Gotta Do:

Spray the bottom of a 20 quart stock pot with cooking spray. Blanch the tomatoes, let cool, then peel and chop coarsely. Dump all remaining ingredients