From a Local Bakery
Bear Claws! We ordered these ahead and picked them up this morning. They’re cherry with almonds and delicious. If it looks like one is already cut in half and eaten, you’re right. I didn’t get in with the camera quickly enough; Chuck had already grabbed one.
On another topic, we have our Christmas tree! The tree farmers named their trees this year. Ours is Grayson. 🙂
My calendar is filling up with more appointments than I’m used to having. Not all are cancer related – one is for my new hearing aids. Yippee! I get excited when a new pair of hearing aids is ready. I update my Ears, as I call them, every seven or eight years, depending on my needs. It’s nice to have something positive coming up.
As life goes on, so does Eating the Opponent. This week my Packers face the Chicago Bears, and lo and behold, the Bears are playing well this season! Yikes! We approached the game with Chicago style hot dogs – all beef franks dragged through the garden, as they say.
No ketchup. Nope.
The dill pickles are homemade (mine, of course), and the jalapeno pepper came from my own garden. (I skipped the pepper. I’m not a spicy hot person.)
On Saturday we’ll pick up our order of Bear Claws pastries from the local bakery. Bear Claws and coffee should set us up for a Sunday afternoon victory.
As always, Go! Pack! Go!
My Packers didn’t play well last weekend. They just weren’t quite on the ball (no pun intended). And here they go, coming up on a Monday Night Game against the defending Super Bowl champions. Oh, my.
I’m sure Coach LeFleur is preparing the team as he does best. The receiving corps will work on filling the hole left by Tucker Kraft’s injury (sob), and Jordan Love will be perfecting his pass precision.
The ordinary fans at my house ate the opponent with a classic: Philly cheese steak on a sub bun. Here’s a look at it:
Yum!
We stopped at the deli to pick up thin sliced beef and cheese. The white cheddar was out, so we chose provolone. It worked. Onions and green peppers we already had in our pantry, and the neighborhood sub shop sells their day old bread for next to nothing. Pile them all together (well, it’s not quite that simple, but almost) and Chuck presented the family with his version of a Philly cheese steak sandwich. And yes, it was delicious.
He served it with a side dish of roasted potatoes from the air fryer and my homemade applesauce with peach added. A great combination! We’re ready for Monday night. Are the Packers ready? We can only hope.
This game is a bigger deal than it appears. Aaron Rodgers, he who quarterbacked the Packers to Super Bowl XLV, is now a Steeler. This guy has a history; he has defeated very team in the NFL except Green Bay.
Green Bay, on the other hand, has defeated Pittsburgh a few times, most notably (and ironically?) in Super Bowl XLV. However, the Packers haven’t won in Pittsburgh since (gulp) Bart Starr was quarterback. Yikes.
So here at the O.K. Chorale, we’re taking our superstitious responsibility seriously this week. Eating the Opponent: Pittsburgh – bring it on!
Pierogies, of course. Not racing around the baseball diamond like the Famous Racing Sausages (hey, Pirates, we haven’t forgotten you), but pan fried and delicious.
Pan Fried Pierogies
With a little research, we found the Chip Chop Ham Sandwich. Thin sliced ham with barbecue sauce on a soft toasted bun. Delicious!
Simple and yummy.
Did you know that Pittsburgh claims to be the home of the Big Mac? We’re going to try it at home tonight. Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun! I have all but the buns in my kitchen right now.
To continue Eating the Opponent: Pittsburgh, I’ll pick up sesame seed buns, and my favorite Pittsburgh product: Klondike Bars.
If we have anything to do with it, the Steelers don’t stand a chance. Sorry (not sorry), Aaron.
I looked through my binder for Eating the Opponent, and we had a few recipes that worked for the Dallas Cowboys. Cowboy beans, for example, the dish we call Calico Beans outside of the NFL season, is easy to cook. Amigo reminded us that Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza has a Cowboy Pizza, too. Then Chuck remembered that he had made Texas Chili in the crock pot, and it was delicious.
And then we went out to lunch for our Fun Day Friday and found this on the menu.
Cowboy Chicken Sandwich
We made cider that afternoon, so Texas Chili in the crock pot was the perfect solution. Go! Pack! Go!
“Eating” the Cleveland Browns wasn’t easy. Cleveland, dear readers, has a lot in common with Milwaukee. My Internet searches found references to Lake Erie perch or cod. Would a Lake Michigan fish fry count? It’s Great Lakes fish. Pierogies and polska kielbasa were options, too. I found terrific pierogies at a Polish deli in Milwaukee when I was bunny-sitting for La Petite. I’m certain we have a polska kielbasa in ring bologna form in our freezer.
Then we found the Polish Boy sandwich. Polish sausage, with coleslaw and French fries piled on it, topped with barbecue sauce. Nope. This pile of foodstuffs, no matter how yummy, wasn’t going to cut it in our house.
We cut down the Polish Boy to a simple Polish sausage on a bun with pierogies on the side. We got our pierogies from the grocery store because we weren’t going to be in Milwaukee this week. Added a fresh peach from the farm stand, and that was supper.
We made an effort, Packers. Jordan Love and company will need to do the rest. Go! Pack! Go!
The New Orleans Saints were beating the Packers 17-0 when Chuck’s cousin in Texas posted “Did y’all forget to eat the opponent? What happened to the Packers?”
No, we didn’t forget. We had rice and beans with Andouille sausage (yum!) for supper, and we’d ordered Cajun specialties at a nearby pub for lunch on Friday. The Packers just weren’t showing up – yet.
Those of you who follow the NFL know the rest. Jordan Love led the Packers in a dramatic comeback win, 18-17.
This week, we’re working on Detroit. The Lions look good this year (wow), so I hope the Packers show up for all four quarters. We did our part with pasties (good Yooper main dish from the Upper Peninsula) followed by Coney Dogs the next day, with Vernor’s Ginger Ale (first served in Detroit) to drink.
Milwaukee Brewers are playoff bound. It’s early in the season for the Packers, but it’s never too early to start winning. Go! Pack! Go!
The NFL season begins as usual at the O.K. Chorale. We get together on Thursday nights to do our picks for the week. The menu for Eating the Opponent comes up for discussion, and we’re set for the weekend. Mostly.
With the routines in place, we gathered the ingredients to Eat Chicago with a home made deep dish pizza. Thick crust from my breadmaker, Italian sausage, peppers, onions, olives, pepperoni, home grown oregano, fresh tomato sauce from garden tomatoes – are you hungry yet? It was delicious and filling. We’ll have leftovers for lunch for a few days, too.
I’m drafting this post midday Sunday (That’s 3:35 in the NFL world), and Amigo is in the lead so far with picks. He has 7, I have 4, and Chuck and the visiting bunny are tied with 3 each. I keep repeating my script “it’s a good thing I don’t do this for money!”
Meanwhile, our Milwaukee Brewers are in the 11th inning of a cliffhanger with a score on 1-0 over the New York Yankees. Any minute now we’ll hear an update on whether they held the Bronx Bombers to a shutout and swept the series – or not.
Now it’s time to put the computer down and enjoy the Packers competing with their arch-nemesis, Da Bears. Go! Pack! Go!
We were bowling Friday night. Picture this: a group of teachers and spouses, most dressed in their Friday Green and Gold, gathered at the local bowling alley (and Pokemon gym) for a post-holiday party. I managed to catch several Pokemon critters while we were gathering. Chuck captured a local craft beer for himself and a glass of white zinfandel for me. And then we bowled.
None of us – okay, few of us – were any good at it, so spares and strikes were exciting. It was reminiscent of the Pepsi commercials featuring Odell Beckham and some ordinary everyday folks celebrating their own achievements. Remember “This must be how Shelly felt when she won that purple bear”? I came back from a that’ll show ’em spare announcing to my team “This must be how Aaron Rodgers feels when he throws a Hail Mary!”
And it built from there.
Strike! “This must be how DaVante Adams felt when he scored that touchdown!”
Spare! and a strike to follow! “This must be how Clay Matthews felt when he caused that fumble and recovered it himself!”
Gutter ball. “This must be how Brett Favre felt when he retired – the first time.”
A missed split for a missed spare: “This must be how Odell Beckham felt when he punched a hole in the locker room wall.”
You can imagine the inspirations for these.
This must be how Richard Rodgers felt when he caught that Hail Mary against the Lions.
This must be how Mike McCarthy feels every time Aaron Rodgers throws a Hail Mary.
This must be how Jordy Nelson felt when he got speared in the ribs by that dirty hit.
This must be how Mason Crosby felt when he kicked off and then had to tackle the receiver.
This must be how Tom Brady felt when he got caught deflating his footballs.
Yeah, it was getting lamer than lame as the beers and the gin and tonics got tallied up and we returned our ugly shoes to the counter. In our defense, it was Friday the 13th, a full moon, and we’re teachers, for heaven’s sake!
So readers, let’s leave it at that. Play the game with me. What would you say to fill in the blanks? “That must be how (blank) felt when (blankety blank) happened.” Now put your Diet Pepsi down, and think on it. If it takes a little while, just remember that the 23rd time is the charm. Hey, it worked for Shelly.
The New York Giants are coming to the Frozen Tundra sometime today for a game tomorrow. No snowstorm this week, so Eli Manning and company won’t have to worry about sliding off the runway like Minnesota did two weeks ago. In fact, Amigo remembers a weekend many years ago when the opposition (he’s pretty sure it was the Giants) was snowed in and had to spend a second and maybe third night in their hotel. Maybe it was this game.
Then there was the year when word got out that Manning’s favorite television show was Seinfeld, and the local Fox affiliate decided to show something else in place of the usual rerun on Saturday night. In an attempt to psych out the visiting quarterback, they played an ancient black and white special on Vince Lombardi. Only in Packerland, my friends, only in Packerland do we take our football so seriously that it changes the television schedule – on Saturday.
We’re planning to Eat the Opponent with a choice we’ve made in the past: Jersey Bagels. We’ll be supporting a local business, getting something delicious, and showing our Packer spirit at the same time. The Giants play their games in New Jersey, after all, not New York.
I’m dressed up in one of my warmest and coziest Packer sweaters with a green/yellow patterned turtleneck underneath. It’s cold, cold, cold tonight. The Giants will face temperatures not quite as bad; the thermometer is due to rise above zero Fahrenheit tomorrow. Highs might even reach the teens. Go! Pack! Go!