I did not put much stock in a Saints victory for their season opener a few weeks back, not after all the predictions for a team with a new head coach and green quarterback room. Instead, my hopes were pinned on nachos, special nachos, for a personal tradition that abets Sunday gamedays as nonnegotiable social time, no matter the score.
I rolled into a friend’s house for that first watch party ready to serve my Mrs.-Mary-McNulty-Is-Having-Company-Over-in-the-1980s Nachos.
These are the exact type my mother would make when entertaining on a weekend night at home, when I was a kid looking on, learning what adult friendships and hospitality looked like.
Fielding these nostalgic nachos again entailed stops at three groceries before finding the requisite round tortilla chips, and time-consuming assembly as fully loaded individual chips (not just a mound of chips under a muck of toppings) even as the first quarter got underway.
After the Saints’ loss, the extra fuss put into the food remained a highlight. Through subsequent weeks (and losses) similar gameday spreads have helped preserve the pleasure and social amity of an afternoon spent with friends, a standing weekly gathering I value more highly than a division rivalry showdown.
Center stage is the marble kitchen island at a friend’s house in Uptown New Orleans that has become a clubhouse for a group of us on football Sundays. Fellowship is the goal, sports is the intermediary, and the food the people in this group contribute is very much part of the experience.
It’s about making a big deal of food because it’s not just a Sunday snack. It’s game day, it’s time spent together, and it means sharing things we love and know will delight our friends.
I’m not letting something as arbitrary as the performance of a professional sports team get in the way of that. That’s why, despite a 0-4 start, I look to upcoming Sundays with anticipation, especially those late afternoon kick offs, with so much more time built in to procure and prepare.
Procuring and presentation
Fussy nacho assembly aside, I don’t actually spend much time over the stove. Rather, I tend to bring things with a backstory, specialties from places I like and want to share with my friends, and I try to put a little more into the presentation (just like my mom did when hosting back in the day).
So the cheese from St. James Cheese Co. will be sliced and arrayed, not just dropped there as a block. The off-bottom oysters sourced through Porgy’s Seafood Market, my new-but-old-fashioned local fishmonger, will be shucked over the sink and arranged together on a platter.
The sausage from Terranova Meats (the century-old, newly-reborn Italian butcher in Mid-City) or boudin from the latest foray to the butcher shops of Acadiana will ride on my best cutting board, one from local maker Working Hands NOLA, the rustic charcuterie equivalent of fine china.
At some point there will be a game day sandwich of the whole loaf variety, cut like piano keys for grazing. In theory, this should be the same as cutting up a couple regular sandwiches next to each other. But in theory the NFL should have parity and certain teams should not be punching bags. On the gridiron, as on the kitchen island, theory will only take you so far. A whole sandwich just turns out better.
For a whole loaf po-boy, I like a late-morning visit to Mandina’s, before the after-church rush, where they’ll hand over a sandwich wrapped to go that’s as long as your dashboard and filled with a fishing net worth of shrimp.
But I also like to go a bit regionally exotic with subs, not po-boys, from Francolini’s Italian Deli, based on the sandwich shops of New Jersey, for long loaves filled with chicken cutlets and broccoli raab and red peppers (see “the Nicolo” sub). This might have a special synchronicity this week as the Saints host the New York Giants, who do play in New Jersey, after all.
Lore, legend, ladles
While I try to contribute to these football feasts, the true cooking delights of Saints season are mainly in the hands of others in our group.
The host for our football Sundays will regularly prepare his “Dammit Aaron” jambalaya, a dish with its own rituals and lore. He always starts with sausage from Poche’s Market in Breaux Bridge and there is always a bay leaf laid over the chicken before it’s added to the pot. Why? Tradition.
It is named in sardonic honor of Aaron Brooks, whose reign of interceptions (and his grinning response to throwing them) will be remembered by long-suffering fans and perhaps gives better perspective to what it means to be a Saints fan through the ages, the joyous Peyton/Brees aberration of team history notwithstanding.