Surviving Sunday: Packers News, Notes and Links for the Football Deprived

When ya’ll fire up the grill this Memorial Day weekend, what will you be cooking? Here’s my ideal Memorial Day meal:

  • Steak, preferably T-bone or tenderloin, from beef raised on my in-laws family farm in Ringle, Wis. I cook my steak slowly over low heat on a charcoal grill. Get that propane stuff outta here. I like my steak medium rare or rare. If you listen closely, you can still hear the slab of meat mooing before I cut into it.
  • Potatoes, diced, salted (heavily), buttered, sprinkled with pepper, wrapped in tinfoil and grilled. You can also add mushrooms, green pepper or onions for an added touch. Now, you can go a couple different ways with how you grill the potatoes. I lightly spray the tinfoil with cooking oil and put the potatoes directly on the coals. This makes the bottom layer of potatoes crispy and crunchy. If you don’t want them crispy and prefer your potatoes to be more soft, spray a lot of cooking oil on the tin foil and put the potatoes on the top rack of the grill, not directly over the heat. Either way, be generous with the salt. You really can’t salt them too much. I don’t like things too salty, but no matter how much salt I’ve put on the potatoes using this method, they never taste “too salty.”
  • Salad, whatever your wife wants to make so it seems like the meal is somewhat healthy.
  • Corn. Odds are you won’t have corn on the cob this early in the spring. What I do every summer is freeze some corn from a particularly good batch of sweet corn every summer. That way I always have good-tasting corn to eat while I wait for sweet corn season to kick in again.
  • Beer. My personal favorites are Spotted Cow or Surly Furious. If you’re not a beer person, try a Lazy Uncle Jack: Jack Daniels, sweet and sour, a cup full of ice and black berries.
  • Venison sausage. Whenever I grill meat, I like having a side meat to throw on the grill just for the hell of it. This gives you a little extra meat to eat during the main meal, and ensures you’ll have leftovers the next day. My side meat is usually homemade venison sausage from my dad. Other good side meat options include brats, brats or brats.
  • I’m not picky when it comes to dessert. Something sweet or chocolaty does the trick. But if I absolutely had to pick just one thing, I’d go with a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie. My brother-in-law makes a strawberry rhubarb pie that makes me cry it tastes so friggin’ good.
  • If you want to go all out and make an appetizer, try smoked egg salad. It’s great on bread or crackers. Put a dozen eggs in boiling water, boil for 2 minutes, cover and let eggs sit in hot water for 8 minutes before draining and covering in ice water. Peel the eggs and place them directly on the grill grate, and smoke for 30-40 minutes. Dice the eggs, add 1/2 cup mayo, a squirt of lemon juice, 2 teaspoons of mustard, and a dash of kosher salt, pepper and paprika. Serve and enjoy.

Packers News, Notes and Links

  • Would you pay between $34 and $55 to watch a flag football game if that flag football game included Brett Favre? That’s too rich for me. I’d pass.
  • I like to think I stay fairly up to date on pop culture and Hollywood. However, I had never heard of the movie “Pitch Perfect” until “Pitch Perfect 2” was released last week and several Packers made cameos. I guess I’m not as hip as I think I am. Anyway, if you want to know how the Packers got involved in “Pitch Perfect 2,” read this.
  • Keep an eye on undrafted rookie RB John Crockett. I really like this kid and have talked to a few people who have worked with him. They all say he has what it takes to make it.
  • Have you ever yearned to hear my silky smooth voice? Then listen to this. Thank you to Brian Carriveau for having me on the Railbird Central podcast this week to talk Packers and the new NFL extra point rules.
  • Only in Green Bay……

Non Packers links and other Nonsense

  • The NFL made some changes to the extra point this week. Boo.
  • Click here if you were ever curious what was on Osama bin Laden’s book shelf when we finally found him.
  • Former Timberwolves GM David Kahn chose to draft Johnny Flynn over Steph Curry. Being a Wolves fan is really, really difficult.
  • Aaron Rodgers should bring a different teammates’ kid to every postgame news conference this season.
  • I always enjoyed David Letterman and was sad to see him sign off this week. One of the reasons I liked Letterman was that he’d give some love to metal bands on his show. Here are some of the best metal performances on Letterman in the show’s history.

19 Comments On “Surviving Sunday: Packers News, Notes and Links for the Football Deprived”

  1. mmmmm, homemade strawberry rhubarb pie!

  2. The meal sounds amazing and I’m with you on the charcoal. I never heard of “Pitch Perfect” either and I live in Los Angeles.

  3. I’m from California and I listened to a couple of sentences of Czech talking on the provided link and he has to live in either WI or MN. The accent is as strong as I’ve ever heard. Not that it’s bad, but it certainly it’s unique to that part of the country and I enjoy it every time I fly to Wisconsin for a Packer game. The people who live in Wisconsin are down to earth “good people” in my opinion and are as hospitable as I’ve ever come across.

    • It’s that obvious? We get so used to it up here that we hardly notice.

      • I didn’t really notice how strong our Midwestern accent is until I moved from Milwaukee to Houston. I still listen to Milwaukee radio over the Internet and sometimes have to chuckle.

    • Same for MN except for sports.!

  4. I wouldn’t pay a dime to see that moron play flag football. Give me a break!! He should pay the fans for all the shit he put them thru with his idiocy. Time heals everything right? Wrong!!
    Ted

    • Don’t disagree entirely but does not matter. We as fans have the higher ground. The Packers are greater. Farve needs team more than team and fans need him. Our legacy of greatness began long before him and will continue long after him.

      • I agree. The Packers are and always will be greater than one player especially this guy who still thinks the world revolves around him.

        What bothers me is a guy like Pete Rose is still banned from baseball and not in the hall of fame for basically betting on his own team to win. He never bet against his team. The guy doesn’t deserve to get shit on like this for this long. Was every bit the player Favre was in football. The best of all time in hits and played every play like it was his last and he’s invisible.

        We then have another guy who shit on an entire state and the now future hall of fame qb beneath him before he even took his first snap. He created a civil war the goes on today and now his royal ass decides it time to show up to screw the fans one more time at 55.00 a pop. Of course they’ll be morons that will pay to get cornholed one more time. After all, it’s no. 4, the cornhole king.
        Ted

        • Yah he keeps going lower. I’m sure he’ll have his teary interview moment as well . Will be hard to stomach. I’ll have to check which TV network is doing game. Still hard to go lower than his half ass attitude in the 2007 NFC game for me.

          • No, he was capable of going even lower than that. This is the Brett that I would like to remember him by. The real Brett. Enjoy the game folks. Forgive and forget right?http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Favre-commits-football-treason-tells-Lions-abou?urn=nfl,116014

          • The sad images of Mr frostbite with all the layers of clothes part was the turning point for me. Validated by his worse interception., Ever! . But I see your points. Sorry Brett nothing personal, well maybe.

          • Yeah, that was a pathetic performance Tundraboy. Absolutely pathetic. He wanted no part of that game. I was literally SCREAMING for MM to pull his ass at halftime. I have no doubt if MM had the balls to do it we would have gone to another super bowl. They would not have been able to stop Aaron Rodgers who I believe would have destroyed them mostly with his feet. They were not prepared for Rodgers at all. “Mr. frostbite” is funny and appropriate.
            Ted

          • Yah it was. It bugs me no end just like seeing the Game score chart on CHTV site for last year’s NFC championship. I’m vented. Here’s to our year!

          • You betchya!!
            Ted

  5. We have differed once or twice on football, but you, sir, are an effin’ genius when it comes to food (although I can do without the egg salad). And I’m assuming you just took it for granted that everybody knew enough to have their steaks cut extra thick. None of this half-inch crap. That’s like meat veneer.

    • “Meat veneer”… Out-effing-standing, sit!

      Here’s a tip for all you steak lovers: ask your butcher for chuck steak Delmonico. I got turned onto it by the butcher at Whole Foods; it’s basically the eye of the chuck, the best part of a cheaper section of the cow, and here’s the kicker: it lives right next to the rib eye, tastes just as good, and is half the price. Really tender and flavorful steak for about $8/lb. Try it, I guarantee you’ll never pay for a more expensive cut again.

    • “Meat veneer”… Out-effing-standing, sir!

      Here’s a tip for all you steak lovers: ask your butcher for chuck steak Delmonico. I got turned onto it by the butcher at Whole Foods; it’s basically the eye of the chuck, the best part of a cheaper section of the cow, and here’s the kicker: it lives right next to the rib eye, tastes just as good, and is half the price. Really tender and flavorful steak for about $8/lb. Try it, I guarantee you’ll never pay for a more expensive cut again.

  6. Food sounds awesome. On a hospital ordered nothing diet. Aargh. Going to have to give it a try anyway.

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