In the Land of Cocktails

Da Super Bowl and Dem Saints!

Posted by on February 2nd, 2010

Hav­ing been a standup come­dian for 14 years, I am always enter­tain­ing at some­one else’s party, never host­ing my own and some­times I just want to do it my way.  But no mat­ter what in this world is hap­pen­ing, I do throw one party a year and it’s a Super Bowl party.   This year I think I am a genius.  Since I couldn’t decide which cock­tails to pre­pare for my very assorted guests, I decided to run with a food and bev­er­age com­pe­ti­tion theme Colts vs. Saint’s.  Hardly fair you say… Well so be it!  The deck is rigged!

I enjoy well-made, bal­anced cock­tails, but am not a mixol­o­gist, nor do I want to bar­tend dur­ing the party at which I will undoubt­edly be toasted (tried that, it doesn’t work).  So I started by select­ing one punch to rep­re­sent the Colts, the Pony Negroni and one (just one you ask?) for the Saints: this year’s sim­ple, fast and easy to replen­ish Who Dat? Punch, sim­i­lar to a Planter’s Punch and fea­tured on this web­site with video and recipe.

Still not fin­ished with enter­tain­ment bril­liance, I divided my very large din­ing room table down the mid­dle and made one side all blue tin cow­boy plates and a bucket with a ladle while the other side bran­dishes a pol­ished cop­per fleur de lis, crys­tal punch bowl and Grandmother’s painted Japan­ese Kent china with the gold bor­ders that can’t be put into the dishwasher.

The menu is just silly since I dis­cov­ered long ago that peo­ple want Super Bowl food at a Super Bowl party.  Thus, the two com­bat­ants shall be rep­re­sented by dec­o­rated favorites: man-sized Colt burg­ers with a lit­tle horse­shoe branded onto the bun with a jerry-built heated cookie cut­ter, Frisky Filly potato salad, bacon and blue cheese coleslaw.  For the Nola side, it could quickly get out of hand so delib­er­ately I am keep­ing it sim­ple with some Cajun Fried Chicken (and I mean fried) a Crab Meat Impe­r­ial (crab meat with a Cre­ole may­on­naise sauce) in arti­choke bot­toms then baked and served hot which I unearthed from my Commander’s Palace New Orleans Cook­book by Ella and Dick Bren­nan, circa 1984.   The guests know what I am prepar­ing and any­thing else under the sun they want to bring then they just can bring it on.  I am done.

One of the first lessons of being a standup comic is to know your audi­ence and pre­pare and adjust accord­ingly.  The same can be said for throw­ing a party.  Just like com­edy, you are going to adjust to them in your prepa­ra­tion then set the tone and let the event unfold as it may.

Here in Los Ange­les, since every­one is from some­where else and since we have no foot­ball team at the pro level, this is a who knows who will be root­ing for whom event.   It’s never the same peo­ple, but I do throw this party every year and I am going to keep on throw­ing it until they stop me, see Brett Farve and thanks Brett!  Sure was nice of you to give us the ball back at the end like that.

Here are the Pony Negroni Punch ingredients:

15 ounces Campari

10 ounces Flor de Cana 7 Yr Nicaraguan Rum

7.5 ounces Cin­zano Rosso

10 ounces Fresh Grape­fruit juice

2.5 ounces Honey

Fresh lemon juice

Cloves

Com­bine fresh lemon juice of 10–14 lemons and a table­spoon of cloves into a con­tainer and freeze.  Com­bine ingre­di­ents in a large punch bowl and add the large fla­vored ice block.

(Cre­ated by mixol­o­gist  Jon Gas­parini of Rye on the Road)

(Please search the site for the Who Dat?)

- From our lovely guest blog­ger Geor­gia Rags­dale.  From Texas, but we try not to hold that against her.