Tailgating……Yes!!!!!

Football season has arrived and what better way to kick it off with your favorite college or NFL team than to have a tailgating party.

Tailgating has been a long tradition with football. Granted there maybe some tailgating for other sports like baseball, basketball, hockey, and dare I say tennis? LOL But football, whether it be college or the NFL is the most known and the most celebrated. Tailgating has evolved itself into almost and art form. I mean it can be as simple as pulling out the hibachi grilling up some hamburgers hot and dogs with a couple of cases of your favorite brew to having a whole entertainment center hitched to the back of your SUV complete with gas grill, cooler, work table, portable bar to make that signature drink and a state of the art hi-def flat screen TV and sound system so you can hear all the scores and see all the highlights.

What I would like to do is share some tips and suggestions that will make your next tailgating party the talk of the town. You can catch me on October 30th. I will be manning the grill at Towson’s Homecoming underneath the tents of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., that Nasty IE Chapter.

You definitely want to plan this out. and you definitely want to enlist the help of others. You don’t to go about this by yourself because 1.) it can get overwhelming with all the little details that needs to be done to pull it off and 2.) financially, food and alcohol can be expensive! So either ask for monetary donations and/or ask people to bring a dish to help off set what you would have to do. The way I would go about this is like I how go about when planning for Thanksgiving when it is at my house, stay tuned I am sure there will be articles for bringing, smoking, grilling and frying a turkey, I start from the day of the event and work backwards. For example, if I know that I am having Grilled Jamaican Jerk Chicken and game day is on a Saturday, I know I need to have my chicken purchased by Tuesday, marinated Wednesday and Thursday, cooked in the oven on Friday ’til just barely ready and then finished up on the grill on Saturday. That second to last step, I just recently started doing for a couple of reasons, safety and expediency. Let’s face it chicken takes a while to cook and that is one product you do not want to under cook. It will take less time to reheat to the proper temperature than to cook from a raw state to the proper temperature. Now if you have the time, by all means, cook low and slow, but if you are feeding the masses, I would suggest this method.

When planning the menu, you want to offer a variety of items that even the most finicky person there will be able to enjoy a good meal. I mean even if you did just hamburgers and hot dogs, they don’t have to be ordinary burgers or dogs. For example, you could have a Southwest Turkey Burger w/ pepper jack cheese and guacamole, or a beer basted bratwurst w/ caramelized onions. What I like to do is offer something from each animal, chicken, cow, seafood, and pig, plus something vegetarian. You want to make sure the food is portable, no utensils needed and also make them a two biter item because everyone will want to sample a ‘lil bit of everything you have to offer. The menu is not complete with some sort of beverage. In addition to having signature drink for the day, make sure that you have plenty of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages on hand. This where you can enlist some of your friends to volunteer and contribute to the cause.

Do as much as the prep work in advance so that the day of you are just assembling and not really producing. Things that have to be done on-site put in resealable containers, label and store in a cooler the day of.

Prepare a check off sheet of everything you need for the day and the night before pack up as much as you can and check it off and the the day of go over the list again to make sure you have not forgotten anything. The day before, confirm with those who said they would contribute a dish to the party

As far as decor goes, keep it simple and fun let the food take center stage. The less you have to bring back home with you the better!!

I hope this was a helpful resource in planning your next tailgating party. Just remember relax and have fun with it, it’s just food!!

Click here for a fantastic Beer Braised Bratwurst with Carmelized Onions recipe.

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