Tailgating
Under the Hood
Essential Tailgating Grills and Equipment for the Best Tailgate Food
The confluence of fall, food, fun, and football is here. It’s called tailgating, and as far as we can tell, it’s a uniquely American phenomenon. According to the polling organization govyou.com, some 27 million of us will attend weekend tailgate parties in the last quarter of the year with millions more entertaining at home (“homegating”). If you’re part of this glorious and fanatical culture, you know how competitive the sport of tailgating is. Anyone can wear their team colors and accessorize with foam fingers,...
Read more →Hot Stuff
Tailgating 2017 Sweepstakes
Every tailgater has a favorite tradition. Whether that tradition occurs in the parking lot of a storied baseball park or in the shadow of a sold-out football stadium (or even in your backyard!), it invariably involves live fire cooking. The grill or smoker you use plays a central role in these celebrations, with mouth watering output ranging from grilled corn to chicken wings and even a bratwurst hot tub. This fall, we're helping you discover new recipes and mix up your tailgating traditions...
Read more →Grilled and Smoked: Super Bowl LI, Part 2
Left two photos by Richard Dallett; bottom right by Lucy Schaeffer. Last week, we gave you a preview of our Super Bowl playbook—strategies for feeding ravenous sports fans who’ve been invited to your house for Sunday’s big game. Today, we’re making good on our promise to share more amazing Raichlen recipes for what is now the second biggest eating holiday after Thanksgiving. Truth be told, there were so many contenders for this year’s Super Bowl menu that it was difficult to narrow the field. Like a parent of multiple children,...
Read more →Grilled and Smoked: Super Bowl LI
Top left photo by Richard Dallett; top right and bottom left by Lucy Schaeffer. The suspense is over: The New England Patriots will face the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI (that’s 51 if your recall of Roman numerals is rusty) on Sunday, February 5, at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. If you’re among the estimated 45 million Americans who will be hosting game day festivities at your house, the party planning can now begin in earnest. Super Bowl Sunday is, after all, one of the biggest eating days of the year, second only to Thanksgiving....
Read more →The Ultimate Tailgating Food: Wings
Chickens just can’t catch a break. On July 29, we celebrated National Chicken Wing Day—an undisguised warm-up for fall tailgating season. We Americans do love our chicken wings. The National Chicken Council predicts we’ll eat 28 billion of them before year’s end. For my money, chicken wings rank among the most delectable bites on Planet Barbecue—popular in almost all grilling cultures, from Asia to Africa. And it’s no wonder. They’re the perfect finger...
Read more →Our Top Picks: Tailgating Gear
What’s so appealing about hosting a party in a parking lot before a sporting event? Everything! Americans love tailgating and take credit for inventing this unique form of entertaining, usually a triumvirate of beer, balls, and barbecue. Recently, we posted our top 10 tailgating tips. Embedded in that blog post was a promise to share with you our favorite equipment. Now we’re making good on it. You won’t see any battery-draining margarita blenders, big screen plasma TVs, or silver candelabra here. Just useful stuff that will make you look like...
Read more →Game On! Our Top 10 Tailgating Tips
Photo by James Willamor via Creative Commons. Tailgating has come a long way since November 6, 1869, when spectators lowered the buckboards (tailgates) of their horse-drawn wagons to serve picnic lunches from hampers at the first intercollegiate football game, Princeton vs. Rutgers. Today, the real competition’s on the asphalt, not the AstroTurf. Americans are obsessed with tailgating, especially during football season. And if we didn’t inherit...
Read more →Raichlen’s Super Bowl Menu, 2015
The second biggest eating day of the year (second only to Thanksgiving) is approaching fast. I speak of Super Bowl Sunday, of course, that can’t-not-watch slugfest between America’s top pro footballers. Sunday’s game pits the Seattle Seahawks against the New England Patriots. As usual, we take perverse pleasure in researching ticket prices. At this writing, $5,000 will buy you nosebleed seats in the stadium at the University of Phoenix in Glendale, while...
Read more →Winging It on Super Bowl Sunday
Quick: What’s the second biggest eating holiday after Thanksgiving? Memorial Day? July 4th? Labor Day? Actually, it’s Super Bowl Sunday, which is coming at us faster (February 2) than a Peyton Manning pass. According to the National Restaurant Association, 63 percent of Americans consider chicken wings a “must-have” in their annual mash-up of food and football. We ate nearly 1.23 billion wings during last year’s game—enough to encircle the earth twice. Chicken wings make the perfect Super Bowl food. Infinitely customizable. Easily...
Read more →Under the Hood
9 Must-Have Tailgating Accessories
On any given Sunday…or Saturday…or Monday in autumn, millions of Americans flock to stadium parking lots to eat, drink, and pray for their favorite college and pro teams. Meanwhile, the swallows, departing Capistrano at the height of tailgating season, must look down at the rollicking parties and telegraph to each other, “WTH?” To the rest of the world, America’s obsession with tailgating must seem a bit over-the-top. After all, more than 20,000,000 of us consider ourselves bona fide tailgaters, with millions more...
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