Last Sunday I attended a New Orleans themed Super Bowl party.

Those who expressed an interest, were encouraged to enter the Gumbo/Jumbalaya cookoff. I chose to try my hand at Gumbo.

I spent most of Saturday researching recipes, shopping for the ingredients, blasting Reggae whilst chopping, sauteeing, roasting and roux making. It was quite labor intensive.

I’m also somewhat certain the soup’s temperature reached the danger zone at least three times (bacterium).

Sunday morning (7:30) I arrived at my sub shop (Santa Monica Subs) and prepared 15 footlong, delicious, gourmet subs for the party as well. Just in time to race home and realize I still had to make rice for the gumbo as well as my Banana Pudding Nilla Wafer dessert!

I spent about an hour at my friend’s house, watching him burn two rounds of bacon for his BLT Potato Salad. He also was debating how long he really needed to cool the potatoes and eggs before adding his mayo sour cream mixture. Speaking of danger zone!

I left that mess to go make my first ever purchase of Instant Rice. Wow, I’m not entirely sure this is a food product!

I decided to take the easy way out and dump the rice in the gumbo, creating…Gumbalaya! Oops. Oh well, I still won the Cookoff!

The Super Bowl.

I’ll keep this part short.

It’s about eating and drinking and yelling and saying repeatedly “I actually want to watch the game this year, guys.”

I didn’t have my glasses, so I had to interpret the game by the decibel levels and take random gulps of my Hurricane.

The Saint’s won their first Super Bowl and I win boxes of food to take home.

“Someone take this pie home. No one even ate any!”

“Sander, take this half eaten jar of marachino cherries!”

“They make Reduced Fat Ruffles?? Sander!”

“I’m gonna throw away the rest of these weird baked beans. Wait, Sander take them home.”