I hope I didn’t make the Steelers lose. As a Pittsburgh girl, who’s lived in Wisconsin for more than half my life, I tried to have an even mix of Packer food and Steeler food to eat during the game. The Milwaukee paper ran some recipes for Superbowl food – that’s what the football depicted is; the cover of the food section in the newspaper the week before the game. For the Packers, I made cheesey-corny snack mix, with several of the main Wisconsin food groups: corn, cheese, goldfish; pizza pockets, originally from the box of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry, but recommended by the paper’s food critic, Carol Deptolla; and deviled eggs with bacon and cheese in them. For the Steelers, I made vegetarian Primanti Bros. sandwiches, the ones with the fries and coleslaw inside the sandwich. I had the puff paste & Italian sausage in the freezer, also the soft grocery store Italian bread for the sandwiches. The line at the supermarket deli to get pre-made coleslaw was too long, so even though I had potatoes, I decided to make the coleslaw and buy frozen french fries. I used a fancy brand of fries, Alexia, and got the rosemary-garlic variety. They were good in the sandwiches – the texture was really similar to the real Primanti Bros. sandwich I ate last fall in Pittsburgh. But I skipped the thousand-island dressing – too lazy to chop up sweet pickles and mix them with ketchup & mayo – so I hope I didn’t jinx the black & gold, by composing faulty sandwiches – my brother’d be so disappointed with me. Afterall, he’s in India, without his trusty vacuum cleaner. It was a good game, so I hope what Mark said is true – superstition aside, t’was the Packers made the Steelers lose, and my sandwiches had nothing to do with it.
