This Is When Legends Are Made
The Friday Newsletter is ready for a game-winning drive
It’s crunch time, folks.
If you’re like a large swath of the American public, you might be watching football this weekend, as the NFL’s conference championship games are set to determine who plays in this year’s Super Bowl.
There’s no Tom Brady-esque old hand among the final four quarterbacks, which means it’s time for a new legend ready to be born. Perhaps it’ll be Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes winning his second title and further cementing his place as the best signal-caller in the league. Maybe Joe Burrow will finally be the one to bring an elusive Super Bowl win to Cincinnati. Jalen Hurts could become a Philly legend, or San Francisco’s Brock Purdy could shock the world by going from “Mr. Irrelevant” in last year’s NFL draft to hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in a little over two weeks.
But there’s more than that at stake.
These next few weekends are a chance for you to stake your own legend.
Can you host a truly great watch party?
Whether you’re entertaining a big crowd or just a few people—or yourself—now’s the time to step up and prove you can cover the spread too. Heck, if what you bring to the table is good enough, it doesn’t even matter if you’re not watching football at all.
Don’t think you’ve got what it takes?
Let The Action Cookbook Newsletter be your coach.
Every Friday, I share Seven Good Things to set your weekend off right—a recipe, a cocktail, a music recommendation, a book, something to watch, something to talk about, and pets from Readers Like You.
This week is no different, and I’ve got an especially good slate queued up today, including:
The killer app your watch party needs!
A cocktail that packs a paw-ful punch!
Fun new music, a gripping non-fiction read and your latest devastating time-sink!
The Internet’s Best Comment Section
Some very special pets, a merch giveaway, and more!
Let’s go out and win, friends.
7) Keep room in your heart for Buffalo
The Bills might’ve bowed out of the playoffs, but no championship season is complete without Buffalo. Whether it’s Buffalo wings, Buffalo chicken dip, or any other application, the cayenne pepper sauce truly sings this time of year.
Last year, I got ambitious, tweaking a beloved family Pastitsio recipe into a hefty Buffalo Chicken Bake. This year, I’m going bite-size, with Buffalo Chicken Bombs.
We’ll make a tasty filling that’s adjacent to Buffalo dip, then wrap it in egg roll wrappers and cook to a crunchy crisp. It’s a tidy little package that’s perfect for dipping in blue cheese or ranch while keeping your hands clean. What’s not to love?
I’m trying something structurally new this week—I’m going to link the recipe as a separate post under my brand-new “Recipes” tab, something I plan to eventually backfill with all of the previously-published recipes from 170+ weeks of Friday Newsletters, making the more-easily-searchable index that many readers have requested over the years.
You can find today’s recipe HERE.
You should, at the very least, click through for the cross-section photo.
Buffalo Chicken not your jam? I can’t relate, but I can still help. Here’s a few more recipes from the archives that might just suit your purposes this weekend.
Maybe you’d prefer:
Smashburger Chili, or if you’re not a meat-eater, my Thicc Vegan Chili!
Green Chile Pimento Cheese or Baked Feta with Walnuts, Dates and Olives
Fiestada Pizza, Tamale Pie or Architecturally Perfect Nachos
The World-Famous Kentuckiana Hot Loin
Or, if you want the maximum bang for your effort, make Blanks in a Piglet
It’ll take me a few more weeks to finish porting over the rest of the archives, but I figure this is a good way to start.
6) A Tiger In Your Tank
I’ve been experimenting the last few weeks with classic cocktails pulled from The Old Mr. Boston Deluxe Official Bartender’s Guide, a cocktail reference from 1953 that—so far—has given me some excellent drinks.
In leafing through it, I came across a drink called “The Golden Gate”, which felt perfectly-timed for a weekend where the San Francisco 49ers are playing for a chance at the Super Bowl. It called for gin, orange sherbet, and…
… well, that’s it. Not much of a recipe, huh?
I happened to have some orange sherbet in the freezer when I came across it, so I figured there was no harm in trying. In the interest of modernizing things past a two-ingredient “cocktail’, I doctored mine up with a bit of Aperol and some lime juice, and…
… nope, it just straight-up tasted like a glass of partially-melted orange sherbet.
I’m not sure what I expected.
That wasn’t an entirely unpleasant experience, mind you, but it’s not really a cocktail, and certainly not one I could be proud of serving you here. I’m still gonna show it to you, because look at that thing, but no, I needed another drink today.
Instead, I decided to revisit a favorite of my own creation that’s timely this weekend.
Last year, I took the Cincinnati Bengals’ surprise run to the Super Bowl as inspiration for a rum-based cocktail, one combining black and orange ingredients into a spiced punch that’d really welcome you to the jungle.
Well, Joe Burrow and Co. are back in the mix this year, and so I’m running it back with a re-tuning of this old favorite:
The Bengal Tiger.
Find The Bengal Tiger HERE, because—that’s right—just like above, I’m going to start backfilling an index of my original cocktail creations, too.
Hey, we’re overdue for a giveaway here.
Over the years, I’ve done a number of giveaways here, most notably The Action CookBox, a care package containing some of the best things I’ve recommended in Friday Newsletters. I’m working on re-conceptualizing exactly how I do those, but in the meantime, I do have some stuff to give away.
After I got my shiny-new set of logos last year, I produced a good bit of merchandise, and I’d like to pass some of that along to you today.
Five (5) lucky readers will be receiving a full suite of ACBN merch, including:
(1) ACBN beverage cooler / koozie
(1) ACBN sticker
(1) ACBN magnet
(1) ACBN keychain
(1) ACBN pet (or human) bandanna
As with my previous giveaways, I’m opening a simple Google Form for entry.
I will close entry next Tuesday, January 31st at 5pm EST, export the entries into a spreadsheet, and then draw five winners using Google’s random number generator. Winners will be notified via email shortly thereafter.
(One entry per person, please.)