Tailgating traditions focus on food for the pregame party

The football season has just begun, which means it’s time to cook up a football feast that’s sure to score big points with family and friends. Tailgating traditions and menus are just as important as any play made during the game for many football fans. Autumn kickoff’s the season for fans that really enjoy watching the game in person or on television, tailgating parties, get-togethers with family and friends and of course, good food that is easy to prepare and eat.

Tailgating parties happen under a tent, outside the stadium, in a friend’s backyard, behind a truck bed or in your living room, recreational room, basement or garage. Remember to keep a cooler handy or a small baby raft filled with ice to keep drinks cold as well as perishable foods such as meats or dishes created with dairy products so they keep their proper temperatures the entire time. Bring along a roll of plastic wrap to keep all food containers covered when not in use to prevent flies and other insects from contaminating your best football snacks and finger foods. A roll of paper towels, a jug of water and a bottle of hand sanitizer are also good to have on hand to clean hands and spills while parting.

Foods that can be consumed without the use of utensils or plates are the best ones to bring along to a tailgate party. Vegetable platters, cookies, brownies, mini cupcakes, skewers, sliders, hot dogs and hamburgers are all great choices for quick serving without all the added tableware to worry about. Toothpicks are good to have on hand to poke though finger foods such as breaded chicken wings, pigs in a blanket or sandwiches. Don’t forget a black permanent marking pen so everyone can write their names on their cup to go back for refills instead of using a new cup every time they needs more to drink or forget which cup belongs to them when more than one are placed on the same folding table, snack tray or tailgate.

Tips, tricks and suggestions:

• It is good to remember that the rivalry belongs on the game field and that everyone around the grill are friends and don’t have to compete for the best dishes; you’re all there to have a great time together.
• Always begin with a clean grill.
• Before firing up the grill rub the grates with a thin coat of oil on a paper towel.
• Once the fire is started it might be a great idea to add a few seasoned wood chips to add more flavor to the food about to be cooked.
• Split the charcoal coals into two separate piles. Use one side for very hot coals and the other for ones that are for keeping foods warm that don’t require very hot heat. Now you’ll have a split grill to cook with using both direct and indirect cooking areas.
• Most grills have a lid. Keep the lid down when grilling thicker cuts of meat and raise it when cooking thin cuts of meat so they’ll all come out perfectly.
• Barbecue sauces should be applied to grilled foods in the last 5-10 minutes of cooking.
• Allow the meat to retain its juices by letting the meat rest for a few minutes before cutting into them after being grilled to your friend’s preferences.

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Want a unique dining experience in YOUR home? Kitchit!

Impress friends and family with a unique and memorable dining experience from the comfort of your home. Kitchit provides diners with an exceptional meal prepared by a creative and gifted professional chef, in your kitchen and then cleans up all traces of them ever being there. You’ll be the talk of the town with friends and your family will think you’ve been holding out on them. Want to spice of up your date life or give your spouse the night off? Plan a Kitchit dinner and use the time you would have spent cooking and cleaning to actually share a mindful moment with a loved one.

The Kitchit personal chefs take care of everything from groceries to clean up, eliminating the work associated with hosting a dinner party and thus allowing the hosts to connect with their guests - stress free and at an affordable price. Kitchit founder, Brendan Marshall gives you an inside peek at why Kitcit is catching fire in the Bay.

Tell me little about the inspiration behind Kitchit?

My co-founder, Ian Ferguson, and I were at Stanford business school. We ran into a chef who was talking about how he traveled through Italy and the new recipes he experienced. He was working for a catering company, so he got the opportunity to prepare the recipes instead of just talking about it.

We invited one of them over to cook for us, but thought it would be way too expensive. He said, “No everyone just give me 40 bucks.” He cooked a feast and it was great fun. He became the first chef at Kitchit and he’s an amazing cook! He served lots of food and talked about where the dishes came from and inspiration behind them. We had an awesome time and when it was over, the kitchen was spotless. Traditionally, you have to go to a restaurant to get that level of convenience and experience. With Kitchit, we found an opportunity to bring that intimacy, convenience and the power of the dining experience into the home. We realized this was a really magical experience. The food is one component but, it’s really the experience of connecting with others around the table.

What’s the philosophy behind Kitchit?

The whole mission of Kitchit is to connect through food. To take a moment out of your busy life and really be cared for by professionals who create an experience that’s really YOUR experience. It’s in YOUR environment. An opportunity to slow down and take a moment to really connect with friends and family and strengthen those connections. To relive and talk about the dinner party and dining experience years from now because of the memories that are shared with friends and family.

What makes using Kitchit different from just hiring a personal chef?

It’s a simplified experience where the chefs get to express their creativity. We also have a review system where clients can see comments about previous experiences. And the pricing is consistent; it will always be $39 per person and $9 per child.

Can your clients customize their own menu?

Yes, in addition to a Kitchit Tonight prefix menu, we also provide food restriction options like vegetarian and gluten free. Our chefs can also add-on or fully customize a menu from scratch.

Is it formal dining or casual dining?

It’s usually casual dining; get togethers with friends and dinner parties. It’s an easy way of doing it, but without all of the work. We do have clients who have used Kitchit for formal intimate gatherings. Either way, it’s an effortless dinner party.

What would you recommend to the new clients to make most of the experience?

You don’t need a fancy kitchen or a large one, for that matter. You just need a heat source (read: stove), some pots and pans to cook with, dishes and plates to eat on; and general kitchenware and utensils. It’s fun to see what a chef can do with limited resources. They are very talented and they are professionals.

I think the magical number for a dinner party is 6 people. Plenty of people do date night. The chef is busy with cooking and cleaning so, it’s not awkward having a third person. You’re just having a fun time with your significant other. There is always a nice balance between intimacy and group conversation. Also, I highly recommend having some kind of playlist.

How are the ingredients sourced?

All of the ingredients are locally sourced. Things like olive oil might be imported but, one of the huge advantages is the Bay Area has some of the best produce in the world and we try to partner with local farmers and seafood purveyors, like Two by Sea.

Do you get lot of clients who want something really out of the ordinary?

We get a lot of birthday parties and casual dinners, but sometimes we get dinner parties where the guests dress up in costumes, like Game of Thrones. It’s pretty funny.

Do the chefs really clean up after your task has been done?

We are totally hassle free so, people love it. A very important component is delivering the experience where you don’t have to do any work and you can focus on people around the table and you can have a great time.

How far would the chef travel? How far out would people travel? What is the distance?

The Kitchit Tonight prefix menu for $39 is available in the Greater San Francisco Area and we just opened in the penisula region; Menlo Park, Stanford, etc. We also have the Chef Market that serves the entire Bay Area, down to Santa Cruz and over to Tahoe.

How often do you change the menu?

The menu is changed on a weekly basis. There will be four menus that are available at any given time and each week we change one of the menus and replace it with a new menu. We found that people like having certain menus available throughout the month; they want to have it more than 1 time in a month. Customers would come back and say, “Hey, we love that and want it again!”

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Easter foods explained: Why do people eat lamb?

Lamb is a frequent find on the Easter table, and it has been so for millennia. Today, Christians of every stripe often serve leg of lamb (perhaps with green mint jelly on the side) or a whole roasted lamb for Easter dinner. For centuries, roast lamb has been a hallmark of many Catholic Popes' Easter feast at the Vatican as well.

Many people also offer lamb-shaped butter on this Resurrection Sunday. Originating as a Polish Catholic culinary tradition for Easter, the butter lamb may be purchased easily. Artistic folks may choose to carve it from cold butter, sculpt it with a frosting tip or cookie press, or produce it from a sheep-shaped butter mold.

Consider these possible explanations for lamb’s importance as an Easter dish.

Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This movable Christian feast, occurring on the first Sunday after the first full moon past the spring equinox, is also widely regarded as a sure sign of spring (even though spring officially arrives with that equinox). Easter is packed with meaning for Christians, and the lamb is an important feature for many reasons.

1. Lamb is central to the Jewish Passover.

Roast lamb traces back to Old Testament times, when a lamb was a frequent sacrifice the Jewish people offered priests to slay and present before God. The Passover story (see Exodus 12) outlines this in great detail. Essentially, the angel of death passed over every Jewish home, as their doorways were covered with the blood of spotless lambs. The angel smote the families of their Egyptian captors, killing the firstborn of each family. This plague, capping the famous series of dreaded plagues, convinced the Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go from enslavement. The parting of the Red Sea and other miracles followed, as the people departed for their journey to the Promised Land.

To this day, roasted lamb is a key element in the Passover Seder dinner, along with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.

2. Jesus’ Last Supper with His 12 apostles was a Passover Seder.

The Savior shared this final meal with His dozen disciples shortly before His betrayal and arrest on the night preceding His crucifixion (see Matthew 26:17-19). Christians remember this occasion regularly with bread and wine (or juice) during Holy Communion. The serving of lamb for Easter dinner also harks to the Lord’s Passover.

3. The Bible calls Jesus the Passover Lamb of God.

Jesus is referred to as Christ, our Passover, the spotless Lamb of God (see John 1:36 and 1 Corinthians 5:7-8), led to His death like sheep to the slaughter (see Isaiah 53:7) and sacrificing His own body to pay for the sins of the world.

In Christian tradition, the lamb is seen as a symbol of innocence and gentleness, just like Jesus. Jesus described His followers as “sheep among wolves” (see Matthew 10:16). False prophets have been called wolves in sheep clothing (see Matthew 7:15). Common language usage includes the phrases, “as innocent as a lamb” and “as gentle as a lamb.” Old-time superstitions suggested that the devil could never appear as a lamb, because the lamb stood symbolically for Jesus Christ.

4. Jesus is known as the Good Shepherd, and believers are tagged as His sheep.

Those who follow Jesus are called His flock (see Psalm 23 and Psalm 100:3), trusting His gentle and solid leadership.

5. God’s angels appeared first to shepherds to announce His birth.

The heavenly heralds arrived over a Bethlehem hillside to tell a group of humble shepherds of the Lord’s coming (see Luke 2:8-20). Clearly, God values shepherds and those they guard. Lambs are part of Christmas nativity pageants and displays, as well as the Easter table.

6. Lambs figure in end-times predictions.

Biblical prophecy indicates that one day, when the Lord’s kingdom appears, the wolf and the lamb will live peacefully together (see Isaiah 65:25). This gentle community is apparently a mark of Paradise to come. The highlight is said to be the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, wedding the Messiah to His Bride, the Church universal (see Revelation 19:6-9).

7. Lambs are plentiful in springtime.

Mutton, or lamb meat, may be particularly prevalent in the spring season, especially in certain parts of the world where winter makes livestock processing difficult. This, combined with its deep symbolism, makes it a popular choice for Easter fare.

Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter (which they call Pascha) on a different date, always after Passover (no matter when the spring equinox occurs). They traditionally eat lamb on this occasion. Lamb is a popular dish in the Mediterranean region, and lambs tend to be ready for slaughter in the springtime, but this holiday practice also arises more from its ties to the Jewish Passover.

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