I did not put much stock in a Saints victory for their season opener a few weeks back. Instead, my hopes were pinned on nachos, special nachos, for a personal tradition that abets Sunday gamedays as nonnegotiable social time, no matter the score.
I rolled into a friend’s house for that first watch party ready to serve my Mrs.-Mary-McNulty-Is-Having-Company-Over-in-the-1980s Nachos. These call for round tortilla chips and a fussy assembly process to make each one a fully loaded chip, not just a pile of nachos.
These are the exact type my mother would make when entertaining on a weekend night at home, when I was a kid looking on, learning what adult friendships and hospitality looked like.
After the Saints' loss, the extra fuss put into the food remained a highlight. Through subsequent weeks (and losses) similar gameday spreads have helped preserve the pleasure and social amity of an afternoon spent with friends, a standing weekly gathering I value more highly than a division rivalry showdown.
Center stage is the marble kitchen island at a friend’s house in Uptown New Orleans that has become a clubhouse for a group of us on football Sundays. Fellowship is the goal, sports is the intermediary, and the food the people in this group contribute is very much part of the experience.
I know I'm not alone. When we talk football around here, the subtext is often what we do around the games, who we're with, the traditions and rituals we keep. When the team is doing perhaps not so great this is what keeps the game day social time sacred anyway.
It’s about making a big deal of food because it means sharing things we love and know will delight our friends. That’s why, despite a rocky start, I look to upcoming Sundays with anticipation.
As cooler weather arrives, there will be étouffée and gumbo and at some point a pot roast cooked down under our noses for build-your-own-po-boy day, and even though the Saints don’t get a Monday night game this season there will be a pot of red beans with tasso and at least two types of sausage.
We do not look beyond results when it comes to game day. Football Sundays are feast days, and the results are in our own hands.
