#7 USA! Super Bowls on Sunday!

Due to the chef being away on business this week it is her partner in crime reporting on the latest World Cup dinner. With Sunday being the NFL Superbowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos we decided to take on the United States. In theory this should have been one of the easiest to achieve as practically every supermarket has plenty of US imported goods and there are hundreds of options to choose from for every one of the courses.

After a brainstorm that pondered Deep South dishes like gumbo and jambalaya, our San Francisco favourite clam chowder and homemade apple pie we decided on the straightforward option:

• Buffalo wings with blue cheese dip and celery
• Bacon cheeseburgers with fries
• Ice cream sundae
• Budweiser

Unfortunately, assuming that all these items would be easy to source we left the important part of getting the central ingredients until the last minute and quickly realised that perhaps not everything is as easy to pick up as we thought.

For the Buffalo wings we got a hot sauce from the Thanksgiving store in the 4th arrondissement. This shop stocks a decent variety of American sauces, beverages and sweets. There is also a second American market in Paris close to the Eiffel Tower in the 7th arrondissement called The Real McCoy – where we got our Budweiser from. However, the chicken wings that we intended to coat in the hot sauce were no so simple to get. Heading to the local supermarket on Sunday morning all I could find were small chicken drumsticks rather than wings and none of the small independent stores had anything better. A rule you can never learn to obey quickly enough in Paris – always get you shopping essentials in on Saturday!

Similarly, regular American-style burgers were not as readily available so standard steak haché had to do instead and was not quite up to standard.

Ice cream for dessert will always be a success, but we gave it a bit more of an American twist by adding slices of a Hershey bar and some Hershey chocolate sauce on top.






The Verdict

The Buffalo chicken bits were really good and given the small quantity on each stick could have been eaten twice! The blue cheese dip was made by mixing some Roquefort cheese with a ranch sauce dressing. That is definitely an appetiser that will get a second outing. The burgers, like every McDonalds dinner, was far better in anticipation. French fries will very rarely live up to the kind bought in a fast food outlet and these did not hit the target, the burger itself was fine but not as tasty as the idea of the burger beforehand.

The Hersheys ice cream sundae though was 10/10! We had a Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream base with some chocolate brownie pieces, cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate Hershey pieces.

With grand plans to stay up and watch the Superbowl there was a spare burger for later in the evening during the game, but, like every other year before, I got too tired waiting for the game to start and decided to go to bed instead – so the leftover burger was a handy first dinner for the week I have been left to fend for myself in the kitchen.

The week off from the project while the chef is away on business has given me time to ponder some upcoming dishes for the rest of our dinners and also how we can maybe fit a few salad-based dishes into the menu to help save my waistline before we get to No 32!



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