I have discovered that the older people get, the more diet-conscience they become. They are always battling the bulge and trying to keep their weight down. I too have become an advocate for eating better for better health. Since 1997, I have lost sixty pounds but I still have more to lose. (I have actually lost about two-hundred pounds, but have gained back about one hundred forty over the years.) I want to get back down to my weight when I was in college, which was about 215 pounds. However, if there was ever one day out of the year to let it all go and eat whatever you want, this Sunday is it.
Super Bowl Sunday has always been like that in the Smith family, and it has gotten better and better, (or worse and worse, depending upon how you look at it.) But…..I overheard my wife and daughter talking about what we were going to do for this year’s Super Bowl, and I heard some very disturbing news; “Let’s cut back on what we have to eat this year,” one of them said. The other one agreed, “Yeah, we don’t need all that sugar, fat and grease.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This is the same family that once served deep fried Snickers on Super Bowl Sunday. We have deep fried just about everything for our Super Sunday menu; boiled eggs wrapped in sausage, breaded bologna, cheese, pickles, you name it we’ve fried it. And talk about desserts, we have had at least a dozen or more different sweet treats for each and every Super Bowl. One year, my daughter Christi came up with a menu item that could be a dessert or an entre; fried or grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches. That was actually topped the following year by fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, draped with bacon.
We have also served, fried honey buns topped with ice cream, deep fried Oreos, as well as a wide assortment of homemade cookies, cakes and pies. Very few items were purchased and presented as they were from a grocery store; we bought it, then deep fried it or covered it in sugar or ice cream. It had become a challenge to top what we had done the year before, until this year. Now, it seems my wife and daughter, are conspiring to ruin what has become a mid-winter tradition.
If what I overheard them saying is true, the deep fried Snickers will be replaced by celery stalks and carrots, with a lite-Ranch dressing for dipping. Fresh fruit slices with cheese will replace the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and the honey buns, fried and topped with ice cream, will be replaced by whole wheat chips with avocado dip. Artichoke hearts will now be a featured menu item, as well as lean deli-meat on flat-bread.
The usual assortment of adult beverages will also be at a premium in 2013. Beer will likely be replaced by Crystal-Lite or Vitamin water. If we’re lucky, we may get some homemade sweet tea, but sweetened only with Splenda, not real sugar. This whole idea of eating healthier on Super Bowl Sunday goes against everything we men have stood for. Take away our deep fried and sweet treats and you may as well take away our souls.
I certainly hope the women in our family will reconsider their menu selections for this weekend. If the game is a blow-out or a hard one to watch, artichoke hearts and avocado dip aren’t going to cut it.
rsmithsports@comcast.net
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Randy Smith has been covering sports in Tennessee for the last 43 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has continued his broadcasting career as a free-lance play-by-play announcer. He is also an author and is a media concepts teacher at Brainerd High School in Chattanooga. He is also the Head Softball Coach at Brainerd. Randy Smith's career has included a 17-year stint as scoreboard host and pre-game talk show host on the widely regarded "Vol Network". He has also done play by play of more than 500 college football, basketball, baseball and softball games on ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, CSS and Tennessee Pay Per View telecasts. He was selected as "Tennessee's Best Sports Talk Show Host" in 1998 by the Associated Press. He has won other major awards including, "Best Sports Story" in Tennessee and his "Friday Night Football" shows on WRCB-TV twice won "Best Sports Talk Show In Tennessee" awards. He has also been the host of "Inside Lee University Basketball" on CSS for the past 11 years. He was the first television broadcaster to ever be elected to the "Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame", in 2003. Randy and his wife, Shelia, reside in Hixson. They have two married children (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith). They also have three grandchildren (Coleman, Boone, and DellaMae).