Surviving Sunday: Packers News, Notes and Links for the Football Deprived

[Da-news-now]

When ya’ll fire up the grill this Memorial Day weekend, what will you be cooking? Here’s my ideal Memorial Day meal:

• Steak, preferably T-bone or tenderloin, from beef raised on my in-laws family farm in Ringle, Wis. I cook my steak slowly over low heat on a charcoal grill. Get that propane stuff outta here. I like my steak medium rare or rare. If you listen closely, you can still hear the slab of meat mooing before I cut into it.
• Potatoes, diced, salted (heavily), buttered, sprinkled with pepper, wrapped in tinfoil and grilled. You can also add mushrooms, green pepper or onions for an added touch. Now, you can go a couple different ways with how you grill the potatoes. I lightly spray the tinfoil with cooking oil and put the potatoes directly on the coals. This makes the bottom layer of potatoes crispy and crunchy. If you don’t want them crispy and prefer your potatoes to be more soft, spray a lot of cooking oil on the tin foil and put the potatoes on the top rack of the grill, not directly over the heat. Either way, be generous with the salt. You really can’t salt them too much. I don’t like things too salty, but no matter how much salt I’ve put on the potatoes using this method, they never taste “too salty.”
• Salad, whatever your wife wants to make so it seems like the meal is somewhat healthy.
• Corn. Odds are you won’t have corn on the cob this early in the spring. What I do every summer is freeze some corn from a particularly good batch of sweet corn every summer. That way I always have good-tasting corn to eat while I wait for sweet corn season to kick in again.
• Beer. My personal favorites are Spotted Cow or Surly Furious. If you’re not a beer person, try a Lazy Uncle Jack: Jack Daniels, sweet and sour, a cup full of ice and black berries.
• Venison sausage. Whenever I grill meat, I like having a side meat to throw on the grill just for the hell of it. This gives you a little extra meat to eat during the main meal, and ensures you’ll have leftovers the next day. My side meat is usually homemade venison sausage from my dad. Other good side meat options include brats, brats or brats.
• I’m not picky when it comes to dessert. Something sweet or chocolaty does the trick. But if I absolutely had to pick just one thing, I’d go with a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie. My brother-in-law makes a strawberry rhubarb pie that makes me cry it tastes so friggin’ good.
• If you want to go all out and make an appetizer, try smoked egg salad. It’s great on bread or crackers. Put a dozen eggs in boiling water, boil for 2 minutes, cover and let eggs sit in hot water for 8 minutes before draining and covering in ice water. Peel the eggs and place them directly on the grill grate, and smoke for 30-40 minutes. Dice the eggs, add 1/2 cup mayo, a squirt of lemon juice, 2 teaspoons of mustard, and a dash of kosher salt, pepper and paprika. Serve and enjoy.

Packers News, Notes and Links

• Would you pay between $34 and $55 to watch a flag football game if that flag football game included Brett Favre? That’s too rich for me. I’d pass.
• I like to think I stay fairly up to date on pop culture and Hollywood. However, I had never heard of the movie “Pitch Perfect” until “Pitch Perfect 2″ was released last week and several Packers made cameos. I guess I’m not as hip as I think I am. Anyway, if you want to know how the Packers got involved in “Pitch Perfect 2,” read this.
• Keep an eye on undrafted rookie RB John Crockett. I really like this kid and have talked to a few people who have worked with him. They all say he has what it takes to make it.
• Have you ever yearned to hear my silky smooth voice? Then listen to this. Thank you to Brian Carriveau for having me on the Railbird Central podcast this week to talk Packers and the new NFL extra point rules.
• Only in Green Bay……

Non Packers links and other Nonsense

• The NFL made some changes to the extra point this week. Boo.
• Click here if you were ever curious what was on Osama bin Laden’s book shelf when we finally found him.
• Former Timberwolves GM David Kahn chose to draft Johnny Flynn over Steph Curry. Being a Wolves fan is really, really difficult.
• Aaron Rodgers should bring a different teammates’ kid to every postgame news conference this season.
• I always enjoyed David Letterman and was sad to see him sign off this week. One of the reasons I liked Letterman was that he’d give some love to metal bands on his show. Here are some of the best metal performances on Letterman in the show’s history.

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Adam Czech is a a freelance sports reporter living in the Twin Cities and a proud supporter of American corn farmers. When not working, Adam is usually writing about, thinking about or worrying about the Packers. Follow Adam on Twitter. Twitter .
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