Mutton, Lettuce, Tomato, and Matthew Berry. Regulators, Mount Up!

I have a theory/dream that I can become the Matthew Berry (aka The Talented Mr. Roto) of tailgate blogging. I'm sure if he ever reads this blog he'll consider that an insult.  If you are a fantasy football player you will know what I mean. But if not, what I mean is that I will say in 1,000 words what could be summed up in 50.  You think you're logging on to find out the best sleepers/busts for the upcoming season, but instead you get a recap on The Princess Bride and his Howard Stern guest appearance. (PB is one of my favorite and most quoted movies of all time, and Stern is my all time favorite radio show...really there is no close second)  But you read the whole column anyway, because it turns out that his Howard Stern appearance was awesome, and you cannot pass up an opportunity to revel in your specialized knowledge of Mandy Patinkin and Carey Elwes' finest work. See what I mean here. So in the smallest of hopes that Matthew Berry might actually read this blog, I'll be dropping a few lines that will make him, and probably nobody else, smile.

Throughout the course of this blog, I expect that you'll get a mixture of stories, recipes, miscellaneous thoughts, and in this case, gadgets!  This entry will properly demonstrate 1. how we over analyze and over prepare for our tailgates...and 2. that we like to think of ourselves as way smarter than we really are.  Inconceivable! But nonetheless, we love doing what we do, and talking about it, and now we love sharing our obsessions with you!

One of the things we pride ourselves on is that for $20, people can eat and drink as much as they want.  We will feed them until they are no longer hungry. And we will provide enough booze for them to have as good of a time as they want.  Enough even to get drunk enough to get involved in a land war in Asia, if they so choose!

Iocane powder, I'd bet my life on it!

In 2006 I got married. In fact, it was "mawwage" that brought us together that day.  (Grandpa, they're kissing again!)  In getting married, we decided that we were going to do wine/beer instead of a full bar at the wedding. So, it became obvious to me that this was the perfect excuse to buy a jockey box...and that jockey box is what we've used at the tailgate ever since.  (If you don't know, a jockey box is basically just a portable tap system for kegs of beer.)  So gone, now, are the traditional party keg taps that you learned how to install during your freshman college orientation.  Enter instead: a double tap, BLUE (of course), cooler style jockey box that looks just like this.  I Just realized, I wish I would have worked "Hello Lady!" into my wedding vows. Damn!

Like, this is what the beer comes out of.

One of the problems that came about, though, with our new found box, is that the beer didn't always flow perfectly out of both taps. We try to have light and dark beer going to appeal to all tastes...but it usually takes more/less pressure to run different types of beer. So while one tap gets great pours, the other is foamy, or vice versa. And then there are a ton of coils inside the box that need to stay ice cold. And temperature also affects the release of gases that influence the quality of a pour. Oh, and then there's the rubber tubing that connects the coils to the keg, and of course there are tube fittings, and valves, and all sorts of random crap that can all fail, and more importantly can all cause us to spend an inordinate amount of time wondering WHY IN THE HELL DID WE GET THIS DAMN JOCKEY BOX IN THE FIRST PLACE? WOULDN'T CANS JUST BE A WHOLE LOT EASIER?  WHAT I WOULDN'T GIVE FOR A HOLOCAUST CLOAK!

The answer to that question is, yes, cans would be much easier. As would the regular old taps we used to use. But we are idiots, and we like to do things right, or not do them at all.  So, instead of declaring a failure in the war against foam, we have invested!  (And we can now list this amongst our assets)

I'm told the large knobs are important, for some reason.

DBo and 2 Bags (lots of stories introducing you to our buddy 2 Bags in future posts) are our resident beer experts.  They fiddle with pressure gauges and pretend to look knowledgeable on the subject. (DBo works as a chemical engineer at a refinery, so he will tell you about the properties of various inert gases and covalent bonds while he does this...and did you really know there is a UC Davis ChemWiki?)  And you should have seen the look on his face when DBo received the new double awesome CO2 regulator in the mail this week. I wasn't with him, technically, but let me just tell you, I bet he's already played with the knobs a few times on his own, just practicing for the big installation day.  Hey Beavis, you said knobs.

What's the moral of this story? There is none. I like to type, and this is more entertaining than whatever else I should be doing right now.  The hope, however, is that this ultra cool new regulator will help make sure that we have smooth flowing beer of various varieties from the moment you step foot at the tailgate until the last drop is poured.  Now, aren't you glad you read all this way so far?

How do you like your MLT?

(Miracle Max likes his when the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomato is and ripe, they're so perky, I love that)  Well, in 2012 we finally did it, we broke something important.  Halfway through the tailgate we couldn't figure out why one side of the grill was not getting hot, and thus why our MLT's were not cooking properly. Uh, that's because there's a propane leak, Bobby!  So we called out to Texas and got our propane and propane accessories salesman Hank Hill to send us a new gas regulator. Because butane's a bastard gas!

Geez, I feel like I should also have a Warren G regulators joke ready to go. You can insert your own below.  So next week we look forward to saying the following, Regulators! Mount up! The point remains the same, doesn't matter how much propane Hank sells you have if your propane accessories are broken.  Now you can rest assured that in 2013 we will have enough propane to feed Fezzik and the entire brute squad. Oh wait, he IS the brute squad. 

Our new gas regulator.

So with that, I'll sit and wait, longingly, for my fantasy hero, no, not Robin Wright...@MatthewBerryTMR to acknowledge my existence. In the meantime, you will love what's coming next if you are a fan of bacon, cheese, and combinations of both.

Until then,

Have fun stormin' the castle! 

(Think the Bears have any chance of beating Northwestern? It'd take a miracle)

What is 2328 and Friends?...and thanks to Chris Kelly!

So, this blog has been a long time coming. I've wanted to write a book for a few years now, detailing the prep and fun that we get out of putting on the Official Unofficial Tailgate for Cal Football.  In a nutshell, the tailgate is named the "2328 and Friends" after a group of friends who lived together in Berkeley while going to Cal.  2328, of course, was their address.

Every year for the Big Game, Cal v. Stanfurd (purposefully misspelled, forever), they would get together and do a tailgate party, no different from any other. Gas grill, beer, good times, and a football game...and for many years in a row, a loss.

Around 2000, the group added a party the night BEFORE Big Game, and decided that the only way to do it right was to have a themed costume party, with a theme related to the current woes of the football team.  For example, in 2001 the team was winless going into Big Game. Thus, the theme "O." We had people dressed as Orgasms, OJ, you name it.  The themes were simple, and allowed us Cal fans the opportunity to do what we do best, be creative.

Around that time, I was an attendee at the parties, but had no official role in the tailgate party itself, other than to go and numb myself before the annual beat down took place. (We lost 7 in a row starting in my freshman year in 1995)  But it was around 2002 that this all changed...

It started as a simple request...Chris, grill master by necessity, nonchalantly asked me a question. "Hey man, can you watch the grill for a minute, I'm going to take a leak."  He has yet to return to the grill.

I flipped a lot of burgers that day at the Foothill Parking lot in Berkeley.  Cal won its first Big Game in recent memory, and Jeff Tedford was the new coach that was going to rescue Cal football.  Everything was good. I even remember the great sunset.  Now, the exact evolution from, "please hold my spatula" guy to "Executive Chef of the most fantastic Cal football tailgate party" took a little time.  The "Captain" of the tailgate, as we'll call him, still runs the show and is the Tsar.  However, over time his general fatigue from his 54 extra ciricular activities has taken its toll, and he has ceded much of the planning...and generally all control over the food, to the two Matts. Me, and DBo.  As you'll come to find out through the course of this blog (and my book once I decide to put that ball in motion), is that I (and DBo) spend an obsessive amount of time planning, plotting, prepping and sometimes procrastinating...but always prognosticating about how the next year's event is going to be the best tailgate we've ever thrown.  The food has gotten tastier, the recipes more diverse, and the menus more plentiful.

So here we are in 2013. Cal football starts in a week. Our first event is the Cal/Ohio St. game on Sept. 14th. And what are we doing? Test kitchen. DBo comes to my house and we cook, and test recipes, and generally figure out logistics on how to make the Official Unofficial Tailgate (aka The 2328) the best  possible event.

The basics
$20 per person - covers all you can eat and all you can drink...usually pre-game AND post game (except late night games)

The equipment
Much more will be written about our workhorse. The 6 foot Coleman Event Grill. Many a better grill have probably been made, but none has treated us as kindly as this monster of a grill.  Purchased, used, and sold in Tennessee, and repurchased when we returned...this puppy is going on its 8th year in service, and will host its 9th and 10th parties this fall.  That may not sound like a lot, but with the amount of abuse this thing takes, its impressive that it's still around.

Coming next...
You'll meet the players, you'll hear some stories, and you'll of course see pictures of, and get way too much detail about, THE FOOD!

So thanks for reading. And thanks to Chris Kelly for taking the longest pee in history.
I hope you enjoy.
Go Bears!