The Buffalo Bills, and other assorted topics: it's the January mailbag

Ball is life.

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When I asked for questions last week, I guess I should have known that the people would want to talk about the all-powerful and unstoppable Buffalo Bills. Thank God they won (which I wasn’t worried about at all haha), otherwise I’d basically have nothing to talk about this week. I’ll try to group Bills-related things together as much as possible. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not! With that, let’s get to the first question.

Go Bills?
-TH

Couple things: 1) I enjoy the newsletter very much. 2) as a long suffering Detroit fan, what is it like to root for a team in the playoffs? (alternately, did you have a "Team B" when the Bills were moribund? and 3), it's only a coup if it comes from the Coup region of France, otherwise it's sparkling insurrection.
-blanx

1. Thank you! It makes me really happy to hear that people enjoy this.

2. It is one of the most surreal feelings I’ve ever experienced. I was only a little kid when the Bills were in the Super Bowl years, so my first experience with them being genuinely good is coming as I approach my 36th birthday. Every game is a blast, and it feels like they’re set up to be good for a long time.

   As for “Team B”, I have a few teams I have soft spots for but not a clear second choice. I’ve spent much of my life constructing an intricate network of beefs and grievances with most NFL teams, so there’s relatively few I have positive feelings for. I’m partial to the Eagles for some reason, and besides that I’ll generally pull for teams that are entertaining to watch.

3. [screams into a pillow]

What makes being a Bills fan more painful/frustrating/stupid than other tortured fandoms, and what makes it more enjoyable?
-Ryan

I think the answer to both of these questions is the same. In addition to being a totally hopeless franchise for decades that never even had the decency to be bad in an entertaining way, being a Bills fan was to invite the world into shitting on you for liking a bad team from a region with bad weather decimated by deindustrialization. Even if they won a big game, you can always find someone saying “Hurr durr at least I don’t live in Buffalo!” 

There are things about Buffalo and Upstate New York that really are terrible. People talk about the winters, but it’s the interminable 40 degree rains of March and April that really are horrible. The local economy was hollowed out by the collapse of industry in the second half of the 20th century and largely replaced with nothing. But it’s one thing for us to complain about this or make fun of the place. It’s another thing entirely for someone else to do it. Nobody is allowed to talk trash about this place but US, got it?!

And now that the team is good, heaven help the rest of the world if they ever win anything. Lord, we are going to be INSUFFERABLE, and we will have richly earned every minute of it.

What was your first in-person Bills game? (Mine was a 31-9 win over the Panthers in '95, one of only two times I got to see Jim Kelly play)
-Brandon

Bills-Colts in November 1998. They whipped up on rookie year Peyton Manning 34-11. Antowain Smith went for 107 yards and two touchdowns, if you need him. My high school marching band played the halftime show so we got end zone seats in the lower bowl.

Maybe this is too niche for your worldwide audience, but as a fellow 585 native, does Western New York have an actual regional cuisine? Or is it just wings and garbage plates? Anyway, the question is really an excuse to say thanks for what you do. Always appreciate your humor, your refreshing honesty about your current situation, and of course the recipes. Keep at it! Your fans really appreciate it. Go Bills, Baby.
-Dan

Thank you man, I really appreciate the kind words.

Rochester doesn’t really have a distinct regional cuisine. Like you said, I think there’s a couple noteworthy dishes, but beyond that there’s nothing that stands out about this region in particular. What I will say is that Upstate New York falls in with the rest of the Northeast as being home to Italian-American cuisine. 

You can’t go more than five feet around here without running into somebody’s nona who makes a big pot of sauce every Sunday (or so they claim). The restaurant scenes here are overflowing with really wonderful Italian food, but it goes much, much deeper into the fabric of the community itself. Italian food is about as ubiquitous as it gets among Americans, but for a long time it was very much concentrated into an area from like, Philadelphia north into New York and New England. 

I realized my first question for you was obvious and I already knew the answer (the public figure you would have dinner with would of course be Nude David Ginola), so I’ll ask my second question: what is your favorite beer style or brand to cook with? Not as an ingredient, but as your side sipper as you’re cooking for friends and family? Thanks for taking my question and best to you and yours in this, the worst month since last month in human history, Go Bills. 
-Yvon

Once again, you’ve read my mind. God, David Ginola, what a man.

As for my favorite cooking beers, I suppose it varies somewhat depending on what I’m cooking and what season it is. If I’m making something from a distinct culinary tradition that has a matching beer style, I’ll try to go with that, but more often than not I find myself coming back to a nice, crisp pilsner. A lighter IPA works too, but I’m wary of getting something too heavy or hazy because I don’t want to burn my palate out before I eat.

Long time listener, first time caller here. First off, through Allen and Diggs all things are possible, so write that down.

1. My partner has decided to forgo dairy and sugar. She's already a vegetarian. Do you have any go-to spices/herbs/ingredients to spice up some dinners?

2. As a Vikings fan, I have decided to enjoy the playoffs rather than self-flagellate. I'm tempted to root for the Titans (my best friend's team). What are some compelling reasons to root for the Bills?
-BobDeLaSponge

Before I get to my answer, reader Brandon chimed in with a response of his own since it calls on his particular area of professional expertise.

Not to step on PB's territory, but I'm a food scientist that works on diet food and it's always nice when that specific thing is useful! I'll leave the more culinary recs, but thought I could help with some science-y things.

Eliminating added sugar has the obvious effects on sweetness, but the texture is the hard part. You should be able to find gum acacia on Amazon, that will help retain *some* moisture and texture (pair it with something like sucralose for an almost-sugar-like sensation), but if you can sneak things like apple juice in, you'll get sugar without adding sugar (or, as the internet likes to say, it's adding "natural" sugar)

Vegetarian or not- salt, nutritional yeast and mushrooms (or mushroom powder if you don't like the texture) are your friends. Mushroom, in particular, has a lot of glutamic acid, so a pinch of salt gives you a...very specific savory boost.

My advice for good vegetarian meals is always to look to cuisines that generally don’t use meat, and this applies to dairy as well. You don’t usually find dairy in Asian, Indian, and Middle Eastern recipes, so I would recommend exploring those areas first. Coconut milk is a great ingredient to use to replicate the richness of dairy, and is used heavily across Indian and southeast Asian cuisine. 

As for specific herbs or spices, it really depends on what you like. Cumin and coriander are building block spices, and work in a variety of different applications. I’ve said this before, but buying fresh spices really makes an enormous difference. The spices on your grocery shelves are old, and don’t give you much flavor. If you can find a local shop that grinds their spices on site, I’d strongly encourage you to get your spices from them. If not, I’d recommend Penzeys.

We usually keep fresh cilantro and parsley on hand, because they’re both incredibly versatile and can match virtually any dish between the two of them. I’d also recommend keeping a few lemons and limes in your fridge. They last for weeks, and even a tablespoon of fresh juice can really brighten up a dish.

Why should you root for the Bills? Because they’re fun as hell, and if they ever won anything it would be an incredible story. The Bills have been around since 1960 and have been good for MAYBE 15 of those 60 years. They ended the regular season as maybe the best team in the NFL this year, but make no mistake, they’re still monster underdogs. Also, uhh, the Titans already lost.

Go Bills! Game show you'd most like be on and game show you think you'd be the best at.
-JJJJShabado

I want to say the answer is Jeopardy, but I would almost certainly get played right off the board. That’s probably the one I’d most like to be on, even though I don’t harbor any dreams of winning. I’m not a huge game show person, so I haven’t seen a lot of the newer ones, so I’m going to say my best one would be Price Is Right. I feel like I have a good sense for how much things cost, but mainly I think the pure energy that would emanate from my body if I successfully executed a “One dollar, Bob” would be enough to power humanity into a new golden age.

Peter, I’d like to know your favorite pasta shape. I’ve been wondering about it since the day we met.
-Sean

I strongly prefer chunk or tube pasta shapes over their long, skinny counterparts. I feel like they’re better for evenly incorporating other ingredients, and there’s less of a chance to make a mess from stray spatters. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the mighty cavatappi.

This hollow corkscrew-shaped pasta has all the benefits you get with a shorter, stockier noodle, with the added benefit of being aesthetically pleasing. Look at that. Penne or ziti aren’t getting a photoshoot like this.