Gross Football Lunch – NFL Week 6, 2023

Recipe of the Week: Nachos

Ingredients:

• 1 bag Tortilla Chips
• 1 lb. Jack or Oaxaca cheese
• 1 lb. ground chorizo
• 1 can black beans
• 1 red onion
• 1 bell pepper

• Basic Guacamole (optional)
  • Avocado
  • Garlic
  • Lime Juice
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Cumin
  • Paprika
  • Fresh Cilantro

Method & Analysis:

This is my recipe for nachos. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Nachos, as a concept, need no real introduction, but in the context of last week’s recipe for a somewhat refined and dare I say, elegant pile, it’s worth pointing out the obvious: nachos aren’t just any pile, they are in strong contention for the most beloved pile on the entire world. Nachos are a quick and easy way to shove the most comfort food in your face in the most convenient package possible. My goal with this week’s recipe is to provide you with a basic, easily modified method for nacho making. I’ve specified particular ingredients for the sake of convenience, but know that pretty much every ingredient in this recipe is fungible, and I encourage experimentation. If you have chips with melted cheese and other stuff on them, you have nachos!

But first, I’m going to talk about making a very basic guacamole to top your nachos with. I’m talking guac first because it is best to make it first, before you make the actual nachos. You may think this is nuts, but trust me when I tell you that a good guacamole benefits from hanging out for 30-60 minutes so that the flavors come together! It will not oxidize and turn brown in this time frame, I promise, and this will give you plenty of time for nacho assembly.

Grab a bowl, peel and mince 4-6 cloves of garlic, then throw the garlic in your bowl. You will need to chop the garlic up as finely as you possibly can. Next, cut open one avocado. Cut around the length of the avocado, working your knife around the pit so that it is cut fully in half, then twist each half apart. Scoop out the ‘meat’ of the avocado with a spoon and dump it in the bowl. Next, squeeze an entire lime’s worth of juice in the bowl, then season with generous amounts of salt, pepper, ground cumin, and ground paprika. If you want your guacamole to be spicy, you may also add some cayenne pepper and/or finely diced jalapeno.

Once you’ve added your seasonings, grab a fork and press down the full length of the fork’s business end to mash the avocado up. Doing this will break the avocado into small and smaller chunks, and soon enough, the chunks will be small enough that you can stir this whole mess together, so now’s the time to do so. Once your guac is reasonably smooth, stop stirring to chop up some fresh cilantro leaves, then add those in and give a few final stirs to mix the cilantro in. All done!

Now it’s time to get to work on the actual nachos. The real task of nachos is assembly; therefore, you must start with preparing all of the individual components. First, cook the chorizo. Dump it into a frying pan and cook on medium heat, breaking it up with a spoon into smaller and smaller bits as you go, until browned. Next, chop up one bell pepper and half of one red onion into small cubes, then set them aside in separate piles. Open the can of black beans, then drain and rinse the beans. Then, shred an entire one-pound block of either Monterrey Jack cheese – which you can get basically anywhere – or actual Oaxaca cheese, which you may have to hunt for at the grocery store (check both the International/Hispanic aisle and the fancy cheese sections).

Finally, it’s time to prep your oven. If your oven has a broiler at the very top, set the top rack of the oven in the second-highest position, then close up and start the broiler so it can heat up while you assemble. If you do not have a broiler, preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (rack position is less important in this situation).

Grab a standard issue baking sheet and open your bag of chips. Dump enough chips on the sheet to cover the sheet in as close to a single, even layer as you can manage. Now it’s time to add the toppings; when adding toppings, do your best to distribute each topping evenly, but don’t obsess over it. There may be some stray chips without much on them, and yeah, no one is nuts about that but also, we all have problems of our own, and anyone who makes a stink or throws a tantrum about getting a bare chip is being an asshole.

First, sprinkle the beans, then the red onion. Sprinkle half of the shredded cheese, making extra sure to spread the cheese out as far and wide over the chips ass possible. Next, grab a spoon and spoon dollops of chorizo onto the cheese in evenly spaced out locations, then sprinkle the diced bell pepper. Once those are added, sprinkle on the remaining cheese, again making sure to spread it out as best you can. Add the cheese in two separate layers; if you try and add all this cheese in one layer, it will get super thick and gummy and might not melt nicely and will altogether freak out the normies.

Regardless of whether you are baking or broiling, place the tray of nachos in the oven for 5-7 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and starting to brown.

To sum up, that you may go rogue with ingredients either now at some day in the foreseeable future, the basic method is this:

• Preheat (Start broiler or preheat oven to 500º)
• Layer chips
• Layer first group of toppings
• Spread first layer of cheese
• Layer second group of toppings
• Spread remaining cheese
• Bake or broil for 5-7 minutes

Serve your nachos with the basic guacamole and…whatever else you want, honestly! Ideally you can get your hands on some sort of salsa or pico de gallo (I do not have a recipe for either, and I’m very sorry about that). Failing that, whatever hot sauces you may have at hand will do. Pickled jalapenos and pickled red onions are also lovely, as are fresh scallions. There are some who enjoy a dollop of sour cream on their nachos; I can neither directly endorse nor explicitly condemn this course of action. Enjoy, no matter what you see fit to slop on top of this glorious pile!

Week 6 NFL Confidence Pool

Let me once again emphasize, for the second week in a row, that the Gross Football Lunch Confidence Pool does not burn the tape! Self-improvement is not possible without accountability; therefore, if I want to see my season improve, I am going to have to dive into last week’s flubs and take a deep dive into the cognitive biases and errors responsible for however many picks I missed in Week 5. How many was that, by the way? Let me check.

Oh. Oh no. That’s bad. That’s very bad. 6 out of 14 is very, very bad. Not gonna lie, I think I’m sensing the abyss staring back at me a little bit right now. It feels bad, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one tiny bit. The longer the abyss stares at me, the longer I can’t stop staring at the abyss myself. The more I stare at the abyss myself, the more I start to feel my moral and ethical framework erode, then shift, the crumble entirely. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I believe in much of anything anymore. I sure as hell don’t believe in self-improvement right now, let alone accountability; they both sound exhausting.

Fuck it. Burn the tape, there’s nothing to learn here. Hell, there’s nothing to learn from anything, ever, so let’s stop putting on airs. One moment, I’ve decided I’m going to step out for a bit so I can perform the secret rituals required to have my entire being utterly obliterated in the manner of my choosing. What better way to accomplish this lofty and noble goal than through total annihilation via absorption into the great abyssal ooze! Praise unto Jubilex!

As you all know, the Gross Football Lunch Confidence Pool is relentlessly, unyieldingly devoted to relentless, toxic positivity in all things! Here in the Slime Pits of Shedaklah, the only thing we care about is feeding to increase our glory, and you can hardly extend your pseudopods to consume both flesh and spirit alike if you’re gonna sit around feeling sorry for yourself! So turn that frown upside down, you overgrown adult baby! We’re gonna dissolve these Week 6 picks down to nothing with our putrefying acid and gobble em up! Let’s get after it!

Week 5 Correct Picks: 6/14 (0.429)

Season Total Correct Picks: 62/78 (0.795)

Week 5 Points: 60/105 (0.571)

Season Total Points: 545/649 (0.840)

Bye: Packers, Steelers

15 Points: Dolphins over Panthers

14 Points: 49ers over Browns

13 Points: Chiefs over Broncos

12 Points: Eagles over Jets

11 Points: Bills over Giants

In all seriousness, if I want to feel better about how Week 5 went, I can at least point to the fact that I didn’t miss on any of the very top point assignments, so I didn’t do as badly with respect to points as I deserved. The secret of this success is simple, and easily isolated. I assigned my top points to the best teams, regardless of how tough their opposition was. Therefore, I’m doing so again this week. I don’t have much to say about any one particular game this week, so I’ve decided to say a little bit about basically every game and group the pithy remarks into three sections, each corresponding to a distinct ‘tier’ of point assignment.

I simultaneously feel bad for the Panthers and also consider their awful season just desserts for letting Steve Wilks walk in favor of Frank Reich, a coach who couldn’t win the AFC South in five attempts. Mostly I feel bad for Bryce Young. I try to be patient with rookie QBs on bad teams but man, It’s hard to feel good about his prospects for success these days, especially with Stroud and Richardson balling out. Anyway the Panthers are hot garbage and the Dolphins will mulch ’em good.

The 49ers are playing at another level right now, so much so that I’m not even thinking twice about giving them 14 on the road against a tough defense. I can’t say the same for the Chiefs – a divisional Thursday matchup is a recipe for chaos – but the Broncos are awful. So are the Jets, of course, but their defense is enough for me to be wary, and while I’m starting to consider the Eagles overwhelming I’m not there yet. The Bills are always a threat to beat themselves but c’mon, it’s the Giants.

10 Points: Lions over Buccaneers

9 Points: Rams over Cardinals

8 Points: Seahawks over Bengals

7 Points: Jaguars over Colts

6 Points: Titans* over Ravens

5 Points: Saints over Texans

4 Points: Cowboys over Chargers

I’m going to call his largest, middle tier the Tier of Suspicion and Mistrust. The Lions look like the real deal this year, but they have so, so much residual stink on them from their decades of futility that I hesitate to give them huge points in any game where I have a shred of doubt, and Tampa has done well enough to garner said. I don’t know if the Rams and Seahawks are actually good, but I’m not convinced the Bengals are back yet and the Cardinals can only do so much. As much as I despise taking the Titans, the Ravens are as untrustworthy as ever and also very injured, and it’s a London game, to boot. It’s all too easy to envision the jet-lagged Ravens struggling to move the ball and giving up just enough points to fall into a hole they can’t climb out of.

These last two games in this tier are essentially unknowable, and their low assignments reflect that. The Texans have righted the ship much sooner than I expected, but they remain young and inexperienced and not all that great to begin with, which makes them a frustrating team to pick and assign. The Saints are just as frustrating for a similar yet distinct reason. They could beat or lose to anybody because they are the platonic ideal of mediocrity. They are impossible to pick for or against (although I would’ve picked them last week had I known Derek Carr was playing). I’m picking the Saints because I can’t take a rookie QB against their defense (and in hopes of atoning for last week’s flub).

Finally, just…My God. Look at this game, here. I cannot possibly pick this game in earnest because I cannot possibly know which of these two teams is going to choke hardest. I’m going with the Cowboys because well, road game my ass. Their fans will outnumber Chargers fans by at least a 2:1 ratio. I also think it’s more likely that Brandon Staley is more likely to do something baffling and self-defeating, even and especially if things are going well. By contrast, a Mike McCarthy led team is generally more likely to fail to show up than make one or two mind-boggling errors (with famous, obvious, and hilarious exceptions). If the Cowboys do show up, all they have to do is wait for the Chargers to blow it.

3 Points: Falcons overCommanders

2 Points: Raiders over Patriots

1 Point: Vikings over Bears

Last and most certainly least, here is the Toilet Tier. All of these teams are bad and I don’t have any real confidence in any of these picks. In fact, if anything I’m going to caution everyone against picking the Vikings. I’m taking them because they’re my team and it’s one point so who cares, but without Justin Jefferson they aren’t meaningfully better than even the putrid Bears; they also struggle at Soldier Field more often than not. May I never ever pick the Patriots again for the rest of this season, except maybe against the Jets.

Enjoy the games, everyone!