Super Bowl Means FOOD in our house (whoever's playing)!

Super Bowl Sunday is going to be busy. First, I've got swimming. Then a piano recital where I'll play Tarentella. My piano book says that "a tarentella is a fast Italian dance. There used to be a superstition that the madness caused from the bite of a tarantula spider could only be cured by wild dancing." Wild dancing . . . sounds like the perfect thing for Pittsburgh this weekend, since our city has gone crazy and the Steelers Nation started their parties on Friday night.

(Note from mom: Can you believe the city schools have already called a 2-hour delay for Monday morning for fear of student safety? Because win or lose, the party-ers might not have made it home yet (!?) when kids are heading to their bus stops at the regular time. We're staying at home after the recital by the way . . . to be safe . . . from the party-ers.) Back to Lila . . . .

And then . . . the Super Bowl where the Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Green Bay Packers. I'm rooting for Pittsburgh - I always do, unless they're playing the Seattle Seahawks. Big sporting events are always a reason for fancy food in our house. Two weeks ago when the Chicago Bears were playing the Green Bay Packers, my mom and dad made Chicago Style Italian Beef Sandwiches in honor of the Bears. I liked them okay, they were kind of soggy, but my mom said that they tasted just like she remembered, when she was kid, and that they were supposed to be soggy. WHATEVER. Daddy made french fries and was going to put them in my sandwich, like Pittsburgh's famous Primanti Brothers, but the fries were too hard and I wasn't interested.

I think Super Bowl Sunday food will be better, but we're not really having anything that is traditional Pittsburgh - no Primanti Brothers, no pierogies, no kielbasi, and no iceberg lettuce. Mom's already started the baked beans, Daddy's going to make us the Brooklyn Bowl Fried Chicken recipe from the New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago. (By the way, the title of the article, "Tastes Like Chicken" is the same as a fortune I got at New Dumpling House a few years ago - HA HA HA, some fortune!) And mom is also going to make Grandma Carol's version of Velveeta cheese dip with sausage and broccoli - that's our GOLD in honor of the Steelers. Mom will surely be wearing BLACK . . . .

When I was with mom at her studio today, all of the dumpsters that are usually behind the building were inside the loading dock of her building. Mom says they're doing this all over Oakland, where the universities are, because the students might get crazy after the game and light them on fire. Can you believe that? Isn't that silly? Is that the way to celebrate either team winning? Mom said that the last time the Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2009, we could hear the students celebrating in Oakland all the way from our house almost four miles away - I think they must have been really excited!