And so it begins, y'all ....

What time is it?

It's booty o'clock! Totally time to rev up those booty engines Greenie Dats!!!

Me and my hullabaloo-ettes, Chardonnay and Luscious, bouncing our bouttee's after the triple overtime.
Ha! ha!

This. Y'all. Is what I have been bitching am talking about. The elusive win I have been holding out for against a good team. And a conference win for good measure!

My favorite picture from the game. Images are by Parker Waters.

So yes, I was completely verklempt that we are one win away from a bowl game!!

Hullabaloo, ray ray!

However, one thing that has put a damper on things (well, two, because the LSU types now deciding that they need to offer their unsolicited, unresearched opinions and assign us to the Independence Bowl has me some kind of aggravated), is that I am all kinds of miffed that Derrick Strozier didn't get a helmet sticker and that I had to sit through a half hour of ellashue discussion on WWL news about their stupid locker room speech to finally get to the Tulane coverage portion of the news.

Can you believe there was Not One Peep out of ESPN about Strozier's boss interception touchdown?

Haters.

What's a guy need to do to get some attention? I mean he went and lost his flippin' shoe and everything.

I think setting a school record via a goal line interception touchdown in your socks deserves at least a tweet from the national media peoples don't you think?

Anyways, what knocked my socks off was that we won without Nick Montana. I couldn't even contemplate the possibility. Jordy Joseph even saw a little bit of playing time. It's like, who needs offense? Because the game plan was all defense and all Cairo Santos.

Here's video Coach Hullabaloo took post game when everyone lined up to sway to the alma mater. I love that Devon rushed the field in his chair. You can see him coming back towards the student section in the video.



And you'll all also be happy to know that I took one for the team and left the suite where we were watching the game when ECU tied the game during regulation. I left and went out to set up post-game in the parking lot as per usual. And I didn't even dare to listen to Graff call overtime. So now I gotta watch the triple overtime online via All Access. Which will be good because the Saints lost to the Patriots so I will need some cheering up (hows that for flipping the script?! ha ha!).

All of us at Hullabaloo Huddle are taking our rituals very seriously. Coach Hullabaloo has been washing and wearing the same pair of purple drawers and white cargo shorts for each of our wins. Zach Davis' daddy says he has to come and give me a hug hello upon arrival. The two occasions he shook Coach Hullabaloo's hand before saying hello to me, we lost. FF Jim says since he is 0-3 in games he watches to the end and 5-0 in games they attend partially or not at all, he is staying away. Although Coach Hullabaloo sez that we can let Jim come and stay in the parking lot outside because his wife Red is such a great baker and we need her sweets for sustenance at tailgating.

Another piece of "lucky" flair is my "Roll Wave" button which has been undefeated since I purchased it from the cheerleaders for the SMU game last season. I wore it for the Louisiana Tech game too.

So our tailgating theme this week was Asian in honor of Columbus Day and it was a great success. I really do loooove doing themed tailgates, it makes menu decisions much more exciting to plan. I'm so lucky that my hullabaloo-ettes put up with my crazy ideas.

I found this adorable Chinese toile fabric with little pagodas on it, added a little ruffle flair, picked up some coordinating Asian bowls and chopsticks from the Hong Kong market, and dug out some old paper lanterns from a prior ill-fated homecoming tailgate....and voila.

It was a bit touch and go Chez Hullabaloo prior to tailgating because A) I spent all night slow cooking my famous spicy asian ribs to then char them into bits of coal at 5am, necessitating a redo B) I had to send Coach Hullabaloo to the store 3 times throughout the night and at dawn to pick up ingredients as I was messing up in the kitchen big time C) My kitchen clock was off by an hour so I ended up at tailgate totally late and D) the one game we bring only one tent, it rained.

Due to all of the calamities I sustained pre-tailgating, I was totally rushed and I wasn't quite proud of my tablescaping for this game as I have been for others. But as Julia Child sez, you are alone in the kitchen and nobody will know the difference. Which was true, because all of the food turned out amazing. Even Koozie made himself a plate of food and he usually boycotts our "weird" tailgating food. Plus we enjoyed being shoved together in our little tent and having some laughs.

Peggy made this truly fab Asian crunch salad which I am sharing below. There are tons of variations on Asian salads, but I particularly liked this one because of the broccoli and romaine in it. So it wasn't so much noodles and nuts as many others. And now that I have discovered soy-free Coconut Aminos, I can feel less guilty about enjoying it.

Priscilla brought epic fried rice from China Doll restaurant and Chardonnay made Crab Rangoon dip, which was yummy. I made some wasabi deviled eggs, because not having deviled eggs at tailgating is like un-American. Luscious brought green tea cheesecake. I also found these omg, crack-like sesame balls at Hong Kong Market.

They are like Asian beignets and they are delicious. They are filled with a cream cheese type mixture, soaked in honey and covered with sesame. And seriously you can eat like 20 million of these and not give a damn.

The only fails in the menu were the edamame "hummus" recipe from Trisha Yearwood, which wasn't any good no matter what I did to fix it. And the green and blue flavored fortune cookies that I found online. However, Coach Hullabaloo was most impressed that I found his San Miguel beer that he used to drink when he was stationed in the Philippines during his Marine Corps days. Ha ha!

And yes, that's sake down below and Plum wine on ice with the beer. Ok....so, now, for recipes.....

PEGGY'S ASIAN CRUNCH SALAD

half cup of canola erl
quarter cup cider vinegar
half cup sugar
Salt and Red Pepper flakes to taste
2 tsp soy sauce or coconut aminos
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbs butter
1 (3 oz) pack of ramen, minus flavor packet
Cup of chopped walnuts
1 of head romaine lettuce, chopped (br> Chop just the broccoli florets from 2 fresh broccoli heads
4 green onions, chopped

Whisk together the wet ingredients, salt, pepper flakes, and sugar to make the dressing. Refrigerate the dressing for at least an hour. In the meantime, break ramen noodles and sauté (minus flavor packet) in the butter in a sauce pan. Saute until the noodles start to turn a nutty brown and then set aside. Put your chopped romaine, broccoli and green onions into separate ziplocks. Ziplock the ramen. At tailgating toss everything together.


CRAB RANGOON DIP

quarter cup chopped scallions
2 tbs each of chopped fresh cilantro and ginger
1 tsp sugar
2 8oz packs of cream cheese, softened/room temp
2 tbs lime juice
salt to taste
1 6.5 oz can lump crabmeat

Preheat oven to 400°. Spray down a casserole dish with nonstick spray and set aside. Mince your scallions, cilantro, ginger, and sugar in a food processor. Add softened cream cheese and lime juice, and pulse to combine. Season with salt to taste and then lovingly pour into to a separate clean bowl. Sneak a taste. Fold crabmeat into cream cheese mixture gently so that there's still chunks of crabmeat in the dip. Transfer entire mixture into your greased casserole dish and Bake dip until hot in center and bubbly, about 15 minutes. Serve dip with fried wonton chips.


WASABI DEVILED EGGS

6 eggs
Mayo
Prepared wasabi
Ground mustard
Salt and Pepper
Sriracha
Chopped scallions
Tempura crunchies for garnish

Set the eggs inside your pot and cover with cold water. Bring the water up to a berl. Let berl for a minute and then cover the pot, and turn off the stove/remove from heat. Let sit for 10 mins and then run the eggs under cold water so that the shell membrane releases for easy peeling. Cut in half, remove yolks yada yada yada. Mix yolks with a whomp of mayo, a smidge of wasabi (what you can tolerate), another smidge of sriracha (whatever amount you like). Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in minced green onions. Put into a sandwich bag, cut a hole in a corner and pipe back into the egg halves. Sprinkle with tempura crunchies.

One final thought....Didn't you just LOVE the halftime performance? Elvis! Loved it! Even Little Mac sang along to all of the songs. I was barely alive during Elvis's lifetime and Little Mac knew every verse! Photo by Mike Nay.