Dear Greenwave

Ok, something fun for a change! I hearby challenge you to post your selfie with your love note to the Greenwave on social media with #BowlWave hashtag

One, two, three, geaux!

Happy Early Channukah Everyone!

Thank you Bill Haber of the AP for these totally rad pictures!
Our friend GreenMenace drove past our post-game tailgating yesterday and yelled out his window "I don't know where y'all are gonna be for Christmas, but it sure as heeeeeelllll isn't going to be here!"

Yeessss Sir indeedy. Mazol Tov!

I teauxtally called out my student chickadees for missing yet another great game! One chickadee was even texting me persistently during the game about a matter that is still several weeks out.

Peter, Joseph, and Mary...I was some kind of sassing back at my phone that was buzzing intermittently throughout the game: what is wrong with you?!! Don't you know that Tulsa has the ball and all their time outs and 3 minutes left on the clock?!!! OMG I totally need to withhold my cute survival kits and start enforcing some discipline around Chateau Hullabaloo.

Fer real. I cannot abide interrupting important matters at hand, like bowl eligibility.

So yes, ya'll: Hullabaloo Ray Ray! We are Going to a Bowl Game!

St. DallHawaiinapolisburg, here we come!

I feel that Ryan Grant is saying to this Golden Hurricane "YA HEARD?!"

ha ha

Coach Hullabaloo and I are just pleased as punch and sitting around with huge chesire grins, just snickering at Tulsa that we totally neutered them in this game in order to get bowl eligible. Although you'll notice that we left nothing to chance. Coach continues to wear the same outfit and I'm sporting my lucky "Roll Wave" button. I even did some of my baseball superstitions like rubbing my fingers and the side of our baseball caps during some of the Tulsa posessions!

Hey! It's not weird if it works! Coach says he's going to wear tights under the shorts if we end up in Memphis in December. We even talked with some of the greenbackers afterwards who say they keep bringing the same food to each tailgate to not mess up the juju. Ha!

Well, this win went a long way in washing away all of our simply awful trips to Tulsa of our days of yore during the Toledo Error. Because Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo have sat through some serious doozies up there and endured all manner of stupid taunts from their hick fans.

Of course, them hurricanes couldn't just leave well enough alone. The Tulsa Galaxy World newspaper called us "lousy" in their pre-game coverage. And then their OG Jake Alexander acted ALL a fool during the game, kneeing Zach Davis in the head like that and then kicking Nico Marley. What was that story? Thankfully Messieur Alexander realized the error of his ways and apologized to Zach.

Because for real I thought Graff was gonna fling off his headset and take care of business hisself, if Lorenzo Doss didn't get to Alexander first. Doss was ready to rumble and had to be told to simmer down. ha ha! We are still waiting on Dillon Foxworth to own up on that blow to the head personal foul he committed tho. There was all kind of blatant bs that Tulsa did not get called out on as well. The refs were totally like plucked up from a rec league or something.

Steve Barrios even finally piped up with a funny on the infamous Review of the Review by the refs on Lorenzo Doss' takeaway. That was so absurd. A review on a review? Can you do that? Re-review your review? What is this multiple choice? Anyways, Barrios said "I haven't seen this many reviews since my daughter was in dance school!!" lulz!

Can you believe Times Picayune actually sent a photographer? Michael Democker strikes again.
One thing I didn't think we would be seeing again, but apparently continues to rear it's head is 10 Men on the Field. I swear this is our signature thing now. The Tulane Ten Man Special. We are so good now, we'll only play 10 men from here on out. But seriously, we got a delay of game penalty when Dante Butler wasn't in place in the first half and then we had 10 guys on special teams for the Tulsa's punt in the 3rdQ after stuffing them on their 34.

So, another something special is that we had was a visit by Homecoming Royalty to our tailgate ~ check it out!

This year's Homecoming King and Queen had heard that we had the best tailgate and that they had to come by, so come by they did. I very much enjoyed their visit, but disappointed they were tiara-less. Winning is bringing out all sorts of people, it's very exciting times at Hullabaloo Huddle.

Even the baseball team set up a tailgate! This is the beginning baseball krewe setting up their tailgating homestead and flagrantly violating the no grill rules.

Later on they were totally packed with the rest of the team and girlfriends, it was great to see. I love seeing the different teams support each other and attend each other's games. Hope they get tents for campus tailgating too.

So now, finally, for the food and fun portion of the week. Since it was Tulsa and based on my personal experience of Tulsa food - we had your basic tailgate food: hot dogs, priscilla's potato salad, cole slaw and pulled pork sandwiches. Although we did jazz up a few dishes.

As you know I refuse, refuse, refuse to serve 7 layer dip (gag me), so I always find recipes that jazz it up somehow or are an interpretation of layered dip like the greek version we did for Homecoming last year. So I found this version from Tasty Kitchen that turned it into a cheesecake and I pumped it up a notch by drizzling cilantro pesto and pepitas in addition to the recommended toppings from the recipe.

It was such a hit that it flipped over and did a 360 and landed face up on the ground. What a save. For real, Coach Hullabaloo fixed it and didn't tell me about the tablescaping tragedy until afterwards. ha ha!

I also found a spicy cheddar corn dip recipe, because you know, Tulsans eat corn. Recipe is below.

And Booty went to town on the drinks. Not only did she make the petri dish jello shots, she created this Swamp Water cocktail that had green tea vodka in it and apple liquor. And look, she braved the 22 Jump Street filming to snag dry ice for presentation.

I also picked up pumpkin beer and sparkling cider for a pumpkin cider cocktail that was also enjoyed.

And then for the kiddos, Lucy's Mom brought golden graham smores, which was messy gooey and the kids loved.

Lucy and Lucy's Mom. So cute.
and then I made the simplest of all dessert recipes ever. These cookies.

So easy, I'm embarrassed to even list the instructions. And I learned from our Asian tailgating to always buy a backup option in case things go awry in the kitchen, which they did. So I had a test batch using sugar cookie base and then the good batch that were the peanut butter cookie base.

PEANUT BUTTER PUMPKIN SPICE COOKIE MUFFINS

refrigerated pack of peanut butter cookie dough
pumpkin spice hershey kisses (seasonal, found it at Target)
colored sugar sprinkles
pinch of cinnamon sugar

Grease up a mini muffin baking pan with 24 slots. Preheat oven to 375. Take a melon scooper and scoop dough into each of the slots. Pop into the oven for 10 minutes. Meanwhile unwrap 25 hershey kisses. Take the pan out the oven and press those kisses into the little cookie muffins real quick so that they "stick" while the cookies are still warm. Sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar and some team colored sprinkles. Let the pan completely cool and THEN pop them out to take to tailgate. (waiting for them to cool was where I went awry with the sugar cookie batch).

CHILI CHEESECAKE WITH CILANTRO PESTO

For Pesto:
cup or so handful fresh cilantro
Canola oil
Few leaves of fresh spinach
clove of garlic
half a handful of pine nuts
couple pinches of pepitas
salt and pepper to taste

1 cup Crushed lime flavored Tortilla Chips
3 tbs Butter, Melted
16 oz, weight Cream Cheese, Softened
2 whole Eggs
quarter tsp Chili Powder
eighth tsp Cumin
1 4oz can diced Green Chilies, drained
1 whole Jalapeno, seeded + diced
4 oz Colby-jack Cheese, shredded (the marbled looking cheese)
4 oz sharp cheddar (I like Seaside)

For Garnish:
third cup of sour cream
A roma tomato or a handful cherry tomatoes, chopped
Green Onions, Chopped
Black Olives, Diced
Cilantro, Chopped

So it's this easy. Take the melted butter and mix with the crushed tortillas. Pre-heat the oven to 325. Press butter tortilla mixture into the bottom of a 9" spring pan and pop it into the oven for 10-12 mins. Take out and put in the fridge to cool. The original recipe says to mix everything in stages, but we mixed the eggs and then tossed with the cheeses, spices, chilis, jalapeno and gave it all a whirl until everything looked good and mixed. Take the spring pan out of the fridge and give the sides a little spritz of coating with some pam. Pour cheese mixture into the oven and then back at 325 for 30 minutes. Meanwhile whiz up the pesto ingredients in a food processor, drizzling the canola oil slowly into the machine. Chop up your toppings. Take cheesecake out of the oven, let cool on a rack for about 15 or so minutes. Run a knife around the outside of the cheesecake before opening up the springs on the pan to remove. Lather a thin layer of sour cream on top and then drizzle the cilantro and rest of the toppings. Refrigerate until it's time to take to tailgating.

CORN DIP

Can of mexi-corn, drained
couple tablespoons of diced canned green chilis
one medium jalapeño, de-ribbed and diced
squirt of sriracha for good measure
cup and half of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (not pre-shredded packs. Shred fresh)
some sprinkling of sugar
salt and pepper to taste
cup each of mayo and sour cream
2 stalk of chopped green onions (white parts mostly)

Ok, this one is hard: mix everything and refrigerate for at least overnight so that the flavors mingle. Serve with fritos. This might even be tastier with chopped pecans in it.

Alright y'all next up: Spoiling Homecoming at Del Boca Vista FAU! See you in Boca!!

Mrs. Hullabaloo Has Something To Say

Attention Everybody!

That is all. Carry on.



P.S. This speech is from Kurt Russell's pre-game locker room speech to the US Hockey Team before they went out and beat Russia. Btw, Kurt Russell is a dead ringer for Rick Dickson's voice, lol!

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.

Finally!

Welcome to ex-CUSA, North Texas! Nice knowing you!

WE WON A HOMECOMING GAME! Cue the 1812 Overture y'all.....



Remember when Nell and I decided last year that we needed to change the name to take off the pressure, and just call it "A Gathering" to reset expectations? Well, mother nature took care of that and forced TPTB to completely wus out and cancel their homecoming village instead.

Except for us. ha ha!

We couldn't be stopped. Our tent did make a sad demise tho from the wind. But hopefully now I can convince Coach Hullabaloo to finally let me buy tent weights already.

We pre-gamed inside the cave and our theme was Oktoberfest. A good time was had by all.

And girl, let me tell you that the menu we came up with was AWESOME. More on that later.

So you'll all be disappointed to learn that I LEFT like a complete wussy in the fourth quarter when Montana got his lights knocked out and we went 3 and out. I just did not have the fortitude that better fans have who stayed for the dramatic conclusion to our Karen Homecoming. Although Coach Hullabaloo did say he was white knuckling it and just dreading in his mind about how we managed to blow the lead and possibly continue our tradition of a) losing homecoming and b) finding extraordinary ways to lose games. Except that we didn't! Because Holy Shizzlemongers, we won.

It is 48 hours later and I'm finally processing it. No kidding, so this is how it feels to win a homecoming. Not to be screaming at refs because your coach can't manage a game clock. No sir.

But hold up, now. This win doesn't make me wistful about South Alabama. Because if certain someone had been on top of things year 3, year 4, and year 4.5 of Toledo ball, that game wouldn't have even been on the schedule, much less that close. And it doesn't make Syracuse fade into the rearview mirror neither, because we should have been competitive like when we played Alabama in 2007. Clemson just humiliated Syracuse at home and we need to aim higher than USA and UNT. I'm not satisfied with being evenly matched with directional schools and I won't apologize for that. So let me set that straight right now.

However, I was so lucky to be there in the flesh and witness Darion Monroe BLOCK A FIELD GOAL and Strozier run it back for a touchdown. Hullabaloo-ray-ray!

Image by Parker Waters
My mind was totally blown. As I was jumping up and down in the stands, all I could hear was Mr. Koozie yelling "FINALLY! FINALLY! FINALLY!" We have waited 120 years to be on the giving end of a play like that.

So anyways, I was outside setting up pre-game late in the fourth. I had turned off the car radio when UNT tied. Even FF Jim packed up Red and headed back to the Northshore. And then I just happened to take a deep breath and decided to just woman up and look at twitter to see the final and read the happy news. It was like the heavens parted and the angel orchestra played the 1812 Overture. Peggy was cracking me up saying that they had given all of the seats button holes by clinching their butt cheeks during the field goal drive.

Image by Derick Hingle for USAToday. Love the look on #85 Duce.
Coach Hullabaloo was very impressed with the two minute offense, as well as with the clock management by Coach CJ. Braaa-vo! No More TimeOut Toledo, thank you. And our friend whom I'll call Buggy, who's been a loyal die-hard since Tulane Football was mentioned in the movie Father Was A Fullback, actually had tears in his eyes after Cairo kicked one for the ages.

Grown Men, crying y'all. This is what it means to be a Tulane fan y'all.

image for the Tulane Hullabaloo newspaper.
So it goes without saying that the post-game revelry was out. the. box. I died laughing when Graff said to not bother calling, because he wasn't in the mood to hear it from the whiners and complainers like me, ha ha!

Us hullabaloo huddlers stayed in the cave for a spell and handed out shots of apple schnapps spiked with goldshlager to passengers as they were being driven out of the dome. It was great. And then we had an amazing dinner at Vincent's with our peoples with a very nice toast.

I was sad to miss Lorenzo Doss's pick 6 though inside the dome. It's no big secret that I am completely neurotic. Sometimes I have kitchen mojo at home, sometimes it's bathroom mojo. For the Saints NFC championship game in 2009 it was bathroom mojo. For the Saints Tampa game a few weeks ago, it was kitchen mojo. Anyways, I take this mojo zone adherence very seriously, as do my friends. If I actually watch a tight game, I literally sometimes get too worked up and I can throw up. No joke. So when momentum was kinda swinging back to UNT, I went and took a mojo break in the powder room. And I could hear the roars and cheering from Doss's pick 6.

So now I have to wait for the replay on Tuesday to watch the fourth quarter winning drive and Doss' pick 6. But at least I didn't have to admit that I was wearing purple drawers like I did after our SMU game. Because that was one of my darkest admissions and something that I am carrying with me to the grave.

The crazy thing is that we are all now getting ahead of ourselves and bickering about which bowl game we would prefer (like we have a say in the matter). My tailgate peeps are now fighting about the merits of Liberty Bowl v. St. Petersburg Bowl. I am holding out for the Bahamas Bowl or Hawaii Bowl if you ask me. It's Christmas/New Years, let a girl dream.

Speaking of dreams, our homecoming spread was fab.

Red brought german chocolate cupcakes. Peggy brought a german fruit salad and a fantastic baked bean casserole with sauerkraut and the recipe is below. We also reprised Circe's German Tater Salad which is always great. And new to our list: the beer cheese dip <- delicious. I was literally almost stupid with the beer cheese dip and ate the whole thing myself.

For our pretzel portion of our Oktoberfest menu I was literally turning myself inside out. Thankfully on Friday, the WWL Unknown Food Critic profiled Gracious Bakery and so that's how we discovered pretzel croissants.

Heavenly.

Coach Hullabaloo found Shiner Bock Oktoberfest too. And we made Apple Strudel shots with half apple schnapps and half goldshlager. Can't wait to reprise this, it was such a success. We are so theme-y, I can't stand it.

So new recipes for proper Oktoberfest tailgating....

Peggy's German Baked Beans

One 15oz can of pork and beans
7 oz of sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
halfa cup unsweetened applesauce
quatah cup packed brown sugar
pinch of salt
halfa teaspoon ground mustard
nonstick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine all ingredients. Transfer to greased baking dish and bake uncovered for an hour.

Beer Cheese Dip

2 (8 ounce) packages of room temp softened cream cheese
1 (8 ounce) carton of sour cream
1 package of Ranch dressing mix
half a can of full bodied beer
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheease, divided
cooked, chopped bacon - a couple of slices
couple stalks of chopped green onions

mix cream cheese, sour cream, dressing mix and beer. Fold in cup of grated cheese, and maybe a little more. Sprinkle the top of the dip with the remainder of the cheddar cheese. Let the dip refrigerate for an hour or two before serving. You can serve cold, or put it into a crock pot for warm dip. Top with green onions and bacon before serving.

And before we close, I just had to leave y'all with this nugget.

P.S. I am totally NOT judging about the official UNT pre-game. I am an open minded person. I am quite delighted the Mean Green embraced New Orleans and everything it had to offer. Diversity makes the world go round.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, y'all!