Written by Lars Hancock

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Romeo Crennel comes back to Cleveland this weekend.

I’m really conflicted about this. From everything I hear, Romeo is a genuinely nice guy, the kind of guy you want to succeed. Given the horrible personal tragedy the man personally witnessed last week, you can’t help but feel bad for him. Misery seems to find Romeo, and he seems to be the classic embodiment of the “nice guys finish last” adage.

On the other hand, how good is it not to see him on our sidelines anymore? He led an era of pathetic floundering, where the on-field product was like Boones Farm in a league of first growth Bordeaux wines. There was never any hope, never any competence, never any progress under him, so we’re happy to be rid of the man. Now he’s back bringing his Mad Dog 20/20 to the other sideline.

So do we love the big lug, or loathe the blockhead?

It’s really a shame the guy has chosen a profession in which he just can’t succeed. Coaching to Romeo is like bowling to Edward Scissorshands. Romeo trying to figure out a gameplan is like a goldfish trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. The harsh reality of the world is that competence is rewarded, incompetence punished, and being a nice guy is only valuable on Sunday if you go to church, and not to a football field. And this is why Romeo’s coaching record is 28-51.

Romeo provides a life lesson for all of us: be honest with yourself. Know your limitations, know your talents, and don’t overestimate your ability to change. You are who you are, and that will never change. I’ve taken numerous jobs in my life that I had all the external qualities to be able to succeed, but internally, I knew the job wasn’t for me. And you know what? I achieved Crennel-like results in those jobs. I lied to myself that I was a different guy, that I could climb Olympus with a full military pack and sit with the gods of business. In reality, I was more apt at climbing into the cafeteria with a Snack Pack and sitting with the mortals, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Drive is always a good thing, but ambition isn’t necessarily. Ambition puts you in a situation where you fail, sometimes learning and succeeding later, but sometimes failing hard and setting your life back. I’ve come to peace with my limitations in business and in life, and ensure that I don’t get over my head. I only grab what I can handle, and accept whatever results come from that.

Romeo, I wish you well in life, but I won’t feel sympathy for you on Sunday. You’re over your head, but if it makes you feel any better, the guy on the other sideline is in the same boat. You two should have a Snack Pack together after the game and talk about coordinating together in some Sun Belt school next season. We’d all be better off that way.

Anyway, off to the questions.

I am deeply concerned I may not be able to handle a loss to a team with Peyton Hillis, Brady Quinn, and Romeo Crennel on the same sideline. I have dissected and analyzed this game 750 different ways, and the Browns keep coming up the winner. I have been thru a lot. This could break me. Please console me . Tell me what I want to hear. Also, please tell me how to cope if the unimaginable occurs. -pod 

This is a pretty much worst nightmare scenario for Browns fans. The Chiefs are the embodiment of all the crap we’ve been trying to get rid of for decades – bad coaches (Romeo), bad coordinators (Brian Daboll), bad draft picks (Quinn), bad attitudes (Hillis), and now bad karma. It’s as if someone threw a party for all your exes to be in the same place at once, and your wife needed to measure up to each and every one of them – the crazy one, the stupid one, the cheating one, the one that didn’t take care of herself -  and be vastly superior in every way, or else you’ll feel like a total failure. Oh, by the way, we all are imagining that shit show right now, and that is precisely what Sunday’s game holds for us.

So let’s look at our “wife” objectively. She’s certainly improved talent wise to the point where we don’t have room for a Brady Quinn or a Peyton Hillis on our roster. But is Shurmur and Shurmur (with a side of Childress) really any better than Romeo and Daboll? On both sidelines you have coaches bereft of each and every one of Stephen Covey’s habits of highly effective people, and coordinators who seemingly take their plays from Super Tecmo Bowl (and that is generously giving them credit for being progressive). So all of the coaching fail from the past is running rampant on our sidelines like herpes in a whorehouse, and that is not comforting.

On paper, we should destroy the Chiefs. They can’t sustain the emotion of last week, they are a terrible team talent wise, and they are the one team in the league Shurmur can’t positively under coach. Ah, yes, but that’s the rub – Shurmur will absolutely do his best to outsuck Romeo on Sunday, and dadgummit, he may well succeed. All it takes is a couple of ill-advised 4^th and 2 situations, a tipped pass here and there, and a career game by Jamaal Charles, and the Browns could easily be on the south side of the scoreboard on this one.

How do you cope with that? Easily. If the Browns lose, know definitively Shurmur will be fired. This would be an inexcusable loss, and no amount of progress or battling can be claimed with this one. Jimmy Haslam may come down from the owner’s box himself after the game, beat Shurmur with his shoe, strip him of his team-issued gear on the field, and kick Shurmur, clad only in his tighty whities, into Lake Erie. You saw the look on his face in Dallas – you know he’s got that in him. The team is going nowhere this season, obviously, and with new leadership, there is immense hope next year. So take solace in a better draft pick and the promise of competent coaching.

Lars, I'm returning to Cleveland in a few weeks for Christmas after spending 6 months overseas. Where would you eat your first "Cleveland" meal after subsisting on British food for nearly half a year? –fairvis

First and foremost, I want to offer your palette my most sincere sympathies. There’s a reason people talk bad about British food, and that reason is that British food sucks. It is bland, boiled, and boring. The Indian food over there is outstanding, but everything else is a hot mess. The beer? Unbelievable world-class drinking – you could probably have had a new and exciting beer every night for the past six months and thoroughly enjoyed that. But the food? Horror show.

The obvious answer to a “Cleveland” meal is pierogi, but after having subsisted for six months on boiled potatoes, you probably want something a little different than potato dumplings. Note that the pierogi will be radically better than anything you had for the past six months, but you probably want to splurge on something more flavor-packed.

A strong suggestion would be to head to any Michael Symon joint – Lola, Lolita, or B-Spot. His flagship restaurants will deliver to you fresh local seasonal produce prepared in a modern American way that may literally make your head explode (ala Scanners) after being culinarially incarcerated for six months. B-Spot will deliver beef (which I hope you avoided in England) in delicious juicy burgers, prepared with a variety of flavor combinations that speak to his Cleveland roots. Can’t go wrong here.

Mama Santa’s is another good choice, as you likely haven’t had a proper slice of pizza in half a year. You could probably spend a week eating in Little Italy, in fact, and re-introducing your tongue to the deliciousness of Italian food that it has likely missed.

But for me if I’m coming back to Cleveland, the best thing you can do is head to the Q or CBS and get a hot dog loaded with Stadium Mustard. The sporting event may be miserable, but it’s the misery we love, and nothing else says Cleveland to me like the spicy boldness of Stadium Mustard (Bertram’s actually).

I just received a dozen ghost chilis in the mail. What the heck do I do with them?

The ghost chili used to be the world’s hottest pepper, clocking in at a mouth-searing one million scoville units per pod. To remind you of how hot that is, the scoville scale indicates how many squirts from a bottle containing sugar water would be necessary to quell the pain caused by the pepper, and these require one million squirts.

Ghost chilies are interesting characters. You can literally smell the pain when you cut into them, yet the fruit itself has an inherent tropical flavor and aroma which is quite pleasant. This would be as good of a time as any to mention that you really want to be careful when cutting into them, wearing gloves is recommended, because you don’t want to be doing things like putting in your contacts or adjusting the frank and beans with capsaicin on your hands. Not happy.

Chili is an obvious use for these. They would make a nice finishing pepper, bringing a wallop of pain at the end while providing a brightness to the flavor which can sometimes be quite heavy. Mince a single pepper incredibly fine – or more if you’re a true masochist – and stir it into the pot about ten minutes before you’re done.

Wings are another prime use. I prefer to grill my wings with a little salt and pepper, and then toss them in the sauce afterward. In a blender, toss one ghost chili (or more if stupid) with some white vinegar, lime juice, salt, butter, and honey (roasted garlic would be a nice addition too). Blend and toss the wings in that, and be prepared to look like a clown the rest of the day as your mouth will be red on the outside from the searing pain.

I have a patented all-purpose glaze recipe that is great for most proteins – pork, chicken, and seafood. The base is a clove of minced garlic, slightly browned in a teaspoon of olive oil. Add a tablespoon or two of jelly (any sort – cherry  or apricot is nice, but if you find pepper jelly, all the better), a teaspoon of soy sauce for umami and salt, and then a teaspoon of lemon or orange juice. You can add a teaspoon of agave or honey if you want it sweeter. Reduce until it is thick stirring constantly. To this glaze you can add a ghost chili sliced into rings for a real punch, or you can simply cut one in half, put it in the reducing liquid, and then remove it afterward (trust me, the heat and flavor will get in there). You can add ethnic variations to this recipe – for Asian, add ginger, lemongrass, and/or thai basil, for Mexican add cumin and cilantro, and for Indian add curry, ginger, and mint.

You can also use the chili in a way that removes the heat and allows you to taste the flavor. I’ve made dishes with a dozen or more habaneros that taste like the pepper with none of the heat – you simply cut the pepper ina  way that cuts the veins away entirely and then dice up the flesh. Try adding it to freshly made caramel and putting it on fruit or ice cream (or both) for dessert if prepared in this manner, or add it to the glaze above this way to truly taste the flavor.

If you won a $10,000 shopping spree to any retail store of your desire, what store would you choose, what would you buy? -FUDU

Great question. There are three ways of approaching this – first, it’s found money and I go out and blow it, second, I can cut 10K out of my annual expenses, or third, I can finally make a big purchase I’ve been eying for some time.

Let’s assume the word “spree” indicates a one-trip splurge so I can’t do something boringly practical like pick the gas station or grocery store. We’ll also assume that I’ll comply with the spirit of the challenge and not go and buy 10K worth of goods I can resell on eBay to pocket the cash for practical uses. Nope, I’m going to blow this wad all at once.

Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, and that’s a hard nut to spend. I could pick Sears, for example, and get some dope new appliances. But even after getting a top of the line refrigerator, washer and dryer, and oven, I’d still have $3000 or so to spend at Sears. I could pick up a great blender and cookware and stuff, but this would feel a little too practical for me, and at the end I’d also feel I wasted the opportunity on a bunch of stuff which is great and will last for years, but which isn’t fun.

To truly feel I’ve spent this money wisely, I think I’ll need to satisfy all three criteria at once – reduce everyday cost, splurge, and get a big ticket item I’ve wanted for a while. The only place I can do this is the liquor store. Wine is a huge part of my life – my wife and I have a bottle together every night with our dinner. This helps us relax after a long day, and is a vital part of the overall meal experience, pairing being critical here, that turns a day of wiping noses and asses (her literally, me figuratively) into a sophisticated adult evening. 10K in a liquor store will allow me to buy months of wine, while splurging on things I’ve always wanted. Petrus, d’Yquem, Gaja, Grange…. Oh yeah, I can spend 10K in a quality liquor store unashamedly and on wines I’ve always dreamed of trying, while stockpiling on my basic needs. This would be the best combination of practical and impractical I could imagine.

I’m taking home about 100 bottles of wine in my spree. Heck, I could even do this spree in 15 minutes if needed. I’m dreaming of this right now – this was an offer, not a question, right?

Can you rank the bowl games in terms of deliciousness?  -FightHungerBowler

Because, why not?

1. Chick-Fil-A Bowl: Leave your political baggage at the door please, Chich-Fil-A makes a delicious chicken sandwich, and they have excellent shakes. KFC makes a bowl and it is a horror movie in food form. If Chick-Fil-A made one? It would be awesome.

2. Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: This is my dietary kryptonite. You put a bowl of nacho chips in front of me and I’ll take one and then one and then I HAVE A WHOLE FIELD OF MAIZE IN MY GUT! I can’t stop. I’m bloated and slow for days with an amount of fried masa in my gut that would make Takeru Kobayashi blush. So delicious.

3. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: That actually sounds like something you would order in a restaurant. I bet it has sour cream in it, perhaps even bacon. Potato goodness.

4. Heart of Dallas Bowl: Beef heart is offal, which is quite delicious if prepared correctly. This is not to be confused with “awful,’ like the Purdue-Ok. State matchup in said bowl.

5. Discover Orange Bowl: True fact -  I could literally use orange flavor in some way in just about everything I cook to make it taste better. Whether it is using the zest to flavor Asian cuisine, the juice for ceviche, or Cointreau to glaze carrots, orange flavoring is universally good and matches well with almost any food. This only loses points as eating only oranges is a bit boring, ironically.

6. Allstate Sugar Bowl: Mmm… sugar. Why do parents not want their kids to have sugary cereal? You know who never got sugary cereal as a kid? Hitler. You want your kid to be like Hitler? No, buy him some SUGAR Smacks. It’s not “honey” smacks or “Smacks”. It’s SUGAR Smacks dammit. Admit who you are!

7. R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: Gumbo, Oysters, Po Boys... mmm mmm mmm. The deliciousness of New Orleans outweighs the untastiness of a freight company.

8. Gildan New Mexico Bowl: I have no idea what Gildan is, but the bold flavors of New Mexico have an innate deliciousness to them.

9. Sheraton Hawaii Bowl: The delicious flavors of the islands served in an average hotel restaurant. Meh.

10. Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl: Though this franchise is horrifically overrated, it is wings and beer, and I’m a fan.

11. Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl: Gator can be delicious if battered and fried all to hell. Kind of like a strange chicken nugget. I have no idea who would go to a site called “Tax Slayer” for their taxes. Slayer is a death metal band, and an awesome one at that. But they’re not doing my taxes.

12. Outback Bowl: Not cardiologist approved in any way. They invented the deep fried onion, which is admittedly delicious, but uses grades of meat otherwise reserved for clothing and armor as their steaks. Not delicious, but edible.

13. Valero Alamo Bowl: You can feed yourself surprising well in a gas station. If you ever need a quick, healthy, and nutritionally complete 600 calorie breakfast when you're on the road, drink a muscle milk and eat a doughnut. Seriously. Delicious and nutritious.

14. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Pet peeve: for a canned food drive, don't bring the five year old can of mystery meat that somehow still lives in your pantry. Buy something that someone wants to eat.

15. Little Caesars Bowl: Pizza pizza, crap crap. Seriously, that pizza is bad.

16, tie. Discover BCS Championship: Nothing delicious here. You could use your Discover card to get something delicious I guess.

16, tie. Capital One Bowl: See above

16, tie. BBVA Compass Bowl: This is a bank of some sort so I put it here. See above.

19. GoDaddy.Com Bowl: I’ll just innocuously slide this right here in the middle and let you entertain your own notions as to why it may or may not be here.

20. Beef O'Brady's Bowl: It's a restaurant, and it sounds like a terrible one. Like a Hooters with male waitresses. No thank you.

21. Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl: Is it a holiday from education held in Bridgepoint? Can this country afford to be less educated, even for a day? The term "holiday" invokes visions of a feast of ham and roasted fowl, but education is never delicious.

22, tie. Military Bowl: Anyone else getting visions of a mess hall here? I bet the concessions have MREs at this one. So bad...

22, tie. Bell Helicopter Armed Forced Bowl: See above

24. Rose Bowl presented by Vizio: You can eat roses in a pinch, or use them as a flavoring in food. They have a flavor not unlike a rose. Avoid the thorns please.

25, tie: MAACO Bowl Las Vegas: We've al been in the waiting room of a MAACO or a similar place. Cheap coffee that's been sitting on the burner for 8 hours, and a vending machine. Horrible.

25, tie. Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas: See above.

25, tie. AutoZone Liberty Bowl: See above, again.

28. Belk Bowl: I don't know what Belk is, but I can assure you it is not delicious. Sounds like the fake milk - malk - they gave the kids in the Simpsons.

29. Advocare V100 Independence Bowl. Vitamins are not tasty. They are anti-tasty.

30. Franklin American Mortgage Music City: Mortgages are not delicious. Life would be much more delicious if I didn’t have one, in fact. Or if I would just deficit spend like the government. Unfortunately MY creditors take the whole concept of a “fiscal cliff” a little more seriously than our government does.

31, tie. New Era Pinstripe Bowl. Clothes aren't edible. Well, clothes that would sponsor a bowl aren't edible...

31, tie. AT&T Cotton Bowl: …and edible clothes? Not made from cotton.

31, tie. Russell Athletic Bowl. Jock strap soup anyone? No?

34. Hyundai Sun Bowl: Hyundai is actually making a nice little car these days, but I miss the fact that this used to be the Brut Sun Bowl, because it would remind me one day a year that some people somewhere (likely the Jersey shore) still wear Brut, and I find that hilarious. Brut is to the 70s what Drakkar Noir was to the 80s what, hell, I don’t even know how to smell now I’m so old. Back to topic, Hyundais are less delicious than even Brut – I’m pretty sure in a pinch you could get hammered off Brut* (* NOT RECOMMENDED!).

35. San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: Poinsettias are poisonous. NOT delicious.

 

Please email questions to lars.hancock@yahoo.com, tweet them @ReasonsImADrunk, or DM them to me in the forae to LarsHancock.