This weekend marks the end of the 2021 football season for fans in the Northwest—at least those who are hoping to root for a local team. College bowl season is all but over (the national championship is next week, between two SEC teams, Georgia and Alabama). And while the NFL playoffs are just about to start popping off, unfortunately, the Seattle Seahawks will not be a part of them. We’ve been spoiled for a long time, but the winds of change are in the air—more on that in a minute.
Because football is ending, this Food & Football column is also coming to a close, and this will be our last column until things start back up again at the end of the summer.
Thanks so much for all of your support, as we have adapted and evolved our format throughout the football season. It’s been a fun and delicious ride.
Let’s do it one more time.
This week we are looking at the only game left on the schedule, conveniently enough, with the Seahawks traveling down to the desert to take on the Arizona Cardinals.
It’s a unique and lopsided matchup in that the Seahawks have nothing to play for since, as we mentioned, they have already been eliminated from playoff contention. That said, Seattle is in an interesting place right now, with many people predicting a breakup for the franchise and their longtime coach, Pete Carroll, their star quarterback Russell Wilson, or both. We won’t know what happens to Carroll or Wilson until the off-season, but know that this weekend could be the last time you see them in Seahawks gear.
The immediate future couldn’t look any different for the Arizona Cardinals, who have their coach and quarterback for now and later in Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray, respectively. They have already locked up a playoff spot. Beat Seattle this weekend, and they could win the NFC West (if the Los Angeles Rams lose at San Francisco).
In terms of food to pair with this weekend’s game, nothing sounds like a better antidote to the cold and wet weather of the Northwest than a steaming hot bowl of pozole, which is a pork stew commonly eaten in the Southwest and Mexico.
If you want a visual recipe, check out this cool video. Here’s some more info to help you be successful when preparing this dish:
- A key ingredient in pozole is hominy, which is a type of corn that comes in a can. It should be available in the Latin American section of any grocery store, but there is a chance you will have to seek it out. Don’t substitute regular canned corn; it won’t work and couldn’t be more different than hominy, believe it or not
- This dish is basically a pork, hominy and chili pepper stew. It can be cooked on the stove, in the oven, in the pressure cooker, or in a slow cooker
- If you travel around pozole’s ancestral homeland of the Southwest and Mexico, you will find that it comes in red and green versions, depending on the type of peppers you use. Both are fantastic, and can be as spicy as you want them to be
- Since it is a stew and everything will be soft when it’s finished, consider adding some crunchy garnishes to provide a texture contrast! Think nice raw onion, radish, cilantro, or even some tortilla chips
We don’t know what is going to happen to the Seahawks after Sunday. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take one last ride with this squad. Please believe that nothing will make this ride better than a big bowl of steaming hot pozole.
