So it's sunny and warm, but I want...

...to fully embrace fall.  Especially culinarily.  Which in part gave rise to last Friday's apple cinnamon buttermilk cake (well, the fact that I want to culinarily embrace fall coupled with the fact that I needed something comforting after the wine mishap).  Apples are sooooo fall!

Another fall food to me is...hot wings?  Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and go with it because I hardly ever indulge in this particular treat, and when I do, more often than not it's coupled with a football game, which is traditionally a fall activity.  Done.  And that's what I had for dinner on Saturday night as I indoctrinated Dana in the ways of college football.  Poor thing went to NYU, home of the Violets (no matter what this bobcat might have to say about it), and never truly experienced the joy that is a brisk fall day filled with tailgating and college football cheer.  Although it's darn near impossible to recreate the true Texas Tech experience here in our nation's capital, we could at least make our way to Molly Malone's, the local Tech alumni bar, to take in the game and decent bar food with fellow Red Raider supporters.

Football viewing included a few key lessons, specifically:

• "Texas" typically implies "University of," not Texas Tech, so we got in the habit of saying "Tech" and giving a guns up rather than a hook 'em.  Critical, critical points.
• Practice saying "ya'll," "fixin' to," and "howdy" to lend air of authenticity to poser Texan.
• Yes, "horned frogs" are actually creatures (we caught part of the TCU-Utah game), and "pokes" is an acceptable shortening of "cowpokes" for the OSU Cowboys.  Mascot humor for a Violet.
• Us Texans git mighty worked up about a football game.  I and/or my comrades may or may not have screamed/shouted throughout the game and pounded the bar more than necessary.

I will say it's awesome that someone brought along their iPod with the Tech fight song and had it hooked up the bar's audio system so that we could celebrate appropriately when the Red Raiders actually scored.  Ahhh, my people.  Land of cowboy boots and a little too much makeup on the gals and the good ol' boys who get awful worked up about each and every play.  That's home to me.  Too bad the boys couldn't pull it out - it's a little rough when you're pinning your hopes on the guy who's sporting a broken ankle/foot.  Oh, for the glory days...perhaps last season's victory over Texas that DIANA AND I WITNESSED IN PERSON:

On a slightly happier note, Sunday brought additional culinary embracing of fall - the weather was gorgeous and not especially fall-like, perhaps a touch more Indian summer, but I completely ignored it, braved the craziness that is the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon for supplies, and proceeded to stir a pot of Pioneer Woman chili* and bake buttermilk cornbread while screaming at the Cowboys and their inability to get their crap together.  Felt like fall to me.

Shout-out to Sarah for introducing me to Pioneer Woman.  No shout-out to any sports teams, specifically Texas Tech Red Raiders and Dallas Cowboys.  Shout-out to sister for patiently listening while I chatter aimlessly about dinner plans.  Shout-out to Diana and Trinity for the awesome new Tech shirt, captured in all its glory by a couple of buzzed gals who desperately needed some sausage and sundried tomato Matchbox pizza after the game:

Shout-out to Dana for playing Texas Tech fan on Saturday night and for generally being awesome.  Shout-out to Tom Brady for giving me great fantasy numbers this week, even if they did WAY screw up the end of the game.  And...out.

Ok, out after I point out that I posted this around 12:20 AM, so it totally counts as my Monday post for NaBloPoMo.  Sweeeeet!  Officially more than halfway there, gang!  Out!

*If you ever find yourself making this chili, here's my take - add all optional ingredients, taking care to not get jalepeño hotness embedding under your fingernails (oops), and essentially double all spices.  That = deliciousness.  Slightly spicy deliciousness.  So dial it down a notch if you can't take the heat.