In the US, more children die of childhood cancer than any other disease. Please make a donation on my behalf to support childhood cancer research so that all children diagnosed with cancer will have a better chance for a cure.

To make a donation, visit my page at http://bit.ly/d6hDu3 and click on “Make A Donation” or donate by mail or phone.

Thank you for your support!

By the way: my son Christopher is going to shave his head, too! You can donate under his name at http://bit.ly/ckWzhi.

(NOTE: The links changed on Wednesday afternoon, 3/3/10, so if you made note of the old links, you may want to update!)

Christopher seems excited about the new camera.

FEEDBAG ALERT:

Word of the 14th annual Wing Bowl, held for some reason in Philadelphia, leads me to stand up and right a national wrong that will downgrade a lot of Super Bowl eating.

Let's just admit that the Buffalo wing is the best thing to happen to Super Bowl Sunday since the two-line TiVo that lets you record the Lingerie Bowl and save it for a quiet, introspective moment.

The wings have it all: heat, meat and a dipping sauce with a crippling fat count, guaranteed to put your arteries on at least an elevated orange alert.

They even offer the illusion of healthy eating, thanks to the perfunctory nod you toss at your celery sticks before submerging them, three knuckles deep, into the aforementioned blue cheese glop. (You'll note the word “glop” — if it looks like “salad dressing,” you have failed miserably.)

I grew up in Buffalo, so I could be accused of a nasty case of homerism here, but clearly the wing is a national affair. Like all culinary guilty pleasures, this is magic forged from a discarded animal part. In the pantheon of game-time gorging, the chicken wing has taken its place alongside other remnants-gone-great, like sausage, pork rinds, ribs and even more nefarious regional delights like the snoot sandwich. (Don't ask … )

The Buffalo wing has reached a state of saturation that can only be captured by a really big word rarely used in a football blog — ubiquity. So I'm not a homer, and I'm not alone.

I'm just a guy who cares.

That's why it's time to bring the hammer down, and tell you that 99 percent of the wings consumed this Sunday are a travesty! Wet, sloppy, pallid nubs that are prepared by cooks who have Buffalo's greatest hit confused with barbecue — cook it, then slather it with sauce and serve.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

If you want the real deal, you sauce 'em, and then you bake 'em.

Here now, a simple and proven technique. Trust me on this, and thank me before you drift into a diabetic stupor:

BUFFALO WINGS

FOR THE BLUE CHEESE DIP

1 cup mayonnaise

6 ounces Maytag blue cheese, crumbled

6 ounces plain nonfat yogurt

¼ cup buttermilk

3 tablespoons seasoned rice wine or white wine vinegar

Whisk mayonnaise, yogurt, buttermilk, vinegar and half of the blue cheese until smooth. Stir in remaining blue cheese and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Or better yet: Hit the store and buy the thickest glop available.

FOR THE WINGS

5 lbs. chicken wings, separated into drumette and bow sections, dried overnight on paper towels in the refrigerator

¾ cup Frank's Original RedHot Sauce (or for the heat seekers, up your Scoville units with the hot sauce of your choice)

1 stick unsalted butter

2 capfuls of white vinegar

Peanut oil for frying

1. Pour yourself an iced shot of tequila, take a deep breath, and contemplate greatness.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. Use aluminum foil to create a “collar” on a Dutch oven, electric frying pan, or cast iron skillet to prevent splattering. Add peanut oil to a depth of about four inches and place over high heat until oil registers 375 degrees on a deep-fat thermometer. Working in batches, place wings in hot oil, stirring frequently with a slotted spoon, being careful not to overcrowd the pot. Cook until wings are golden brown, anywhere from 8-15 minutes. Drain on paper towels, or if you want to kick it old school Buffalo style, drain 'em on some brown paper grocery bags.

4. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter and mix in Frank's sauce and vinegar for medium-spicy wings. Add more butter to lower spiciness, more sauce to raise spiciness.

5. Place cooked wings in a large bowl, ladle sauce over wings, and toss to coat.

6. Transfer coated wings to a large baking tray, and bake in oven: 15-20 minutes, or until wings are not sticky to the touch.

Serve hot with blue cheese dip, celery sticks and beer.

Savor greatness.

Send all your good coaching vibes my way, I’ll need ‘em…I’ve never done this before!

Lately, Emily has been creating her own puzzles, but the Sudoku program usually can't verify them as “logically solvable”.  A search for a “creating sudoku puzzles” on Google yielded this priceless tutorial:  Let's Make Sudoku!  (There's even an advanced tutorial for creating more difficult puzzles).

Me?  Family.  Friends.  Faith.  (The three “f’s”)  The opportunity to go to “play” instead of having to go to “work”.  So many, many things.  We are truly blessed. 

Have a great turkey day!  Oh, and if by some weird sequence of events you manage to overeat (imagine that!), the word in an AJC article “Thanksgiving (Over) Stuffing” today is that the solution is to have a little digestif of the alcoholic variety (Cognac, Amaro, Limoncello, Becherovka, or — believe it or not — Jägermeister) so “Bottom’s Up!”…

Perhaps we should look to Europe for the best way to handle the ill effects of this most American of holidays. People there know exactly what to do when you're about to burst from overeating.

Drink.

Brandies, liqueurs, bitters and sundry bottles of firewater routinely show up at the end of epic European meals in the guise of digestive aids.