Taste of NFL scores with fans

By CHRIS SHERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 2001

TAMPA -- The biggest tailgate party of the Super Bowl was held Saturday when 35 of the nation's top chefs served 3,000 fans at the Taste of the NFL, a gourmet fundraiser on steroids.

In its 10th year, the Taste is such a hot ticket it cost $400, the same as a club seat for the game itself. Granted, no Taste scalpers were sighted outside the Tampa Convention Center, but, given the rising celebrity status of star chefs, they're not far off.

A player and a chef from each NFL city offered autographs and samples, and long lines formed for each. People stood 20 deep for a moment with former Kansas City Chief Bobby Bell, and just as many queued up for a tangerine creme brulee from Miami chef Allen Susser.

So who's bigger, chefs or football players?

"They're big," former Washington Redskin Brig Owens said of modern chefs, including Bob Kinkead, whose self-titled seafood restaurant he frequents. "He's one of my best friends. You've got to try his cooking," which on this night was a luscious Scandinavian chowder of salmon laced with dill.

One food fan grabbed Drew Nieporent, whose beard and girth made him easily recognizable despite garlands of Gasparilla beads. "Just ate in Lucca in Boca (Raton) last night," the foodie said proudly. "I've eaten in all your restaurants." A big boast, since the New York impresario now has 16 restaurants around the country as well as his Robert De Niro's Tribeca Grill.

The chefs are big, almost Tony Siragusa big in a few cases, on football. "Chefs love football," said Paul Shaffer, a Tampa Bay Convention Center sous-chef more the size of a wide receiver, who was trying to get all the players to sign an apron.

Baltimore chef Nancy Longo of Pierpoint, who dolled up hometown crab cakes in wontons, is such a fan that she had chef coats made in Ravens purple and decorated her stand with stuffed ravens and cans of Old Bay. Shin Tsujimura, a sushi master at New York's NOBU, was won over to the American sport long ago: He's held New York Jets season tickets for 15 years.

Together the chefs and players laid out a hearty spread and raised $920,000 for Tampa Bay area and national food banks and hunger agencies.

Meat eaters got their pounds of animal flesh with uptown style, like lamb chops seared in sumac (Eddie Matney's, Phoenix) and venison with Vidalia onions (Sunset Grill, Nashville).

Even when planners asked Bill Cunningham of Tampa's Radisson RiverWalk to come up with a vegetable dish, he didn't go cheap. His offering was a fricassee of wild mushrooms, from chanterelles to Perigord truffles, with a puff pastry stuffed with goat cheese. "The comptroller hasn't seen the bill yet," he said.

The chefs contributed hard work as well as ingredients, having started at 7 a.m. sharing the convention center kitchen. "I don't think we've ever had 32 chefs in there before," Aramark's Vic Manella said.

For Mise en Place's Marty Blitz, who has carried the Tampa Bay Bucs' banner at the Taste for eight years, hosting his colleagues this year -- and catering Super Bowl parties -- required him to catch his "fifth or sixth wind" as he served sponge cake layered with tiramisu and cranberries.

Visiting chefs sampled Tampa's menu, from Cuban sandwiches and Ybor clubs to feasts at Mise en Place, Ashley Street Grille, Bern's and SideBern's.

Tribeca chef Don Pintabona, who represented the New York Giants and went to school in Tampa, took his crowd to a favorite for celebrities of all stripes, Malio's.

"I love that place,"' he said. His colleague Nieporent agreed. "That guy (Malio Iavarone) is just a consummate host," he said.

From Saturday night's Taste, the best bites were lightly curried sea scallops and papaya salad (Flying Fish, Seattle); duck breasts on charred cakes of sushi rice (NAVA, Atlanta); a robust spread of salt cod and olive oil (Belon Brasserie, San Francisco); and smoky chipotle barbecued buffalo (Tejas, Minneapolis).

The most tantalizing morsel, however, came from Nieporent, who said he might put Tampa on his expansion map. "I wouldn't mind doing something now that I've got some friends here," he said.

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