College football culture is captured through the food, small town characters, and college life that makes Saturdays in autumn something fans look forward to every year.
In TASTE OF THE TOWN, Todd Blackledge, host of the enormously popular ESPN segment “Taste of the Town,” focuses on popular college towns by telling you where to eat, what to eat, and great stories about college football traditions across America. With over 100 recipes from the chefs of the featured restaurants and the coach (or wife) of the hometown team you will be left hungry and excited to try out the popular football food for yourselves!
Behind-the-scenes photos, shot on location, enhance the energy of the fun and food featured in each town. This book about football, food, and college culture showcases the coaches, players, chefs, and rabid fans who regularly join together to talk about their common passion.
I am a huge college football fan. Probably because I went to The University of Florida for college and that is where I met my now husband and he too is a big fan. We would spend our Saturdays in the fall tailgating out in the heat and then spend 3 hours in our massive football stadium cheering on the gators. Away games are still a time to get together for tailgating at home! The thing about college football is that it always goes together with food. Tailgating food, stadium food, after game celebrating win food at our favorite bars and restaurants. Taste of the town puts together the love of college football and the tasty food that is devoured by its fans from all the local places in big name football. Choice recipes are included to give you a little taste from the different places.
Makes three 9-inch round layers
- 2 cups flour
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
- 1 1/2 cups brewed coffee
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir, starting out slowly, until well blended.
- Divide the batter among 3 greased 9-inch round pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out almost clean.
- 1/4 pound (1 stick) butter, softened
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 12 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 to 4 tablespoons milk (just enough to smooth out the frosting)
- Beat together the butter and cream cheese.
- Beat int he confectioner’s sugar and the vanilla.
- Add milk until the mixture is creamy.
- Frost the top and sides and between the layers of the cooled cake thickly!
Todd Blackledge was a three year starting QB for Penn State before being drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1983. After seven NFL seasons with the Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers, he began a career as a college football analyst, working for the Big East Television Network, ABC Sports and CBS Sports. Since 2006 he has worked for ESPN calling Saturday Night Primetime games with Mike Patrick and currently Brad Nessler, and launched “Taste of the Town” in 2007. Todd lives in Canton, OH with his wife and four sons.
JR Rosenthal has a master’s of science in journalism from Northwestern University and has written eleven book, including Nolan Ryan’s Pitcher’s Bible, Randy Johnson’s Power Pitching, Don Mattingly’s Hitting is Simple, Pitch Like a Pro with Leo Mazzone and Tony Gwynn’s Total Baseball Player. He also is an accomplished chef and is currently working with Nolan Ryan on a cookbook/cattle ranching memoir.
Bryan Jaroch graduated from Hamilton College with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology in 1997. He is currently a Producer at ESPN, where he has worked since 1999. He produced “Taste of the Town” segments during the 2008 and 2010 college football seasons, and took hundreds of behind-the-scenes still photos. The photos from the 2008 season were featured in an article on ESPN.com. Since then he has published several photographs in travel guides and continues to expand his photography portfolio. Bryan lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with his wife and son.
I enjoyed reading all the tidbits of information about the different colleges. It has such a wide variety of recipes there is no way to categorize them all! I chose one based on UF and my love of Satchel’s pizza. I only wish the cookbook pictures were in color so that I could better match up my dish with theirs to make sure I did it right. It is quite the unique cookbook and it does help bring Gameday to your home on Saturdays during college football season!
Buy It!
You can purchase Taste of the Town for $20 and is currently available on Amazon for $13.20.
I received a sample product for this review. All opinions are my own and/or my family’s, take it or leave it. Click here to view my whole disclosure policy.