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Stowes celebrate Super Bowl with Bears treats
With his mother Melany Stowe looking on, Reeves Stowe decorates bear cupcakes in honor of the Stowe family’s favorite team, the Chicago Bears, who will be playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl. Whenever there is a Bears’ game — or any big sporting event, for that matter — Melany sets the atmosphere with themed table settings, decorations and food.
Melany Stowe normally sets the mood for the Super Bowl with cupcakes and other treats in the colors of both competing teams. This week in the Stowe home, though, only the colors of one team will be represented, because there’s only one team the Stowes are rooting for: the Chicago Bears.
“We always celebrate everything” with hors d’oeuvres and get-togethers, said Stowe, 31. But this Sunday will be extra-special for Melany and her husband, Brian: They will be in Miami watching their favorite team, the Bears, play the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI. It is the first time the Bears have been in the big game since “Jan. 26, 1986,” Brian rattled off from memory.
Being at the Super Bowl means the couple can’t host a Super Bowl party at home their Martinsville home, so they are gearing up all week long with Chicago Bears-inspired treats.
Melany said she likes to create a theme-oriented menu. From napkins and plates to banners and decorations, everything this week is in the Bears team colors. The food is either in those colors from Chicago or bear-shaped.
Melany’s bear-shaped cupcakes are a hit with kids because the youngsters can help in the assembly and decoration as well as in the eating. Plus, the cupcakes “are really messy when you eat it, and of course kids love that,” Melany said, pointing to the couple’s 2-and-a-half-year-old son, Reeves, who was decorating a cupcake.
To celebrate the game, Melany prepared a chicken wing dip that has everything regular chicken wings have except the mess; “Da Pork Chop,” made from a recipe from the (former Bears coach) Mike Ditka Restaurant in Chicago; and a pizza directly from a Chicago pizzeria recommended to them by their neighbor, John Hale, who used to live in Chicago.
Another hit for sports-watching gatherings is a hot dog bar, where a variety of toppings is laid out. “It’s simple” to get ready, Melany said. “When you have all those fixings, kids can still stick to the basics, and daring adults can try it all.”
Although Melany always has enjoyed watching sports, she said it was her husband who got her into the Bears.
“He’s been a Bears fan all his life, and when we met I didn’t have a choice,” she said. When it’s racing season, she pulls for Kasey Kahne.
Although they are eager for the Bears to win, the Stowes already are winners. Melany found out Friday that she won a free trip to Sunday’s Super Bowl through a contest sponsored by Skorr Products, which makes chafing dishes.
She entered the contest online and never expected to win.
“I was afraid my heart was going to beat out of my chest” when she got the news, she said, adding that her husband brought home a big box of chocolates to celebrate that night.
During a trip last summer to Chicago, the Stowes took in several Chicago Bears sites. They even ate at the Mike Ditka Restaurant. Ditka, now a sports analyst for ESPN, coached the team when it won the Super Bowl in 1986. Melany now prepares the restaurant’s signature pork chops often at home.
The Stowes also ate at Giodarno’s Pizza and at World Famous Garrett Popcorn, “a popcorn place that was featured on Oprah,” Melany said. And, of course, the couple saw Soldier Field, where the Bears play football.
The Bears fans still order their game-day pizza directly from the Chicago pizzeria. The treat about Chicago pizza is its unusually thick crust: it’s about an inch thick, and Melany can usually eat only one slice, she said. The Stowes place their orders through the Web site giordanos.com. The pizza is partially baked and immediately frozen, and “it arrives in a cooler with dry ice” to your door the next day, Melany said.
“For the price ($14-$18), it’s easier to get the real thing than to try to mimic it,” she added. She also recommends the Caramel Crisp & Cheese Corn mix from the Garrett Web site at www.garrettpopcorn.com.
Although those foods are family favorites, Melany also enjoys making dishes herself.
“I like to cook for any holiday or event,” she said. “It’s just a way to get family and friends together, which is very important to me.”
Her cooking began with sweets when she was a child, and by the time “I was on my own I learned you had to make meats and vegetables as well,” she chuckled.
She said that having Reeves to cook for now ensures that her meals are well-balanced with the right vegetables — though, she admitted, he has a sweet tooth just as she does.
The Stowes particularly love vegetables in the summer when they are in season. In late summer, they buy plenty of home-canned vegetables from the First Baptist Church of Ridgeway’s yearly fundraiser to ensure they have plenty of home-canned vegetables on hand for the winter months. The “canned beans and tomatoes make food better,” from chilis to soups, Melany said.
Stowe family meals include a lot of Italian dishes. One of their favorites is Chicken Rafael, which calls for chicken marinated in white wine and covered with flour or bread crumbs. It’s similar to chicken parmesan, Melany said. The Stowes also enjoy lasagna and spaghetti.
Melany’s cooking inspiration definitely comes from her family, the Martinsville native said. Her grandmother, the late Grace Reeves, was such a good cook with simple foods that her meals proved “sometimes it doesn’t have to be elaborate to be good,” she said. Her other grandparents, the late Jean and Odell Mabe, always had fresh and preserved vegetables from their garden all year long.
Her flair for the extra touches had to come from her mother, Vicki Reeves, who knows how to make any occasion feel special, Melany said. She recalled one Valentine’s Day when, as the family came to the dinner table, they discovered a heart-shaped box of chocolates sitting on each dinner plate.
Melany is communications and community relations coordinator for the Henry County School System, and Brian is an eighth-grade math teacher at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School.
Although their free trip to Miami has given the Stowes something to celebrate this weekend, Melany said she enjoys preparing treats whether or not the Bears are playing their biggest game of the year.
“I do this for every game. It makes it more fun,” she said. The same goes for “a big race, Halloween, anything. It’s just an excuse for something” that gets family and friends together, she said.
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