ANDREW ZIMMERN

From stadium eats to his new show

What can fans at the Super Bowl expect, foodwise?

My teams and I have been working for the last four or five months on six or seven different signature events at the Super Bowl. We’re throwing a party for the world, and a lot of attention is going to be focused on Minnesota. We want to make sure we have great food that represents all our great traditions here. I’m also on the board of the Taste of the NFL, which throws the Party With a Purpose, one of the biggest events of Super Bowl weekend, to fill up food bank shelves in NFL cities across the country. It was started here in Minnesota the last time the Super Bowl was here [in 1992].

What are some tasty highlights?

For our VIPs at the Delta Sky360 Club [at U.S. Bank Stadium] we’re doing lobster corn dogs elote style—brushed with mayonnaise and sprinkled with cotija cheese and chilesalted lime. And at the Minneapolis

Armory the day of the Super Bowl, we’re doing huge vats of booyah. That’s a stew that’s been cooked here for 100 years that came from French and Belgian immigrants and is like a giant every-kind-ofmeat, every-kind-of-vegetable and rice stew. So, keeping it real and Minnesotan.

What does game-day entertaining look like at your house?

Well, it’s wintertime in Minnesota. It’s cold, so I always greet guests with a hot mug of soup as they walk in the door. I usually do a couple of dishes in the fireplace, and I use the hearth in front of the fireplace with trays to keep food warm. Sometimes, I’ll have turkey hanging on a string in the fireplace itself. I even take my 3-foot-long marshmallow sticks and put out hot dogs and bratwurst and buns and stuff by the fireplace and let people toast their own sausages in the fire.

Tell us about your upcoming new show, The Zimmern List.

It’s a fast-paced half-hour show taking people to the places I love to go when the cameras aren’t on. I want to show people, if you have a day or two in Portland, Maine, or Rome, here are the places you should go and what you should do. It premieres March 13 on Food Network.