Well, I decided to take up Robb's challenge and come up with something for the football weekend. But I wanted to push the envelope a little with an over the top, artery clogging, bad for you something. And that something turned out to be corn dog tamales.

I went back to J.C. Reid's blog for the link to Alton Brown's recipe for the batter. The batter is buttermilk-based with creamed corn, grated onion, jalapeno chiles, flour and cornmeal and it sounded delish. Saturday morning saw me armed with my two dozen H.E.B. tamales, bamboo skewers from the Chinese grocery store, a gallon of oil and the will to make this most evil of football week-end snacks. They were deep fried at 375 F and drained of as much oil as could be done. I refused to taste them but they got thumbs up from my tasters. A friend remarked that they would sell really well at a Renaissance festival. So if you're up for it, here's a confirmation that it can be done. One note though. Don't heat your tamales first. Take them out of the fridge and skewer them while cold and hard. And don't forget to remove the shucks.