It's been a long season, and we've come along way since opening kick off in September. Teams have risen and teams have fallen, and now we're down to two: the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. In many ways, it's a battle between the old and the new. Set against the backdrop of the Super Bowl's 50th Anniversary, this has the potential to be a game to remember. Which is why we've been racking our brains trying to come up with the perfect recipes to do justice to the enormity of the game. Along with the help of Kap's mother, we're looking to put a final stamp on the 2015 season . . . .

The Pro Bowl is here, which means that football fans eager for one more game before the big one can, if they are desperate, watch fourth and fifth-string Pro Bowlers put forth half effort in a game that doesn't matter. 

More importantly, however, it also means that we'll be revisiting our old Pro Bowl tradition: Brinner. That's breakfast for dinner, for those who don't know, and it's one of the all-time comfort food classics!

Winter's here with a vengeance and we're getting all the snow we can handle in West Virginia. (It took me 4 1/2 hours to get home last week, and I only live 1 1/2 miles away from where I work.) Still, despite the cold, things are heating up on the gridiron with four teams vying for the right to play in the Super Bowl.

Mina and I have decided this week, with the season coming to a close, that it's time to reflect on our great cooking friendship. Which is why we are paying tribute to each other with this week's recipes . . . .

Last week, we were talking--this season has flown by! Maybe it's because we've had such good luck with our recipes this year. Every dish we've made, every cocktail we've concocted, has tasted good to us.

That's not always the case though.

This week, we're revisiting a few recipes from last season that didn't quite live up to our expectations. Kap is going to revisit one of Mina's dishes, and Mina is going to revisit one of Kap's. Our goal: to recreate (and improve upon!) the original dish . . . .

Wildcard weekend is here, and so things are, naturally, getting a little . . . wild, around here. Four teams will be eliminated and four will make it one step closer to the big game.

To celebrate this wildness, we'll be taking a cue from one of our favorite cooking shows, Masterchef, and performing our very own mystery box challenge. We've each compiled a list of our twenty favorite food ingredients. With some help from our staple pantry, we're going to turn these into some delectable tailgating delights . . . .

We've made it--one more calendar year under our belt! And to celebrate the start of 2016, and the end of the regular season, Kap and his mom are opening their kitchen and sharing some of the recipes that made the cut for our New Year's Eve and New Year's Day parties--all of them taken from our favorite social media platform: Pinterest.

Also, it wouldn't be New Year's without resolutions, so Kap and Mina will be sharing their goals for the upcoming year, as well. . . .

We're into the stretch run for this season. Only two games left to go, which means it's time for Mina to take a little vacation and for our tailgate squad to do what any good team does at a time like this: call in the back up. In this special Saturday edition of the Tailgate my mom, Barbara Kapcala, opens her kitchen and shares her cooking expertise, as we prepare some belly-warming comfort foods (even if the weather isn't really cold enough for it!).

We've had a scary warm December here, so far, in West Virginia. On one hand, it's kind of nice not shoveling snow or waking up to a cold apartment. On the other hand, it's left us craving some of our favorite cold-weather foods--like chili!

Last year, we played with a few fun chili recipes and it was a big hit. So this year, we return with two more varieties of this cowboy classic. . . .

We're three quarters of the way through the regular season and heading into that final stretch run. For a few teams like the Patriots, Broncos, Bengals, Cardinals, Panthers, and Packers, a playoff seed is a virtual guarantee. For some other teams, like the Chiefs, Colts, Texans, Steelers, Seahawks, and Vikings, it's make or break time. A hot streak could earn them a trip to the post season. The NFC East, in particular, is a conference that is wide-open right now, with the top three teams deadlocked at 5 and 7, and the team from Washington (who shall remain unnamed) holding the top spot for the time being.

It's true that not all of our recipes are equally well suited to easily feeding the masses. (We leave the logistics of that issue up to the reader, generally.) No one can accuse us of that today, however, as we turn Kap's counter in a "Build-Your-Own-Biscuit Bar" that will feed hungry friends without bankrupting the host.

We also reflect on the NFL's recent announcement concerning the Super Bowl halftime show, and weigh in on which artists we​ would invite. . . .

It's the week after Thanksgiving and we're still working off our turkey hangovers here at The Tailgate. So, in this Monday night edition we're keeping things simple and revisiting another feathered friend and tailgate staple: the mighty chicken wing.

You may remember last year's foray into wild Wing flavors. Some were delicious (Strawberry-Jalapeno, Garlic-Whiskey), and others just didn't pan out (Bloody Mary Wings, Orange Crush Wings?). This year, we return with some new flavors, and we hope our record will be better than .500 this time around. . . .

From our Week 3 Glamgate to our Week 7 foray into French Cuisine, we've done a lot of fancy cooking this season at The Tailgate. This week we're taking it in the other direction, challenging ourselves to create tasty tailgate treats using only the ingredients that can be found at our local gas station quick mart or truck stop.

Before you write this off as a joke or gimmick, consider that Kap is a big fan of travel and an equally big fan of the foods you can find on the shelf at these inauspicious little marts. There's something special about sitting on the curb, eating a hot dog that's been turning on a roller al day, and watching the traffic roar by, before jumping back behind the wheel for the next leg of your journey. And that's what we're going to attempt to recreate here this week . . . .