Chicken Wings

The Birds might not be flying up and down the field this year, but that's no reason to pass up a party. At the very least, the Super Bowl is an excuse for even those with the most distinguished of palates to get down with some Fritos, dip, and the MVP of the Sunday spread: the chicken wing. However, not all wings are created equal (nor are the good ones thoughtlessly dumped into a fryer). Chefs use a variety of techniques to achieve a tender, meaty interior and crispy skin. And that's before they add even a lick of sauce.

There never seems to be any problem in getting guests to polish off the chicken wings. The problem, if any, is in the initial preparation of the wings: taking the wings and disjointing them so you're left with one piece that's an elongated oval and another that looks like a miniature drumstick. The proper technique is simple and easily mastered. A sharp butcher knife, a cutting board and an attentive eye are all you need. To begin, hold the chicken wing so that it looks something like the letter V with a small extension coming from the top left.

They arose before the dawn, put on their game faces (and a clean T-shirt), and sat down to eat chicken wings shortly after 8 a.m. Mounds of chicken wings. With 7-Up or water to wash them down. Hold the blue cheese. When the last bones were counted at yesterday's Wing Bowl, Mark Vogeding, a burly warehouseman from Paulsboro who goes by the nickname Big Rig, was crowned Philadelphia's top wing-eater by sports-talk station WIP-AM. He won a trip to Aruba. He sucked the meat and skin off 164 chicken wings in a half-hour, leaving the Wing Bowl record of 143 in a pile of napkins.

Tonight, the NBA's brightest spotlight comes to Phoenix, a city that is finally hot in more ways than one. Usually, no one in his right mind comes to southern Arizona in late spring. It is searing and uncomfortable. You walk around town and need only a tin-foil jacket to call yourself a baked potato. But there is a sharp electric buzz in this traditionally torpid desert outpost now and Charles Barkley is the reason. He's the reason that people have forgotten the shame of having a Super Bowl temporarily taken away while the state brought its holiday laws into the 20th century.

Buffalo is famous for more than having a team that loses the Super Bowl. In the competition for best bar food, it has no challengers. Buffalo chicken wings - hot, spicy and, yes, a little greasy - are a winning dish. Especially when paired with blue- cheese-stuffed celery. This dish has a number of contrasts that our senses find appealing. First the flavors: spicy chicken and tangy blue cheese. Then the temperature: hot chicken and cold celery. Finally, the texture: chewy chicken and crunchy celery.

There are a few theories floating around in culinary (and I use the term loosely) circles about the discovery of Buffalo Wings, those tangy, messy, hard-to-put-down little buggers that have been popping up on restaurant menus across America in recent years. One way-out theory holds that Buffalo Wings were originally a dish concocted by an anonymous cook who accidentally spilled a bowl of Louisiana hot sauce on a pile of cooked chicken wings destined for the scrap heap. Another off-the-wall idea is that early western pioneers gobbled chicken wings in order to gain strength for the upcoming buffalo hunt.

Happy hour: cheap drinks, free munchies, people to meet. Some folks have elevated the search for a good happy hour to an art form. Take Nancy "Queen of the Happy Hour" Lawrence, who divides her year between Florida and Ventnor. "In Key West, everybody likes to go to happy hours after the beach, to cool off and have something light to eat, because it's too hot to cook," she said. "I look for the same thing when I'm summering at the Jersey Shore. I'm an expert on happy hours.

A Camden man who killed another man over a $3 debt will spend at least the next dozen years in prison, a Camden judge ruled yesterday. Eugene Bridges, 33, killed his neighbor, Michael "New York" Chambers, 36, as they quarreled Feb. 8 outside a Chinese restaurant in the 500 block of Kaighns Avenue at 2 a.m. Both men lived in the 600 block of Pine Street in Camden. Chambers died after Bridges slashed a major blood vessel in Chambers' knee. As part of a plea bargain, Bridges pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated manslaughter and hindering apprehension June 6 in a hearing before Superior Court Judge E. Stevenson Fluharty.

The "Honk if you hate Hooters" sign caught the attention of several passing cars on Route 38 yesterday. Some honked. Some hooted. Some even stopped. Whether the noise-making was in support of the South Jersey National Organization for Women's protest at the grand opening of the state's first Hooters restaurant, NOW felt it had made its point. "We're not here to close them down," said organizer Cheryl Maitlen. "They have a right to have a business. We're just trying to educate the public as to what (Hooters)

Menu: Major home-cooked meals with a Caribbean kick. (Miss out on Denise's jerk chicken, and you'll be the jerk.) Look for: A hot-pink-on-white truck parked on 30th Street between Market and Chestnut. Open: Daily, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Phone? Website? Nope. Owner: Haiti native Denise Severe, since 1996. What to order: A small platter (most are $7) comes with two sides and is big enough for two meals. (A large costs $2 more)

The Birds might not be flying up and down the field this year, but that's no reason to pass up a party. At the very least, the Super Bowl is an excuse for even those with the most distinguished of palates to get down with some Fritos, dip, and the MVP of the Sunday spread: the chicken wing. However, not all wings are created equal (nor are the good ones thoughtlessly dumped into a fryer). Chefs use a variety of techniques to achieve a tender, meaty interior and crispy skin. And that's before they add even a lick of sauce.

Menu: Major home-cooked meals with a Caribbean kick. (Miss out on Denise's jerk chicken, and you'll be the jerk.) Look for: A hot-pink-on-white truck parked on 30th Street between Market and Chestnut. Open: Daily, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Phone? Website? Nope. Owner: Haiti native Denise Severe, since 1996. What to order: A small platter (most are $7) comes with two sides and is big enough for two meals. (A large costs $2 more)

Even without Jerry Lewis , the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon posted its best take since 2008, though the program's longtime host was on the minds of many during the 46th annual fund-raiser. American Idol executive producer Nigel Lythgoe said after cohosting Sunday's program that he was sorry the famed comedian didn't participate but that the organization needs to move on to ensure that the fund-raiser continues. The telethon raised nearly $61.5 million, an increase of about $2.6 million over last year, MDA officials said.

Outlet: HARRY THE K'S We were there : 5:37 p.m., pregame. Wait to get seated: 19 minutes. Order: Appetizer sampler and chicken Caesar salad. Cost: $28, plus tax and tip. Phindings: The Phoodster wanted a change from standard CBP dining (read: Using a trash can as a table). Harry The K's is the full-service eatery at the base of the left-field scoreboard. It's named in honor of legendary Phils' "voice" Harry Kalas. My $16 appetizer sampler consisted of four chicken wings, two cheesesteak spring rolls and the queso fundido, a nacho-esque bit of business.

Former NFL offensive lineman Barrett Brooks knows all about gains and losses. "I went from being an athlete to a slob, and I feel like an athlete again," says Brooks, who's dropped 50 pounds since his bariatric surgery on Valentine's Day. His weight was 352 on Friday. "Before, I couldn't jump high enough to slide a piece of paper under me," says the 38-year-old father of five, who lives in Voorhees. "Now I can dunk a basketball. " I met Brooks at Kennedy University Hospital-Stratford, where Marc Neff, medical director of the Bariatric Surgery Program, performed the hour-long "sleeve gastrectomy.

WHEN JONATHAN "Super Squibb" Squibb eats chicken wings, he rhythmically bobs his head up and down. He shimmies his shoulders. He sways his hips. He looks as if he's dancing to a song no one else hears. He looks happy. But his demeanor while eating wings can't compare to what Squibb felt after he won 610 WIP's Wing Bowl 19 for the third straight time. "Total euphoria," Squibb said. Squibb, a corporate accountant from Berlin, N.J., devoured 255 chicken wings, beating out Bill "El Wingador" Simmons' 254. Despite the tight race, it was a record-shattering year in terms of cluckers consumed for the annual eating competition.

Do you hear that giant slurping sound coming from South Broad Street? That's chicken wings - thousands of them - being devoured by the 27 participants in SportsRadio 610 WIP's Wing Bowl 19. The pre-Super Bowl competitive chicken wing-eating contest was scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. this morning, for the 19th time since its debut at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel in 1993. While only a handful of people attended that first Wing Bowl, thousands are expected at the Wells Fargo Center this morning for the sold-out event.

IN THE West Oak Lane neighborhood that surrounds the Bo Shing Chinese takeout, Qinhui Chen stands behind a double-glass window that separates her from her customers. "In this day and age, a lot of stores do that," said Eugene Hailey, 44, who lives near the takeout. "A lot of Puerto Rican stores, a lot of mom-and-pop shops. That's for safety. " The glass partition serves to protect workers from crime, but it also cuts them off from their customers - representing a literal and metaphorical divider between their two worlds.

Enigmatic world-champion eater Takeru Kobayashi is considering an offer to participate Feb. 4 in the WIP Wing Bowl. Kobayashi and his translator toured the scene of the crime (the Wells Fargo Center) Thursday afternoon. He sampled chicken wings, brought in by PJ Whelihan's , under the eye of champ Bill "El Wingador" Simmons and WIP's Al Morganti . Villanova was holding basketball practice at the time. Like 'em? He ate about a dozen. El Wingador was putting 'em away, too. Station manager Andy Bloom said it was not certain Kobayashi would agree to eat at the contest.

The Trenton alligator was snared yesterday. A check of traps set by New Jersey wildlife experts at a Stacy Park pond found the four-foot-long reptile, whose presence caused a children's fishing tournament to be canceled last weekend. Apparently, chicken legs and chicken livers did the trick - along with a bigger trap, said Darlene Yuhas, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Chicken wings - "without the sauce" - didn't work a couple of weeks ago, after the first sightings, she said.