Game Day Eats with Celebrity Chef Eddie Jackson

By Carroll R. Walton, carroll@insidetailgating.com

New cookbook is the perfect guide for homegating like a pro

Food Network celebrity chef and former NFL player Eddie Jackson has put out his first cookbook, and it’s called Game-Day Eats: Recipes for Homegating Like a Pro. We think it’s the perfect guide for celebrating the college bowl season and the upcoming holidays with family and friends! Jackson recently caught us up on life since he burst onto the culinary scene in 2015 when he won the reality show “Food Network Star.” He also shared some “Game-Day” recipes and gave us some great pointers on cooking over the holidays. Photos courtesy of Food Network

At the moment, “all” Jackson has going on besides promoting his new book, is his work hosting four cooking shows, including the “Christmas Cookie Challenge” for the Food Network, the traveling food show called “Yum and Yummer” on the Cooking Channel, a baking competition show called “The Big Bake” on Food Network Canada, and “Fire Masters,” a barbecue grilling competition show on Food Network Canada.

And in February of 2018, Jackson opened a food truck park and beer garden called Rose Hill Beer Garden in Cypress, Texas, a suburb of his adopted hometown of Houston, Texas. He still owns his own food truck that specializes in Caribbean food. Jackson first fell in love with Caribbean cuisine when he was playing for the Miami Dolphins. He played four seasons in the NFL, including two with Miami and one for the New England Patriots, before retiring in 2008. Jackson plans to reopen his private gym, Fit Chef, when the cookbook craze dies down. In the meantime, he is still basking in the birth of his nine-month old son, who is already walking and showing off the athletic genes he inherited from his father.

Q. Clearly you haven’t slowed down much since last we spoke in 2015, have you?

A. I stay pretty busy. Every day is a to-the-max kind of day, 12 plus hours every day. I’ve always been like that. I’ve always felt like If I’m sitting down, I’m missing something. I get that from my dad. My dad is a military guy, and he says, “You can always be doing something instead of sitting down.” I’m always thinking up new ideas, something else I could be doing. I’m only here for a short time so I try to maximize as much time on earth that I can.

Q. How did the “Game-Day Eats” idea come to be?

A. My grandmother wrote a cookbook way back in 1978 (called Ruth Jackson’s Soulfood Cookbook.) I’ve always wanted to write another cookbook to have in the family. I wanted to blend my background being in sports and food, and I came up with the idea to call it “Game-Day Eats.” It’s all about hanging out at the house, taking the tailgate from outside to inside and hanging out with friends and family, which is something I grew up doing— whether it was with friends, or my dad’s friends growing up, or my family. Everything always centered around food and hanging out. I took it to publishers, and everyone loved the idea.

Q. Was it based on recipes you loved cooking for friends and family yourself or did you mix in a lot of new ideas?

A. I’ve taken my travels since I’ve been in the food world and combined some of the things I saw when I was playing professional football. We would travel to different cities and we always got in a day early, so I had a few hours of down time. I would catch a cab and go to what that particular city was known for, whether it was seafood in Seattle, or in wings in Buffalo. When I was in Miami it was all about Cuban food, different Latin foods, Caribbean foods. You find different recipes in the book you would associate with game day, whether it’s wings, or meatballs, or different types of one-handers, sandwiches, and I just add a little bit of flair to that based upon my travels all over the world.

Q. One thing you’re known for is making food everybody likes but with a twist. Did you want that to come across in the cookbook?

A. Yeah. I love cookbooks that are approachable for everybody. You can get all the ingredients at the local grocery store. When I think about game day, I think about how you have a lot of different people over at your house, so people want things that they know. You have wings, but let’s not make regular Buffalo wings, let’s make some wings with Gochujang, which is a Korean fermented chile-bean paste. It gives people that experience of trying something new but also staying true to game day.

Q. You don’t want to be spending the whole time in the kitchen or behind the grill either, right? You want to be visiting with your guests.

A. Yeah. You don’t have to be an expert chef to create these recipes. But the good thing about a lot of the recipes is that you can do a lot of the prep work ahead of time, whether it’s making dry rubs or marinades. And a lot of the recipes cook up very quickly, so you’re not cooking all day on the day of. I have chapters where it’s all about dips and one-handers.

Q. Are most of the recipes prepared in the oven and on the stove, or do you mix in the backyard grill too?

A. The cookbook has a little bit of everything. I have things in there that center around the smoker, the grill, the oven, the stovetop. We have some fried items as well, but we also have a whole chapter dedicated to desserts, drinks. I have a whole chapter dedicated to big salads that you can make for game day.

Q. How did you decide what recipes to use?

A. All the recipes are either some of my staples that I always keep on hand for game day if my friends come over or when I have friends over just to hang out. I actually had about 300 recipes, and they made me narrow it down to 100. I cook every day. I’m always experimenting. I’ve been in the food business for over 10 years, so I just have a repertoire of recipes that I always use.

Q. Speaking of entertaining, tell us about your food truck park and beer garden. Has it been a dream of yours to open one?

A. Yes. I started out in the food truck industry about 10 years ago. I started out with one food truck. I’ve always loved food trucks, how dynamic they are. You can pull up anywhere and create a party. A lot of people use them now for catering events because it’s easy. I’ve always wanted to create one location, where it was a food truck park and also (served) beer. I fell in love with craft beer about eight years ago. I wanted to find a way to bring those together so I opened up my beer garden and food truck park about a year and a half ago. It’s a three-acre lot, and it’s an indoor/ outdoor concept. On any given day, we’ll have eight food trucks, 24 taps of craft beer, a playground for the kids, and a stage for live music. We can hold up to 300-400 people.

Q. Do people rent it out for parties? Come on the weekend with the kids?

A. Oh yeah, we’re open every day, 11 to 11, and on weekends we close at 2 a.m. So you can come in for lunch. You can come in for happy hour. You can come in any time you want. A lot of people have parties there. We’re so big you can reserve a specific area of the park, with your own little section, your own little keg of beer, and have a party. We’ve hosted parties of 200 people and still opened for business because we have so much space.

Q. How often do you rotate trucks?

A. We normally keep trucks about 90 days, then we rotate them out unless the truck is just amazing. We do a lot of pop ups, where trucks just come in for a day or two on the weekend or for an event. It’s a really cool atmosphere.

Q. It’s like a permanent tailgate?

A. That’s all it is—a permanent tailgate.

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