Maria Sharapova Calls a @CincyTennis 3-Way ‘Dodgy’; I Call it ‘Dinner’
God Bless Maria Sharapova for turning me on to the 3 way. One of the Big Tennis Press here is fixated on Mason, Ohio food offerings, and every other question at Monday’s pressers was about the (lack of healthy) food choices at the tournament and its surrounding environs. Seriously, it was if Applebee’s had paid for an in-press conference mention at every single presser yesterday. Straight out of Talladega Nights.
When told about the Cincinnati specialty at an interview preceding her press conference at the Western & Southern Open in Mason yesterday, Sharapova derided the idea of a dish named “The 3-way” as “really dodgy”.
“They told us that the famous dish in Cincinnati is called a ‘3 way’. That’s a little dodgy, that’s really dodgy. So when that’s the popular dish, you know there’s not a lot of (healthy) alternatives”, she said.
So what do I do? I immediately go to the nearest place serving 3-way by my hotel. It’s at a fast food chili joint. Not just any fast food chili joint, though, but the Official Chili of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club. The Pete Rose of Chili Bowls. Booyah.
I ask for the 3-way just like Maria taught me, totally sounding like a local. When the bill comes back for $5.54, I look like an out-of-towner with a bad poker face. $5.54? I can’t go to Maryland and eat the Crab Cakes for $5.54. I can’t go to Miami and eat the Stone Crab Claws for $5.54. Hell, I can’t even go to Atlanta and eat the hideous Brunswick Stew for $5.54. I couldn’t even get into a Cincinnati Reds game and watch Pete Rose play/manage/gamble back in 1985 for $5.54. Wuddaboggin!
It arrives as a plate of cinnamon and chocolate-laced chili topping a mound of spaghetti. That part looked good. The rest of the contents in the bag were what alarmed me. Not one but two hefty bags of cheddar. To tops things off (literally) was a packet of Oyster crackers. I ate the whole thing in five minutes, skipping the oyster crackers.
I could have gone up to 5-way, but I couldn’t imagine what Maria would have thought of that. Definitely obscene.
Maria opens up on Center Court against Madison Keys at 3:00 p.m. today. Hopefully, my cinnamon-flavored burps will have subsided by that time. And if Sharapova wins the Cincy title, she should plunk down the $5.54 and force down a plate of that deliciousness.
—S. Fogleman
Tennis Atlantic 