"We hope to sell at least 44 of them in honor of this being Super Bowl 44,'' Brooks said.

Cheese is key to panini

Gateway Market in both Des Moines and West Des Moines will also feature sandwiches for Super Bowl Sunday. Aaron King, corporate chef for Orchestrate Management, which operates Gateway specialty markets, and colleague chef George Formaro created two panini - one with meat and one vegetarian - that will be sold alongside take-and-bake pizza in the grab-and-go coolers at the markets.

The idea, King said, is that party hosts can make hot, fresh panini at home.

"I know a lot of people have those George Foreman indoor grills at home," he said. "Those work great for panini."

One advantage of sandwiches, panini in particular, is the flexibility they provide hosts, King said.

"You can heat them up and serve them hot whenever you want," he said.

Gateway's special Super Bowl panini will feature ingredients such as La Quercia Prosciutto, capicola, mortadella, and roasted red peppers. But King said just about any combination that features a melting cheese makes for a good panino.

Alex Mason has made hundreds of panini since the October opening of Good Sons, a Beaverdale establishment that specializes in martinis and panini.

The important thing is using fresh ingredients, Mason said.

It is also important to make sure the surface of your cooking unit is clean. As for cooking time, figure on at least two minutes per side.

A panino is, at its core, a trendy grilled cheese sandwich, so if you don't have a press or Foreman grill, they can be made the old-fashioned way, using a heavy-bottomed pan.

"Before we got our panini presses we just used cast iron pans and put them on top of each other," Good Sons co-owner Aaron Milik said.

Olives flavor muffaletta

Another sandwich choice that can dress up a Super Bowl buffet is the muffaletta.

A bit exotic yet accessible, the muffaletta is a signature sandwich in New Orleans, where it has a few different spelling and is pronounced either "muff-uh-LOT-uh'' or "moo-foo-LET-ta."

Several places in the Des Moines area sell reasonable facsimiles of the sandwich, which is essentially Italian cold cuts between two slices of round bread slathered with a marinated olive paste. (Anyone who does not like olives, be warned.)

When Good Sons, opened last October at 2815 Beaver Ave., the menu featured its own muffaletta riff in a panino.

The Good Sons muffaletta panino is made with ham, salami, roast beef, Creole mayo, roma tomato and kalamata olive paste. It is served on toasted bread.

Making a close-to-authentic New Orleans muffaletta is possible in the Des Moines area, even though one of the essential ingredients, mortadella, can be difficult to find. The other essential, olive paste or muffaletta mix, is not sold everywhere, but it is fairly easy to make.

First, about mortadella: It is an Italian cold cut very similar to bologna. The difference is that mortadella is studded with pistachios. Graziano Bros., B&B Grocery Meat & Deli, both on the south side, and Gateway Market in Des Moines and West Des Moines carry mortadella in their delis. Some Hy-Vee stores carry pre-sliced mortadella with other Italian cold cuts in their cheese cases.

The marinated olive paste that is a key muffaletta ingredient can be found premade as muffaletta mix at Graziano Bros. and Gateway. Finding the ingredients to make the olive paste from scratch should not be especially difficult. The best homemade mix is marinated for several days in the refrigerator.

Beyond mortadella and olive paste, there is some room for creativity with the cold cuts. To be truly authentic, a homemade muffaletta would have layers of capicola, salami, mortadella, Swiss or emmentaler or mozzarella and provolone. No more than a quarter-pound of each meat works well, especially if adding another cold cut.

The bread used in New Orleans would be similar to the foccacia available here. Some places will serve a muffaletta heated, some will not.

Including the foccacia bread and a jar of muffaletta mix, which would be more than enough for one sandwich, a muffaletta will cost about $15, but it can serve several people.