A few ways to chic up your Super Bowl spread

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Go figure -- only 35 percent of women go to Super Bowl parties to watch the game. I was intrigued and wondered what in the world the other 65 percent are going for. When I found out it wasn't to scout out boyfriends -- only 4 percent have ever gone to a Super Bowl party with the hopes of finding a man! -- I decided it must be for the food. After all, we can see our friends any day of the week.I'm throwing a party for the big game and felt the need to share my epicurean tastes with friends, so I started looking around to see how I might do things with just an ounce more style. I found that a few tried and trues shouldn't be substituted: chili, chips and beer. Within those parameters, here are a few ways to chic up any Super Bowl party's food and beverage spread.There's Beer Here!: Some people prefer beer straight from the can and that's their prerogative. Some people also eat dinner standing over the kitchen sink, but that doesn't make it right. Take a cue from the sophisticated Belgian culture, where almost every type deserves its own glass. For example, if you're serving Piraat, you'll want to choose a glass shaped somewhat like a cognac-snifter as that particular beer's aroma and taste are enhanced as it warms from being held in your hands. Belgianshop.com is a nice place to start as it offers a bit of history as well as 120 different glass selections to choose from, depending on your beer selection.Second Round: For football fans who aren't into downing cold ones, consider a signature drink that each fan base can support. Since we are, after all, gathering to watch the Giants and the Patriots, I'm serving Manhattans for the New York fans and Cape Codders for the Massachusetts crowd. To set my Cape Codders apart, I'm going with a flavored rimmer I found at greatcorks.com. I chose a blend of pure sugar and bitter lemons which, for $4.99, adds a nice touch.Meat of the Story: There's something to be said for elegant simplicity, and this weekend I'm saying it with, of all things, a chili buffet. Instead of throwing down a pot of chili on a fold out table, I'm displaying several stainless steel, stay-warm chaffing dishes, each with its own kind of chili -- Texas, white (delightful, made with a base of chicken and white beans) and vegetarian. Since these spicy concoctions call for condiments aplenty, I decided to set my buffet with classic white porcelain dishes from Crate and Barrel. At $1.95 each it's hard to go wrong and they certainly beat shredded cheese in a bag.Got Guac? Chips are to chili what peanut butter is to jelly, and so I'll be laying out baskets of tri-colored corn chips for guests to nosh on throughout the day. To pair with it, I'm making my own guacamole this year and decided to do it right with a mortar and pestle I found on cooking.com for $15.95. It's not a bad price and I also chose white porcelain so I can set it out with my chili condiments and not break up my cohesive look.See how painless that was? There are a million little ways you can keep party goers happy with tradition while still putting your own little foodie chic spin on Super Bowl.(The study was conducted by BizRate Research, a division of Shopzilla Inc. Sample size -- 1,119 women who are online shoppers responded to this survey between Jan. 15, 2008 and Jan. 18, 2008.(Helen Malani is the chief shopping expert for Shopzilla.com, an E.W. Scripps company and the largest comparison-shopping search engine on the Web. Got something to say about shopping? E-mail askhelen(at)shopzilla.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)