Author: OmahaNebraska

Omaha Event: Veteran Suicide Awareness Benefit Concert, 12 July

The South Omaha Veterans and Community Club is hosting the Veteran Suicide Awareness Benefit Concert on 12 July from 1-8 PM at the GI Fourm.

Please visit this Omaha event and support our veterans!

The GI Forum
2002 ‘N’ Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68107
402-733-9740

For information in this image, please contact Dr. Bradley 402.213.4282 or us at 402.932.7243

Fourth of July Omaha Area Events

Friday, July 4

Ralston Independence Day Parade
1 PM Parade
Main Street, Ralston
https://www.cityofralston.com/community/pages/ralston%E2%80%99s-65th-annual-independence-day-celebration

Werner Park Independence Day Fireworks
4 – 7:05 PM Omaha Storm Chasers vs. Iowa Cubs
After the game fireworks

Werner Park
12356 Ballpark Way
Papillion, NE 68046

RiverFront Fourth of July Celebration
8:30 PM Concert
Around 10 PM Fireworks
Gene Leahy Mall, Downtown Omaha
https://theriverfrontomaha.com/visit-the-riverfront/gene-leahy-mall

OmahaNebraska.com’s College World Series Post List with CWS Interviews and More!

Please enjoy our pre-game stories and interviews on the CWS, College World Series.

Our OmahaNebraska.com Line Up of CWS Food Offerings at the College World Series
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/our-line-up-of-cws-food-offerings-at-the-college-world-series

CWS Media Tasting Presentation: Katie Smith, Executive Chef – Levy Foods
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/cws-media-tasting-presentation-katie-smith-executive-chef-levy-foods

CWS Interview: Katie Smith, Executive Chef – Levy Foods
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/cws-interview-katie-smith-executive-chef-levy-foods

CWS Media Tasting, 11 June 2025
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/cws-media-tasting-11-june-2025

CWS Pre-Game Press Conference, 11 June 2025

CWS Pre-Game Press Conference, 11 June 2025

CWS Interview: Amy Hornocker, Executive Director – College World Series
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/cws-interview-amy-hornocker-executive-director-college-world-series/

Omaha Interview: Roger Dixon, President and CEO- MECA
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-roger-dixon-president-and-ceo-meca/

Our OmahaNebraska.com Line Up of CWS Food Offerings at the College World Series

There are a lot of tasty food options at the College World Series.

OmahaNebraska.com tried them all and we have some o-pun-ions, I mean opinions.

The Cubano Cutter is on branded 75th year on Omaha bun. It includes the sweet salty ham, roast beef, dijonnaise, and melted cheese and will definitely cut through your hunger.
The Dipping Double Play Box has shareable boneless chicken wings, fries and dipping sauces.
The Heat Streak Brat is loaded with creamy coleslaw and a fiery hot dog tucked underneath. I like spicy food and normally don’t find food spicy. This brat was hot and it was smart to pair it with a cooling agent of the coleslaw.  If you like spicy, you may want to eat some of the coleslaw off first to keep the spice level from cooling down too much. This coleslaw is creamier and lass tangy than you expect to help turn down the heat.
Loaded Cheeseburger Tots-Tots are always a winner at the CWS. These have the shredded cheeseburger and cheeseburger toppings loading all flavor bases.
The Mac Attack was well played with its deep fried chicken fritter overrun by the forces of the  mac and cheese bites and drizzled with ranch habanero sauce for an extra punch in the flavor attack.
The Big Dill was a big dee-al. This Omaha Steaks burger was topped with fried pickles. The fried pickles were more delicate than you usually find out and did not overpower the burger nor the dill aioli.

The countdown!

#5: Hot Pepperoni Pizza

The Hot Honey Pepperoni Pizza, is a surprise winner of the number five spot for me with hot honey drizzled copiously on top of the flavorful cupped pepperoni. Not to be out done are the cheese and pizza dough. Warning this sweet deal is stickier than you think so don’t forget the napkins. Your taste buds and fingers will thank you. This is my number five pick.

#4: The Big Island Dog

The Big Island Dog is one sure home run with its mango pico and teriyaki ketchup delightfully drizzled over that tasty foot long hot dog from Omaha Steaks.  The mango pico was perfection. This is my number four choice. It may be your top or earlier choice.

#3 The Flyover Frank

The Flyover Frank is my surprise number three favorite in the CWS food lineup.  It’s deceptively simple but the red relish is so well executed and so well paired with the Omaha Steaks hotdog that it is for me the “Fly to Frank”.

#2: You’re Killing Me Smores

You’re Killing Me Smores is my second to  top pick. If you are a sweet person this will likely be your favorite! Amazing marshmallow goo over crispy nacho shaped churros with chocolate chips, toasted marshmallows and graham cracker dust. Simply amazing and you’ll want….smore!
The Carne Asada Fry is my number one pick! The long strips of beef were seasoned perfectly , the jalapeno crema added a nice creaminess and zing, the pico de gallo was great and all this was piled high on top of my favorite type of fries-crinkle!

What do you think? What did you try and what was your favorite?

 

CWS Media Tasting Presentation: Katie Smith, Executive Chef – Levy Foods

The presentation was given by Katie Smith, Executive Chef of Levy Foods at the College Word Series Media Tasting Event to the media.

Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station one, the burgers

All right, so I’m going to go over all of the offerings that we have this year for you, for our College World Series. Obviously, we have kept all of our fan favorites, but these are all the new items that we have this year.

This year we have two different burgers of our specials. We have the Big Dill, which is right here. We’ve got a grilled Omaha Steaks burger, and then it has provolone cheese, fresh red onions, our dill aioli, and fried dill pickle chips on it.

And then our next burger is our branded 75th burger, the Cubano Cutter. We have our Omaha Steaks grilled burger, and we have ham, smoked pork, dijonnaise, and pickles on top of that, so your classic Cubano in a burger. And then it is branded with our 75th logo right on top.

And our last sandwich on this display is our Mac Attack. It is a chicken sandwich—a fried chicken patty on a brioche bun with pepper jack, fried mac and cheese bites, our spicy ranch that is made with our chocolate habanero sauce from Volcanic Peppers, and then it is topped with pickles as well.

Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station two, the hotdogs

We’ll move on to our dog selection. So this year we have three new loaded dogs. You have three options, but our Big Island Dog is our footlong, but we also have an Island Dog is just our normal hot dog with the same toppings on it. So we have a larger version and then we also have a smaller version. Our Big Island dog is our Omaha Steaks footlong hot dog topped with a mango pineapple pico, and then it is drizzled with teriyaki ketchup.

For our next dog, we tried to take a spin on a classic Chicago dog and we made a Midwest dog. We named it The Flyover Frank. It is a classic Omaha Steaks dog topped with red pickle relish, diced onions, sliced tomatoes, and a pickle spear.

Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station three, the pork tenderloin sandwich and the shareables

We’ll come over here. These are more of the items we really want to show you. We have two shareable items. Our first shareable item that I’m gonna talk about is our Double Dipper box. Our Double Dipper box is boneless chicken meat and crinkle cut fries. And then it comes with four of our signature sauces. We have our house made buttermilk ranch, a sweet chili sauce, a hot honey BBQ, and our house tender sauce, which is called our Walk-Off Sauce. This all comes in that beautiful big box that are NachOmaha comes in… very easy to share, very sit on your lap, at your feet.

Our next one that we’re showcasing this year for our 75th anniversary of the College World Series in Omaha which is our pork tenderloin. We decided to go back to some Midwestern classics with this one. You can’t get any more Midwestern than a pork chop. So we’ve branded the bun as well with that 75th logo. So you have a beautiful golden fried large pork tenderloin with our branded bun.

Our next shareable item, and something that I am really super excited about this year, is our You’re Killing Me S’mores. Not only do I love the name, I love everything that’s in it. And we have churro chips, creamy marshmallow, chocolate chips, and toasted marshmallows.

Katie Smith, holding microphone, describes station four, the tots, fries and pizza

And then over here for our last section, we have some loaded fries and tots and then we’re showcasing a new pepperoni pizza that we’re doing this year. We switched out all of our pepperoni to a cupped pepperoni. It’s a beautiful, crispy, cupped pepperoni on all of our pizzas, and you can put hot honey on top of it. So we’ll have regular pepperoni pizzas, and then we’ll also have an option to have a hot honey pepperoni pizza.

For our loaded tots for this year, we tried to go back to a classic once again. We have a classic cheeseburger tot—our crispy golden brown tot topped with seasoned Omaha Steaks ground beef. Then you have lettuce, tomato, onion, and then topped with our burger sauce. So everything that you would find on a burger right here with our spicy nacho cheese.

Our last loaded fry that we are doing this year is our Carne Asada fries. You have crinkle cut fries, our queso blanco, and then it is topped with a fajita-style beef and fresh pico.

Katie Smith, holding microphone, concludes her talk and smiles

And that is our offerings for this year.

(Applause)

CWS Interview: Katie Smith, Executive Chef – Levy Foods

 

Katie Smith, Executive Chef

OmahaNebraska,com here with…

Katie Smith

So this is your first time in this position …

It’s my second year as the executive chef. I usually focus on the catering aspect at the CHI Health Center. That’s been transported here that I’ve focused on for the last seven years. I gave that responsibility to Alec [Woockman ], who you guys have all met before, and he is now the Executive Sous Chef of the CHI Health Center. So this is my second year doing it as a whole, but having more of a focus over here, it is the first.

I was wondering how you were able to do this, because I didn’t know whether the inside of the facility [had this capacity], so that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Look, there’s a lot of logistics. There’s a lot of working parts, and it’s something that we just have to work through every single year. We get better every single time. We are, I like to say, just a well-oiled machine because we’ve done this so many years, and we have the history of how we can do it, better and better. And I feel like we get better.

What are some of your new offerings this year and some stories on how it was devolped?

So this year I really started. After the last College World Series, I went to a Cub’s game for 4th of July and I was sitting and eating, and I realized how difficult it kind of was to eat in your seat. So my biggest focus this year was finding more items that are easier to eat and have a better guest experience while they’re sitting down in the bleachers.

But I do have quite a few different fan favorite foods, this year.  We also did more of a focus on the 75th year of it being in Omaha. We have things that are focused around that right now and that is our Cuban burger. So a Cubano Cutter.  It’s a specialty burger. And on the bun we branded it, so it has the 75 year logo branded on it. And then we also are doing that pork tenderloin. That was another one I kind of wanted to bring back. I wanted to bring back the midwest classic for the 75th year, kind of anniversary to showcase all the wonderful foodsin the midwest. I feel that the pork tenderloin is one of those that we do best. We are branding that bun too. So those would be in two separate locations. And then another item that I am super excited about this year is our “You are Killing e S’mores”.

That was something else I really wanted to try to focus on was finding more dessert options for the stands. It was something we kinda lacked each year. So, we’re taking more of a focus on the things that we can do better on: guest experience, creating new items that haven’t been able to execute before in the stands, so…We landed on a S’mores nacho.  It is a churro chip loaded with marshmallow toppings, chocolate chips, toasted marshmallows and then graham cracker crumbs on the top of it.

It sounds wonderful.

Oh, I am so excited for everyone to try that one.

I’ve noticed a lot of items that are spicier this year. Can you tell us about that please?

Some of our themes you will see this year are a lot of ranch and a lot of pickles, too. This is kind of how the menu developed this year.

We do have a few different, spicier options, so we have the Heat Streak Brat. So that is sriracha aioli and fresh jalapenos on top of that. You have The Mac Attack, and that’s a chicken sandwich with a spicy pepper jack and mac and cheese bite right on top with a spicy ranch. We use the Chocolate Lightning from Volcanic Peppers’.

I was going to ask you about that. I’ve noticed that the store in Bellevue, Volcanic Peppers …

We use them. We work with them a lot. We use a lot of their different products. We have Dia De Sol. That is one of their best-sellers, and that’s on our NachOmaha, which is one of our best-sellers. We always try to showcase some of their new items. I always go and talk to them and then find out what’s new that year and then try to make something special.

Is there a question I haven’t asked you or something else you’d like to say?

Just come and try out our wonderful options that we have this year.

Thank you.

You are welcome