Things are Going to Start Happening to Me Now…

Fourth Variation: 20 October 2012

With special dinner guests James and Leslie Van Wormer

My parents found out I started cooking, and wanted to be included in the tasting – as my sister had tried some, so must they.  So they somehow maneuvered their way into having me ask them over for dinner, as they do, and we had Chili the Fourth.  It was my finest variety yet. 

Having learned lessons from the previous weeks’ experiments, I felt confident in preparing a classic-tasting chili with a solid level of spice.  I had found out that the way I was preparing the peppers (removing all seeds and white shit from the inside) lessened the hotness, and that would have been a good thing for people like my parents, who claim not to like hot things.  Of the peppers chosen, I left the seeds in the serranos only, and used crushed red flakes on top of that. 

I actually lucked out, not knowing my mom was allergic to Tabasco sauce, I just happened not to put any in.  I thought about it, remembered she didn’t like spicy things, and opted on Worcestershire sauce instead.  Marissa asked how I didn’t know she was allergic to it, and Mom probably told me at one point but she talks so much, it’s difficult to decipher between “necessary” and “unnecessary” words that emerge from her mouth. 

This chili, while my best yet, was not without its faults.  I feel that the ratio of meat to vegetables was too low, and I had one-too-many onions.  The onions seemed so small in the store, so I figured two would suffice.  That assumption proved the expression about assuming things. 

So my mom asked if she could bring anything.  I was taken aback by this suggestion and said that the chili is a dish prepared start-to-finish by me and a side dish would take away from the focus of the meal.  And as she talked her way into my kitchen, she talked her way into bringing over a loaf of bread.  “That would be fine,” I said, not knowing the bread would have margarine (possibly of the spray variety) soaking it.  My wife found out I turned down salad, which is what my mom makes best.  Say what you will about my mom’s cooking, but she can toss a mean salad when she wants to.  And you know what?  She apparently didn’t want to that fateful Saturday.  It seems like she took a bag of salad from the store (the one with snow peas in it) and put it in Tupperware.  That’s it.  When she got here, she put some oil and vinegar on it, mixed it, and served.  It tasted okay, but I really try to use only fresh ingredients, at least as much as possible in the chili, the pre-made salad and margarined bread just were unnecessary additions.  There was also a noteworthy part of the meal when my mom spilled salad on the floor.  I was nervous that it was chili and was relieved to find out that it was just salad.  Whew!

My mom also brought over her own bottle of red wine, half drank on a previous date.  That’s a classic “mom” move, something she’s been known to do not only as a dinner guest, but to restaurants as well.  Prepared for this, I have one mom-approved red wine glass on hand at all times.  And yes, she’s the one that brought it over years ago.  Everyone else just puts up with something that holds wine and is clean. 

Ingredients:

½ lb. ground beef

½ lb. hot Italian sausage

2 yellow onions

4 cloves of garlic

6 jalapenos

1 yellow bell pepper

1 poblano pepper

2 serrano peppers

3 Red Fresno peppers

2 cherry peppers

*2 plum tomatoes

3 vine-ripe tomatoes

1 large ‘fancy’ tomato

4 tomatillos

Spices: 

Chili powder; cumin; crushed red pepper flakes; salt; pepper;  paprika; *Worcestershire sauce

Toppings: 

Bacon; chives; Seriously Sharp cheddar cheese; Sour cream

Beer Me That Chili

Third Variation: 13 October 2012

With special dinner guest Tracy Olivera; featuring a single bite by Erin Vetter

My sister was up from DC for a few days and I was excited to “talk chili” with her and show off my culinary skillz (with a “z”).   Since I was still taking care of the bed-rest wife (which sounds like a shitty mystery book, “The Case of the Bed-Rest Wife”), she said she’d help around the house and mentioned how she wanted to learn how to sand drywall.  As luck would have it, the unfinished nursery had some drywall to sand.  Perfect! 

But back to the chili.  I gave this one a ton of thought, perhaps too much, and after some serious half-assed research, decided to include a 12 oz. bottle of Guinness, cinnamon, sugar, crushed red pepper, tomatillos, a white onion and a wide array of peppers.  It was a bad idea.  Individually, these things could have worked well.  Together, it was a cluster-fuck of flavor that strayed too far from ‘Chili’ into the realm of stew.  It was good, and if Tracy’s expectations for my food weren’t so low, I’m sure she would have been more open to criticize it.  Good for her though, being nice.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about this chili until I had the leftovers.  Chili leftovers are notorious for improving with age.  These degraded quickly into something that tasted like desserty sweet dark brown sludge.  I still ate it, but it was merely to get food into me.  I did not enjoy said leftovers.

On the preparation - The tomatillos were a bitch to skin – didn’t peel the way I expect a goddamned tomato to peel, but I guess they’re not tomatoes, they’re tomatillos.  I had half an onion leftover and went with a white onion, so there exists the possibility that there were too many onions.  Of all the new spices included, only one made the cut into the next batch – crushed red pepper.  If last week’s game-changer was cumin, this week’s game-changer was crushed red pepper.  Seriously, that red pepper got in there and the tomatillo asked how the meeting went, and the red pepper said, “I crushed it” like a douche-bag.  I also timed this batch perfectly, even cooking it a little too long – staying up late to cut veggies and waking up at 8:00 to brown the meat and start the crock pot. 

A part of the preparation that I found worthwhile was cooking the onions and garlic in the meat grease.  I picked up this little trick somewhere and finally had the balls to try it this time.  It seems to be going well, and I will continue this method as it is fun and makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about.

Ingredients:

½ lb. ground beef

½ lb. hot Italian sausage

1 yellow onion

*1 white onion

4 cloves of garlic

4 jalapenos

1 red bell pepper

2 serrano peppers

3 Red Fresno peppers

2 cherry peppers

1 vine-ripe tomato

*6 tomatillos

*1 12 oz. bottle of Guinness

1 can of kidney beans

Spices: 

*Cinnamon; *Sugar; *Crushed Red Pepper Flakes; *a couple shakes of Chipotle Tabasco Sauce; cumin;

Toppings:  See Second Variation

Cumin to Getchya

Second Variation: 29 September 2012

Taking a bite of my first chili, I could already tell there was room for improvement.  Visually, it resembled chili, but it ended there.  It was like hamburger soup and I shudder at the thought of eating it without toppings.  Like sex, I learned a lot from my first time, but was convinced I could improve and wanted to try another crack at it almost immediately.  

Specifically, I improved the preparation time.  I cut the vegetables and put them in the refrigerator the night before – but still didn’t have the timing right and was forced to use the “high” setting on the crock pot.  Already, I knew there would be a third variety. 

I also hit the books before going to the store this week, and learned that cumin, which my wife claimed to dislike, was something used in pretty much every chili since chili’s conception.  It’s even an ingredient in chili power.  Cumin turned out to be a game-changer, as did the amount of chili powder I used.  Hesitant with it on the first batch, I DRENCHED THE SHIT outta this batch with Chili P.  I thought it might have been too much, but this chili ended up superior to its predecessor in every conceivable way.

Unsung hero of the batch has to go to the inclusion of garlic.  I was afraid including that little bulb would make the chili resemble marinara sauce too much.  What a fool I was!  

Ingredients:

½ lb. ground beef

½ lb. hot Italian sausage

1 yellow onion

*3 cloves of garlic

4 jalapenos

1 yellow bell pepper

*1 poblano pepper

*2 serrano peppers

*3 Red Fresno peppers

2 cherry peppers

5 vine-ripe tomatoes

1 can of kidney beans

Spices: 

Chili powder; table salt; pepper; paprika; cayenne pepper; *cumin

Toppings: 

Crispy smoked bacon bits; cheddar cheese; chives; *sour cream

*denotes new ingredient

Blandina Street

First Variation: 22 September 2012

I never had to cook much before this day.  As a bachelor, my nourishment either had the word “instant” on the box or required no preparation whatsoever.  My friends poked fun at my diet - my meals usually consisted of an orange, rice and green tea or beer.  Eating was a pragmatic exercise, and if I wanted to stray from the formula, I would just order take-out. 

After I moved in with my wife, I realized that she was the kind of person that took interest in preparing food, taking this interest so far as to even look up recipes online and watch the Food Network sober.  Long story short, seven years pass and she’s pregnant, hungry and on doctor-ordered bed rest.  And also, we’re poor.  After discussing our options (my famous “rice and oranges” or putting up with my family for the duration of a meal), she convinced me to try making chili. 

I enjoy chili.  I have voted on chili.  I have eaten chili in my home.  The Wife told me it would be easy.  This is not the first time she has deceived me. 

I owe a lot to a few people I obsessively interviewed on their chili preparation who schooled me in the art of peeling tomatoes and advising me to use more than one kind of meat.  I owe the most to my lovely wife, who sat patiently in the kitchen for those first three hours of cutting vegetables and peeling tomatoes.  Without her tender guidance, I wouldn’t have even realized I had to brown the meat.

What follows is my first chili recipe, a chili that will stand up against all my others as “the worst.”  This recipe has been submitted for educational and nostalgic reasons.  It is not something that I would ever make again.  While I succeeded in providing sustenance to my bed-ridden wife and our unborn child for two days, it would not win a competition.  It’s a chili for the masses – people that need to eat, but don’t care about taste.  It might be a good recipe for an army, but a shitty army, like the Salvation Army or the cast of a community theatre production of Shenandoah.  But not Civil War re-enactors.  I bet those guys know their chili.    

Ingredients:

½ lb. ground beef

½ lb. hot Italian sausage

6 vine-ripe tomatoes

2 ‘green striper’ tomatoes (from the garden of Victor Tocco)

1 yellow tomato (from the garden of Victor Tocco)

1 yellow onion

4 jalapenos

1 “long hot” Italian pepper (from our garden)

2 cherry peppers

1 red bell pepper

1 can of red kidney beans

Spices: 

Chili powder; table salt; pepper; paprika; cayenne pepper

Toppings: 

Crispy smoked bacon bits; Pepper-Jack cheese; chives

Preparation for a first-time cook deciding to make Chili as your first attempt at cooking anything:

1)      Dice onions, throw into crock pot.  Dice peppers, making sure to remove all seeds from all varieties because you think, for no apparent reason, that pepper seeds are poisonous or something.  I mean, you’re supposed to take out the seeds and white shit from the inside of bell peppers – hot peppers are the same, right? 

2)      Cut up your chives.  I know you won’t be needing them for a few hours, but you forgot that they don’t actually go in the crock pot.  Next time, cut them after you put the bacon in the oven.

3)      Peel the tomatoes by “blanching” them.  This is done by googling “how to peel a tomato” and following the instructions.  Basically, you draw an “X” on to the top and bottom of a tomato by just barely piercing the skin with a knife, then dropping it into boiling water for 10 seconds, removing and dropping it into a bucket of ice water.  Then you realize that the amount of time left in the ice or boiling water may have fucked something up and painstakingly peel them more like you would an apple.  Occasionally, you can peel the skin right off, but only occasionally.  Dice the tomatoes when the skin is removed and throw into the crock pot angrily.  Make sure you peel about four more tomatoes than was necessary and remove from the crock pot when you realize that there’s no way you’re gonna fit any meat or beans in there.  Use those tomatoes to make a delicious pasta sauce.  Just put ‘em in an immersion blender with some garlic and olive oil and it makes it almost okay that you spent like an extra hour on those pieces of shit.

4)      Brown the meat.  Put it in a pan, set the heat to “six” because your wife tells you to, and make sure you select the proper burner size, if you have the choice.  Take one of those wooden spoons and poke at the shit ‘til you can’t tell what’s beef and what’s spicy Italian sausage.  When it’s “brown” (hence the term, “browning”), use a different spoon – one of those plastic jobs with the holes in it – to sift out the grease and add to your crock pot.  

5)      Add spices to the mix.  Chili powder should be added with hesitation as it seems like you’re adding too much.  Table salt is important because someone told you canned tomatoes have salt added and fresh, obviously, do not.  So make sure you add some of that.  Just a pinch or so of the other spices might be enough.  Who knows?  If you ever make chili again, you’ll know what to add more of. 

6)      Turn the crock pot on “high” because cooking it on “low” would make dinner at an unreasonable hour. 

7)      After 2.5 hours of doing dishes, cleaning the kitchen and drinking heavily, you’re ready to add the beans, cook bacon and prepare your toppings.  So take your can of kidney beans and put it in a colander, then rinse with cold water, drain, and add to your chili. 

8)      Cook your bacon.  This is done by googling the phrase “how to cook bacon” and following the instructions.  I found a “recipe” that uses the oven itself, requires little cleanup and boasts “perfect bacon, every time.”  This is very simple to do.  You take out a cookie sheet (you know, but one that’s more like the bottom half of a broiling pan with four sides, not a cookie sheet with only one kind of angled side… just google a picture already) and put foil on the whole thing, then line up some bacon (smoked, preferably) and put it in the oven.  Then you turn the oven on to 400, making sure you didn’t pre-heat.  For some reason this only works if you put it in a cold oven.  I don’t know why, but it’s awesome.  Then you gotta set your egg timer to “20 minutes.”  That’s it. 

9)      While the bacon’s cooking, shred your cheese.  This is done with a cheese shredder and is done similarly to how you make your famous microwave nachos you’re so proud of.  Except instead of shredding them directly onto the nachos, do it in a bowl.

10)   Ding!  The bacon’s…still not done.  Turn on the oven light and check on them every once in a while until they look cooked.  Sidenote:  Where the kitchen used to smell amazing because of chili, now it smells amazing because of smoked bacon. 

11)   Put on an oven mitt and take that bacon pan out the stove.  Take out a plate and place a paper towel on top of it.  Then use tongs to line up the bacon on the plate and take a second paper towel and put it on top.  For fun, you can make a bacon and plate sandwich, and put a plate upside down on the top, then flip the bacon a few times, then notice that there’s still some grease on the bacon and individually pat each bacon strip down before putting them on a cutting board.  Now dice the bacon, put in a bowl (near the cheese) and pour your drinks.

12)   Time to eat!  Two scoops in each bowl ought to do it.  Enjoy!

Forward

The following is an account of a journey.  A journey that is taken by every man who can call himself “a man.”  An impossible journey for perfection.  There is nothing unique about my quest save for that it is my own.  There is a goal, and that goal is to win a trophy, given to me by my peers, in a contest pitting me and the product of my labor against others with similar experiences.  We will come from different levels of expertise, with varying levels of passion, and certainly with different recipes, but we will all call our products “Chili.” 

 

I pronounce on this day, the 22^nd of October, 2012 A.D. that I will win the “Cruisin’ into Waterville” Chili cook off in 2013, not only on taste, but on presentation, and I will defend my title annually against any offender who wishes to wage battle against me unless I am sick or have to work on the day in question.  Or if other emergencies would arise, a nuclear winter, perhaps, that would end the annual celebration of the completion of construction on Waterville’s portion of Route 12.  This is a promise I make and a promise I intend to keep.

A note about the meat:

All meat is purchased from the Pulaski Meat Market in Utica, NY, unless otherwise noted.  I have been a frequent customer of theirs for literally my entire life.  My father used to work for them over 30 years ago and they have the best meat and nicest staff in the Utica area.  Also, it smells fucking amazing in there.