I was interrupted in posting this, so let me get it done this time.

As I may have mentioned before, aside from grilling, Hubby has a few dishes that are “his” and I do not mess with them.One is chili and as with many such dishes, there are variations and often strong opinions, and that doesn’t count the numerous Chili Cook-Offs. Some are of course community-based often as fundraisers and others are serious with significant prizes involved.

I may also have mentioned Daddy did a lot of the cooking until I began at a fairly young age – like nine – because Mother was often ill. Chili for us was with ground beef, onions, tomatoes, beans, and few seasonings other than salt pepper (red and black) and chili powder. We usually served it over rice and also with tamales. Now, for those familiar with the range of debate it starts with two issues – first is the use of ground beef and second is with including beans. A separate point is use of meat other than beef and I’ll get to that in a minute. Hubby adheres to the practice of no ground beef. He generally gets 3-4 pounds of steak and cuts it up rather than buy packaged pre-cut “chili meat”. He also uses the Carroll Shelby seasoning mix and yes, that is the Carroll Shelby of race car and Mustang fame. If he’s remembered to get them, he picks up a couple different fresh chili peppers. If not, he adds a can of chopped green chilies and we often have dried anchos or another in the pantry. He does use tomatoes of course and beans; sometimes black, sometimes kidney. We go with a medium heat and he adds hot sauce later as his tolerance level is higher than mine.

Okay, a quick word about meats such as buffalo and venison – they do work, but not something Hubby has ever substituted or even blended in. That leads to the recent discussion at his work about “white” or “chicken/turkey” chili. As I understand it, the one proponent in the group was quickly told that while it does include chili flavorings, it did not qualify to be called chili. As you can imagine, the same holds true of his opinion of vegetarian chili. And there may be a chili cook-off occur sometime in the future at the dive shop.