I try to always keep an open mind and my wits about me. Other than that, anything goes! Makes for some unpredictable adventures out there in the real world. I've worked in the publishing industry for 10+ years and have been a member of the FSWA for 5+ years. Go Steelers!
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Ok, so a little background: I've been a home cook for years now and have quite a few recipes under my belt that I think (and have been told) are good enough to be served at good restaurants. Of course this includes all sorts of chili recipes.. some that I have put together myself, and some that are riffs of existing recipes from cookbooks or found on the internet. Jason (the co-host of the drinkfive podcast and co-founder of drinkfive.com) has decided to hold an official chili cook-off this year to coincide with opening weekend of the NFL season. Heck yeah! I've decided to post some of my recipes and my thinking as I run through some ideas in the months leading up to the cook-off.
Here are the rules for the competition:
- We will not have the space available to cook on site, so you must bring your chili ready to eat (or at least ready to sit in the crock pot for a while). Since we will not be able to police this, it will have to be a gentleman's agreement that you do not start cooking any part of the chili more than 24 hours before the event starts.
- Your chili must consist of at least the following ingredients: Meat and chili peppers. I'm not going to be strict about this, use whatever meats you want, whatever peppers you want. Beans are optional. Pasta is strictly forbidden - this isn't friggin' Cincinnati.
- Each judge will try each chili and grade them (1-10) based on the following categories: Appearance, Aroma, Consistency, Taste, Aftertaste(the burn). I will provide a sample of the score card ahead of the competition, but remember it's up to the judges to determine what they feel is the best kind of consistency, taste, spice levels, heat levels, etc. Do your best not to provide details at the cookoff that would tip people off as to which chili is yours. The highest cumulative score wins. Ties will be broken by the number of "10"'s on the scorecards, followed by fewest low numbers.
- We will provide garnish at the house to use for casual eaters (cheese, sour cream, onions, scallions, chips, crackers). I would prefer to not use these in judging; we certainly will not be giving points for that if we do. I will leave this point up to the judges to decide how they would like to do it. We will decide before the cookoff starts, so if we go no garnish, any of those ingredients you want in your chili will have to go in it before presenting (in the pot, essentially).
So, pretty straightforward.. make the best chili possible including both peppers and meat. Honestly, you could go one of a thousand different directions here including things like white chicken chili, chili verde, vegetarian chili (as if I would consider that one!), etc.. but it basically boils down to the simple choices that you have available to you in several different categories.. let's go through those a bit and break down the options. Although there are certainly many ways to go about this, we're going to keep it simple. As of a few weeks ago I've been constructing some recipes and have fallen into the trap of using too many ingredients and trying to develop overly complex flavors that are difficult to balance. I've decided that the key to a great chili is to use a small amount of simple, high quality ingredients and then throw in one of a few 'secret' ingredients at the end or include a little more of one thing (a particular spice, a few more chile peppers, etc) in order to leave the eater with a memorable impression.
Designing the base of the chili:
Generally chilis are tomato based, either using fresh tomatoes or canned - if I'm using canned I prefer to buy the whole peeled tomatoes (San Marzano, if you can find them!) as they tend to have a better flavor then the crushed or diced. Another option is to go with tomatillos (they look like small green tomatoes inside a loose green casing if you've never seen them) which have a stronger, tart flavor.. tomatillos are fantastic and have a flavor that many people have never tasted, but they don't necessarily go along with regular chili ingredients. No, they go much better with southwestern or mexican flavors as in a chili verde. I have recently tried combining the two as a regular chili base but I wasn't too happy with the outcome - the flavors seemed to compete with each other rather than coexisting peacefully.
One of the more successful things that I have done is to grill, broil or roast the peppers and/or tomatoes/tomatillos that I'm using for a recipe along with some onions and garlic cloves. After you get a nice char on these you can throw them in a food processor and pulse until at the desired consistency. Although I usually prefer more of a chunky chili, using this method can develop some strong flavors that are more integrated after having been pulsed together. You can always add some extra diced tomatoes (I prefer the fire-roasted garlic, if using canned) afterwards. Here is a quick recipe for a chili base that works well for any kind of meats and seasonings that you'd like to finish the chili with:
Smokey Poblano Chili Base
Ingredients:
(1) Large Onion (Vidalia or Spanish, cut into wedges)
(2) Poblano Chile Peppers (stemmed, seeded, cut in 1/2)
(2) Serrano Chile Peppers (stemmed, cut in 1/2)
(4) Garlic Cloves (whole, peeled)
(28 oz.) Whole Peeled Tomatoes (or 10 fresh plum tomatoes, cut in 1/2)
Good Quality Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
Directions:
1. Combine the onion, peppers, garlic and tomatoes (if fresh) in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Spread everything out on a large baking pan, skin side up and broil on high for 10-15 minutes, or until visibly charred.
3. Let the peppers cool and then peel the skin from them.
4. Combine all ingredients in a food processor (if using, add the canned tomatoes at this point along with the other ingredients) and pulse until at desired consistency (8-10 times).
Tips: To better balance the acidity of the tomatoes, you may need to add 1-2 tablespoons of sugar to taste. If not using a gas stove with actual flames, you may need to add a few dashes of liquid smoke in order to get the desired smokey flavor.
So, enjoy! Let me know if this worked for you as well as it did for me - add in some meat, beans, vegetables, spices, etc at this point and build your own chili using whatever ingredients that you and your family really like! The most basic additions to this recipe would probably be to add some browned ground beef or turkey along with 1 or 2 cans of beans (traditionally light or dark red kidney beans or pinto beans) and some chili powder and cumin. But go nuts, you're only limited by what your local grocery stores carry on their shelves. :) Next time, we'll go over the different kinds of chile peppers and meats that you could add to your chili and which are the best to use!
After the violent and tension-filled first episode of HBO's The Leftovers set the tone for the season, I certainly didn't expect to get sunshine and rainbows from "Penguin One, Us Zero" and it didn't disappoint in that regard. Show-runner Damon Lindelof's style has always been to feed the viewers bits and pieces of information that don't immediately add up to anything substantial so that the final reveals pack more of a punch when they do arrive and all the pieces make some semblance of sense. This certainly seems to be the case here. We do get some new background information from several main characters and begin to understand slightly more about two groups whose motivations are hard to grasp: the Guilty Remnant and Wayne's Compound. A [dim] light is also beginning to shine on Kevin Garvey's (Justin Theroux) past and present struggles as well as his very sanity.
In the sprawling suburban Guilt Remnant complex, this episode focuses on Meg's (Liv Tyler) initiation into the organization. Kevin Garvey's wife Laurie (Amy Brenneman) has the responsibility of showing Meg the ins and outs and trying to coax her into becoming a member herself. She does this by trying to get Meg to realize that things are out of control for her and that she needs to give up control in order to regain some emotional stability. First, she takes Meg out to the woods with an axe and has her try to chop down a tree. This results in tears and frustration which builds up later to the point of Meg almost wanting to leave and go back to her regular life. Later, Laurie sees that Meg needs to connect to things on a more emotional level and when Meg realizes that although Laurie may still have friends and family on the outside she has surrendered to the Guilty Remnant's way of life, it begins to dawn on her that this may be the only way to bury her intense feelings about the event and how it has affected her life afterward. Later in the episode it's revealed that Meg has left in the middle of the night and Laurie has a look of disappointment on her face. She shouldn't - Meg is out chopping down that tree.. it appears she may be ready to surrender herself and become a part of the Guilty Remnant.
Wayne's compound is raided by the FBI based on statutory rape charges from years ago - it looks like Wayne's weakness is young girls. Surely we'll learn more about this going forward but for now the story may be centered around Tom Garvey (Kevin's son) and Christine (the girl to whom Tom showed affection but looks to be in love with Wayne). After Wayne escapes from the compound raid, he gives Christine over to Tom with instructions to keep her safe and then leaves. It looks like Tom has finally had enough of the path he has been on as he almost called his Dad on the phone and as soon as he and Christine were alone in the car he lets out a blood-curdling scream of desperation and rage just like he had in the compound's pool back in the first episode. Yikes. We'll either see him saved or he will become a force of destruction and misery in this series. Either way the build-up should be a good one as it unfolds.
Kevin Garvey's story gets more interesting by the minute, as it becomes more and more hard to tell for him (and to the viewer) what is real and what is not. Reality itself seems to be playing tricks on him and that is best shown in the scene where the Mayor is having a conversation with him at the police station and the bagels that he had just put into the toaster completely disappear. Fortunately for Kevin, this episode seems to be more about showing that the things he thought could be hallucinations (mostly because of doubt introduced by other characters) are real. Dean, the "mystery man" that we have seen previously, first parks his truck at Kevin's house and then actually shows up at his door. We might think that his is all just more flights of fancy from Kevin's overactive imagination, but Dean actual hands his daughter Jill a 6-pack of beer to take inside and she asks who the man at the door was afterward. Well, looks like he is definitely real.. unless it runs in the family (a real possibility). Kevin later opens up the toaster at the police station and discovers the bagels have fallen behind some sort of mechanism inside. We do meet Kevin's father in a mental institution earlier in the episode and he seems to be a very intelligent and well-spoken man.. at least until symptoms of schizophrenia seem to wander into the conversation. It's obviously going to be a focal point here.. is there something different about the Garveys? Or could it be just a history of mental illness in the family. Does any of this have to do with the reason why Wayne seems to have everyone figured out except for Tom? Surely there is more to the story here.
There is a little more levity here than in the first episode, which I certainly appreciate. We see some teenagers goofing off, bagels disappearing and then reappearing, and blow-up penguins. I think in order for this show to work on a week-to-week basis it needs to continue down this path and separate the seriously murky emotional overtones and physical violence with more penguins and jelly beans. Hats off, Damon - I'm still a little confused about where the Guilty Remnant is going but I will no doubt be tuning in for at least the next few weeks to find out. Also, the next episode appears to center around Christopher Eccleston's character, Matt, who is a preacher that has been handing out flyers suggesting that the people that disappeared were not in any way 'special'. I'm inclined to agree with you, Matt, especially when Gary Busey was among those taken. Although that might depend on your definition of 'special'.
First a little background: HBO's new dramatic series, The Leftovers, was created by Tom Perrotta (who wrote the novel The Leftovers upon which this series is based) and Damon Lindelof (of Lost fame among other TV and movie projects). In a nutshell, the series is about the daily goings-on of a modern day world that has been affected by the sudden disappearance of 2% of its population with no apparent conclusions that can be made based on the demographics of those people that have vanished. Having never read Perrotta's novel I am completely in the dark about the story-line here and where these characters and events may take us. Which is a good thing. I was an avid watcher of Lindelof's Lost, but I am glad that in this case The Leftovers is based (however loosely) on pre-existing source material.. so hopefully that means less smoke monster and a more well-defined story arc.
"Pilot" starts us off at a laundromat when the 'event' occurs and we play witness to one mother's perspective as her baby suddenly vanishes from the car seat she had just placed into the back seat of the car. This kind of vicious, rending emotional scene seems to be a theme for this episode, if not for the entire series. I do appreciate how we are introduced to the impact that this inexplicable phenomenon has made upon people not on a chaotic, global scale but in the smallest possible way. In one person's life. And as I mentioned previously, The Leftovers really succeeds in pushing all of the buttons available - squeezing out every last drop of grief, sentiment and sympathy from its characters and viewers alike. Perhaps this is a problem, though, because in order to appreciate the emotional depths to which this show wants to sink we should also tip the other side of the scale and add some lighter colors to the palette. Does this series need a Hurley? Maybe not, but hopefully we're treated to at least a glimmer of hope in the next few episodes!
Justin Theroux excels in his role as Kevin Garvey, the police chief in Mapleton, who seems to be in a great deal of emotional distress. If the events of the series premiere are any indication, the whole series will likely gravitate in some way around his family. Kevin currently lives with his daughter, Jil (played by relatively new actress Margaret Qualley), and we learn toward the end of the episode that his wife, Laurie, has at some point in the last 3 years become a member of the organization known as the Guilty Remnant. This cult-like group's members dress in all white clothing, constantly smoke cigarettes and travel around the local neighborhood in same-sex pairs, shadowing certain people that seem especially troubled and had members of their immediate family disappear in the big event that occurred on October 14th three years ago. There is also another organization somewhere nearby Mapleton in a secured compound that centers around someone called Wayne. In this episode, a congressman who has heard of Wayne's restorative or healing powers (or something of the like, we're not quite sure yet) pays a hefty sum of money to be taken to this compound and talk to Wayne. A very enigmatic character, surely a little more information will leak out each episode about Wayne and his abilities and purpose.
Kevin Garvey flashes back at one point to what appears to be an emotional breakdown that he had after the event on October 14th. Throughout "Pilot", Kevin is confronted with a stag: at one point he sees the stag in a row of bushes and then looks back to see that it has disappeared. Soon afterwards he has a strange dream featuring the same animal, and then at the end of the episode we see what appears to be that same stag again being devoured by a pack of wild dogs. At this point the strange character Dean (played by notable character actor Michael Gaston) who Kevin has been chasing after appears and says "These are not our dogs", a line that goes back to a scene at the very beginning of the episode where Dean pulls up and shoots a dog in front of Kevin, who screams "You cannot kill our fucking dogs!" after him as he pulls away in his truck. Is Kevin hallucinating the stag, or is he having a vision much like the one that Wayne from the compound has with his son in it earlier in the episode? These scenes allude to something much more interesting and larger than we can currently imagine. It appears that animals are going to play a large role here as imagery and in fact, the next episode is titled 'Penguin One, Us Zero'. Come on Damon, no penguins please!
Beautifully directed by Peter Berg, "Pilot" is full of close shots and interesting perspectives that keep us attached to the characters and maintains the tense atmosphere from start to finish. Mapleton, the suburb in which all of this takes place, is written as a microcosm of the world so we can watch events unfold with a smaller perspective - but it also begs the question as to whether or not things like the Guilty Remnant and the compound with Wayne the prophet have a worldwide reach or if they exist only in a few small communities like Mapleton. In any case, this was a great series premiere that looks as though it will lead to a multi-season show with many story arcs. Although a little bleak to start, I'm confident that this show will paint with a larger emotional palette as we move on past the obligatory initial character development and the actors really slip into their character's skins.
What's better than Monday Night Football? Easy. Monday Night Football with a delicious taco dip! This recipe has specifically been constructed around items that you can find quickly at your local grocery store and hurry home to prepare it and get in front of the TV with time to spare. Enjoy!