While I was teaching at Wake Forest University, I developed a calendar of regular events throughout each year that would give my students a chance to gather at my house, all as part of building community and family together. Sometimes these were just simple meals, which gave me an excuse to cook or a chance to try out recipes. Others took on the feel of recurring annual affairs that current students, alumni, and teachers we all worked with could come to. Although Wake Forest is now well behind me, some of those events are just too good to let die.
One of these is the annual chili cook-off which, in spite of its name, isn't so much about competitive chili-making as it is an excuse for people to throw together their favorite chili and to bring it over to a grand buffet of crockpots for all to sample and enjoy. This evening was the first chili cook-off I've held since 2007, and it was fantastic. Five different recipes of chili were spread out across my long kitchen countertop, and three had to be set up on either side of the cooktop on the island:
- Turkey Bean Chili
- Chorizo Chocolate Chip Chili
- Garden of Vegan Chili
- Three Little Piggy Chili
- Three-Meat Goulash Chili
- Three Artists' Vegetarian Chili
- Sonoma-Williams Six-Hour Chili
- Best Homemade Chili
There were also three kinds of cornbread: honey butter cornbread, cornbread souffle, and Granny Wilson's honey wheat cornbread.
Desserts included red velvet cake, chocolate layer cake, chocolate eclair cake, and homemade key lime custard (yes, with the old-fashioned ice cream canister freezer with rock salt and ice).
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