What’s cooking this week?
Cornbread muffins! We’re serving two kinds, one savory, one sweet: serrano with pecorino and black pepper, and brown butter maple. Order them by the half dozen, or try a sampler pack, three of each. We’re also serving a few staples: sourdough sandwich bread, country bread, and tart cherry granola.
We’re offering delivery only this week, so you can order any time throughout the week! Give us 24 hours and we’ll bring your order to your door. Each item is $8.
from Maria’s sketchbook, September 2020
Kitchen Report
What is chili? Ask someone in Houston and they’ll tell you it’s chunks of beef and dried chiles and NO BEANS, got it? They’re taking it easy in Cincinnati, though. Have it any “way” you’d like it, as long as it’s on a pile of plain spaghetti and it’s made with chocolate (and I’ll take the pile of cheese, too). Detroiters may call it the “sauce” they are adding to Coneys. Say “chili” in Santa Fe and they’ll ask red or green?
Chili means different things to different people, but it also means something to everyone. I grew up eating something of a Midwestern hybrid of the great American chilis--heavy on the ground beef and light on the vegetables, spiced with a “2 Alarm Chili Kit,” and served with as much shredded cheese and raw onion as could be grasped by my little hands. Of course it was even more delicious over hot dogs the next day, after all the spices and fat had a chance to mingle in its yellow tupperware container. To me, this was chili, and in some ways will always be chili. When my mom comes to town she’ll line her suitcase with 2 Alarm Chili Kits so that my brother and I can make a pot of chili together.
Chili is, at its heart, not a recipe but a memory. It recalls the warmth, security, and simplicity of childhood. As long as it is made in this spirit and it is made in one pot, it is chili. These days, for me, the ground beef is most often replaced with sweet potatoes, squash, lots of beans (call it a “three bean”), but it keeps all of its spice and it’s cheese, and the bite of raw onion. Sometimes it’ll be dal topped with tadka and served with naan slathered in ghee. Once, at a chili cook off, I stretched it to mean Sichuan twice-cooked pork over rice, to much ado (and ultimately fanfare!). So, as the nights begin to welcome the crisp autumn air, open your windows and break out your biggest pot, throw in what tastes good and serve it to someone you love.
Happy cooking,
Bryan