Art Nouveau Ho

Tonight I hosted three friends for chili con carne and cornbread. (Why do British people spell chili with two Ls? Does this have anything to do with how hard it is to get a decent bowl of chili in this country?)

I attempted to make a sensible, middle-of-the-road chili that you could serve to normal people with normal palates. velvetdahlia, who yields to none in her knowledge of Mexican cuisine , accompanied me to Whole Foods and advised me on spices. I ended up using no fresh chiles: jalapeños aren't in season, habañeros would have caused the heat death of the universe, and velvetdahlia turned up her SoCal nose at the Scotch bonnets. Instead, I used two different chili powders: cayenne pepper plus a chipotle powder from The Cool Chile Company, source of relief for us poor stranded Mexican-cuisine-starved Yanks.

The chipotle powder turned out to be delightfully strong and smoky, but only two tablespoons rocketed my perfectly civilised chili into blow-your-head-off territory. Watching an Englishman, a Welshman and an Aussie try to be polite about it was incredibly entertaining. Luckily I had plenty of sour cream around on the side. (I remember being stricken with horror when the normally excellent White Horse and Griffin in Whitby served yoghurt with their chili. Yoghurt is for curries, you heretics.)

Why am I telling you this?... Well, are you coming to my pre-Leipzig dinner? Guess what we're having!

Actually, since the Leipzig sendoff involves catering to a large group of people with wildly different food requirements, my strategy will be to make an assortment of smallish dishes and hope everyone finds something they like. So I will still fully sort of respect you as an individual if you decline to eat the Blow Your Head Off Chili.



And now, a meme! From the ever lovely zoecb:

1. Put your media player of choice on shuffle.
2. List the first fifteen songs that come up (skipping titles like "Fugue in D Minor") and add "in my pants" to the end.
3. Bold the ones that actually made you LOL.

( Playlist In My Pants )

from velvetdahlia
"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list."

( Step into the library )
If this meme interests you and you have the time, consider yourself tagged.

...by pvcdiva. The meme is: Five favourite movies, plus five "guilty pleasures."
( Ready for my close-up? )
I tag nobody-- if you feel like doing the meme, do the meme!