Chili

Dear Ian:
Got a little serious and oh-so-poetic there. Not too worry. Sooner or later, it rolls back around to purely random, useless (or useful if looked at the right way, who knows) stuff.

Chili...the debate. Beans. No beans. True aficionados will say no beans. I agree. Sadly, I rarely make the chili this way. Nor did your Baba.

There was a dinner when your mother was served a heaping bowl of her mother's chili. Now when I say heaping, it probably has more to do with pile of crumbled saltines that your mother put on top than it does with the thickness of grandma's chili. This is not to say that grandma's chili was runny. Far from it. But your mother liked her saltines, and hated her kidney beans.

When I say hate, well, I can't emphasize it enough...HATED...kidney beans. Gag reflex hate. Refusal hate. Not a chance in...hate.

I think she always figured she could hide enough of the chili beneath a mound of crackers, eat enough off the top and get away with only finishing "half" of her meal.

Well, your grandma is no fool, and I think she sort of caught on to your mom's ploy. So one night, your mother was informed that she needed to eat the entire bowl of chili, beans and all, before she would be excused from the dinner table.

Your uncle, grandma, grandpa, and I all finished our chili. There sat your mother, staring down at her crackery, dried out mess. She sat. She stared. We did the dishes. We dried the dishes (this was before dishwashers). We retired to the living room to watch television. There she sat.

I think an hour went by before your grandma checked in on her daughter, your mother. A half bowl of chili remained, the crackers turned orange. Your mother's head bent toward the table, not in resignation, but in defiance. She would not eat the chili with kidney beans.

It gets a bit hazy, but I think grandma offered up dessert, chocolate cake, no doubt, to those of us who had finished our dinner. Your mother remained, unmoved and unmovable. No bribe how great or how rich and delicious would bend her will when it came to those infernal kidney beans.

I think another hour passed and bedtime was approaching. Grandma returned once again to check on her stubborn child. Head still down. Bowl still half full.

"Why won't you eat your chili?" Grandma asked.
"It's spoiled." Your mother whispered, more to the chili than to her mother.

"Spoiled?"
"Spoiled. Smell it."

Grandma lifted a spoonful to her nose and sniffed. Nothing.

"Smells normal to me."

"Taste it." Your mother replied.

So, Grandma touched the tip of the spoon to the tip of her tongue.

"Eeew," she said. Something was definitely wrong, but none ours tasted that wrong, that bad.

"You may be excused, but no cake, and straight to bed." Grandma surrendered.

I don't know if it was a day later, a week, a year or years later, but we did learn by some means, that your mother had dosed her own chili with grape Kool-Aid in an effort to beat the system. And beat it she did.

That said, I will also add that chili is always better the second day around. The beans have softened, the spices has worked their magic a little bit more, but skip the grape fantastic if you want to enjoy your leftovers.