Smoky chili
Last night my mom cooked up some smoky chili.* The recipe was from Sunset and, although you can’t tell from the website because of the way copyright law works (Sunset, like many magazines, owns all rights to recipes it publishes and thus does not need to credit the author when that recipe is reprinted in special publications or when it is posted online), was written by a dear friend of mine, Juliet Glass. She doesn’t do a lot of recipe work, but that which she does is perfection itself. Her recipes are the best-tested, most thoughtful (every ingredient, every step has its place and reason), and crazy-delicious you’re likely to find. This easy chili recipe is no different: she makes basic ground-beef chili awesome by using smoked paprika, a bit of bacon, and “fire roasted” canned tomatoes.
She is such a nut that she has since further perfected the recipe (I learned in a text message when I let her know my mom was cooking up the recipe) by adding 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon to the pot. We didn’t have cinnamon in our ski rental kitchen, but I’ll be trying that option at home.
* And, I must add, smokin’ chili. Both literally, in that we needed to open windows at one point, but that had more to do with some gunk on the stove than the chili itself (but I digress), and figuratively, in that it was, as mentioned above, crazy delicious. If you need proof beyond my say-so, check out the glowing reviews.
