Today I decided to make some chili. We like chili. Although there are some very good chili kits out there, I prefer to make mine from scratch. It isn't very hard. I start with dried Ancho chilies to give it the basic flavor. Lots of other stuff goes into it. One thing I like is roasted poblano peppers. Before the advent of our nice gas range, I had to prepare them in the broiler. That worked OK. With the gas stove I can roast them right on the burner and they come out great. Today's photo if of a poblano on its way to the pot. By the time I am done, the entire outside is black. I put them in a covered pot for a while to help loosen the skin, then just pull off the skin and seed them. A little chopping and then into the pot. Today I was using stew meat for the protein. Hamburger works as well, but it is hard to beat stew meat. After a couple hours of simmering, we sat down to a very enjoyable repast.

Now, one very important thing. I have seen people make chili with turkey meat. That is disgusting. I have seen turkey bacon in the store. That is also disgusting. At the last hotel we stayed at they had turkey sausage rather than pork sausage for breakfast. That is disgusting as well. I am going to propose that a law be passed in Texas that makes it illegal to make turkey chili. Seems reasonable. Let those nuts in California make turkey chili or tofu chili. Heck, those weenies probably don't even put in chili peppers. For a little perspective, Vermont passed a law that required a good faith effort to serve milk, cheddar cheese or ice cream with apple pie, the state pie. So now that chili is the state food of Texas and that the longhorn is the state large mammal of Texas it only makes sense to declare that beef is the official meat in Texas chili. I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.