Gravy's Cooking Thread

Burns said:

I like beans and see no reason not to use them. I generally rotate between Black, Kidney, Cannellini, and Garbanzo (pick 3).

I don't care all that much about keeping "traditional" foods, if it makes them taste inferior (pineapple on pizza makes me sick because I don't like heavy pineapple taste).

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Right on. I'm a three bean, three meat, three pepper chili man myself. Black kidney and pinto, beef pork and venison, jalapeno Anaheim and poblano.

One of my best buddies since I'm in from college who was older than I was but I'm not for the electronics repair shop we all worked at used to make that, that might not necessarily deviated. I mean I have and I've made up my own but that's sort of a foundation. I'm happy to substitute them white beans or whatever, but to me beans and chili aren't necessary and wonderful, especially because they break down and give you that starchy thickness.

My wife had brought home some bags of frozen chili from somebody at her work that claimed they do chili competitions. This is just this past week and I was kind of excited to see what just at home stranger thought about their creation.

I'll just say this, but HEB me and being chilly is tastier. It wasn't necessarily bad but he had some sort of odd thing that added some sort of acidity to it, maybe it was a lime zest, because it was hit me up pretty front and center.

I added a can of kidney beans to the one bag, a tablespoon of the HEB barbecue sauce to add a little bit of sweet balance, and made chili cheese dogs, and it was totally serviceable, for the competition it was not going to win.

It was true blue competition chili though and I don't understand why people love that. Beans are great, good for your heart, and make you fart, but they're really just do taste good and can change things like a pasta salad or a soup into something quite a bit better, and I think they're necessary for a great chili.

moonarchia said:

How drunk were you when you wrote this?

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Talk to text has always been my Achilles heel...and maybe a little boozed up.

Dr.Retarded said:

for the competition it was not going to win.

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Competition stuff always has its own fashions and quirks. The more serious the competitions get, the further divorced they get from just what the thing was supposed to be about in the beginning. Kids around here show cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, etc. for 4-H and other competitions and it has become so specific that there are people who breed animals especially for shows that are not even practical for use in agriculture. You're not actually going for a practical lamb or chicken or good tasting chili, you're shooting for what has been defined as the competition ideal. It's kind of weird and it's bizarre how serious people get with it. There are parents paying 5 or 10 thousand dollars for animals and buying $30K trailers and hauling them all around the country just so their kids can spend hours washing and clipping these critters and then lead them around an arena and one kid gets a pretty silver belt buckle which they already have 15 more of at home. I'm less familiar with competition cooking but I suspect it's pretty similar.

BrutulTM said:

Competition stuff always has its own fashions and quirks. The more serious the competitions get, the further divorced they get from just what the thing was supposed to be about in the beginning. Kids around here show cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, etc. for 4-H and other competitions and it has become so specific that there are people who breed animals especially for shows that are not even practical for use in agriculture. You're not actually going for a practical lamb or chicken or good tasting chili, you're shooting for what has been defined as the competition ideal. It's kind of weird and it's bizarre how serious people get with it. There are parents paying 5 or 10 thousand dollars for animals and buying $30K trailers and hauling them all around the country just so their kids can spend hours washing and clipping these critters and then lead them around an arena and one kid gets a pretty silver belt buckle which they already have 15 more of at home. I'm less familiar with competition cooking but I suspect it's pretty similar.

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I completely understand.

Growing up my family had Arab horses, and we went to multiple shows every year throughout the south. The horses were bred and trained specifically for whatever type of competition at these things, Western pleasure was horses that we had. I know the last one that was winning a bunch of awards was quarter horse-arab mix which got you into a different category, but my sister won a bunch of youth national deals in Oklahoma City, and whatever national organization tournament in Louisville, KY.

I used to ride for a little bit when I was younger but kind of got bored with it, but going to the shows was always a lot of fun. It's insane the amount of time and money people put into something like that. At least with my sister she got a ton of scholarship money and didn't have to pay for any college because of it, which was the big thing my parents were pushing for, plus it was just a good activity. I guess in high school and college shifted over to doing cutting horses, which is actually a lot more entertaining then riding around in a circle.

But back to food, I know that the chilli or barbecue competition world is pretty insane, and as much as I like cooking, I've never had a desire to compete other than when working at a place that had a cooking competition every year when I was in college. It was just us lowly part-timers having fun. I think we were the only part time guys ever competing, and despite making some pretty good food every year, and changing up our theme, whether it be Oriental or Cuban, Cajun to a medieval feast, it was just trying to do something different. We never won because the whole competition was rigged, but at least the crowd that showed up always ate everything we served and enjoyed it, and there was free beer.