Chili Cookoff

 The hospital here announced a chili cookoff for employees with cash prizes, and I was all over that like white on rice. I haven't cooked competitively since I was a 1st grade dreamer with a carrot cake in the school bakeoff. I won a blue ribbon for my troubles. I wasn't ready to break my win streak, but chili is not really my forte. At home I make a vegan chili, which I knew wasn't winning anything around these parts. The debate around here is whether there should be beans in chili, not if there should be *only* beans in chili. So I started experimenting with various recipes, and no word of a lie, we ate chili for dinner for like 3 weeks running. This process culminated in an in-house cookoff for our unwitting houseguests, the Whites. Declan made a white chicken chili in the instant pot with a recipe I found for him on the internet to provide some competition but, with a nearly unanimous vote, my all-meat chili won top honours. Unfortunately, that sent Declan back to the drawing board, and he ended up going with another instant pot chicken chili recipe for contest time, despite not having practiced it at all, and ended up winning the whole cookoff. There were only 12 entrants, but he really won it fair and square, and took home a $100 Visa gift card for his troubles. I took second place and $50.

When Declan asked me if I thought he won because the judges decided to go easy on him because he was a kid competing in an adult competition, I told him probably so. But really his chili was the best one out there. It just killed me a little because his was instant pot, press a button and go, and mine was legit- slaving over a hot stove toasting chilis and the like. Go figure. +-

This is a picture of Declan, who after tasting his own chili said, "Wow, I see why people love it so much." This was before he had been declared winner, mind you.



Also note his sweater- this was a conscious choice. His plan was that if anyone complimented him on it, he would reply "I thought it might get a little CHILI tonight."  Ha. Ladies and gentlemen, my son. Unfortunately the only person who noticed his sweater preempted his pun, by commenting that it was a good thing he wore that sweater because it  was a little chilly out. He straight up facepalmed. So close to glory! Per aspera ad astrum, my child.