Many, many years ago, when I was first getting to know the woman who would become my wife, I went over to her place to make dinner for her. I don’t remember what I made, but she later told me that what she remembers is that is was good and that it was, “a big pot of food.” Back then, I didn’t know how to cook much, but that big pot of food would probably have been my New Year’s Eve jambalaya, even though it was probably October and even though it’s not a traditional jambalaya.
Since then, I’ve expanded my repertoire, but I still love cooking a “big pot of food,” and there are two big pots I most enjoy cooking. The first is that “jambalaya,” which is a collection of a variety of meats and vegetables. It has most of the right meats and veggies as a real jambalaya and it’s become a New Year’s tradition in my house. This year, I taught my daughter how to make it, so it will likely become a tradition in her family, too.
The other big pot of food is my chili. I make a very traditional Texas chili, which means it has no beans. In chili culture, beans are a travesty and they’re even banned in competition. The meat and sauce are the heroes, and beans only add a flavorless starch to confuse things. For people who love the beans, I usually cook a separate pot of beans for them to add. One little tip: the real hero in good chili is cumin. You almost can’t put too much into the mix. I taste other people’s chili when it has very little chili powder and even less cumin. Honestly, it might taste OK, but it’s not chili. It’s some sort of stew. But to have good chili, you need a nice balance of chili powder and cumin, probably in a base of tomato and broth or beer. It takes practice to get to the right balance, and that’s the most fun part because you get to eat the results.
