I Hate My Cheater Boss Chili.
I used to work in the training department for a national grocery retailer. I wrote about it a lot-- it was a horrible job and I was a ridiculous employee who clearly didn't care about getting fired, so there was a lot of material there. One example: You can usually judge the fundamental misery of a workplace by how many mandatory participation contests and pot lucks it orchestrates, and we had something mandatory and unpaid happening around every three days. You barely had time to recuperate from "Homemade Christmas Hat" Tuesday before you were getting busted for not bringing that head of wilted lettuce for "Somebody's Terrible Variation Of Tacos" Friday. It was infinitely worse around the holidays when our calendar of events reached a forced joviality crescendo, requiring every employee to prepare marginal, unrecognizable, and borderline unsanitary baked goods and bring them to work every single day for a solid WEEK.
Seeing as how this was December, right, and I quit that hell hole the following February, I wasn't really feeling the philanthropic baking vibe. But with fifteen "100% participation" emails in my inbox staring me down like a human resource guillotine, I had to do something. So I signed myself up for the end-of-the-week chili cook-off.
The head of my department, Lisa, had won the chili cook-off every year for three years with her famous green chili. It really was delicious; slow cooked pork and freshly roasted green chilis... it deserved to win. But Lisa didn't make that chili-- every year before the contest, she'd strong-arm one of our company's in-store deli managers into making the chili for her. Using his own personal recipe. So while I was home Thursday night, slaving away over the stove, Lisa was home relaxing, breathing on marshmallows and making smores.
Friday morning, I got up early, duct taped my crock pot shut, and drove to work at twenty-two miles an hour. I plugged it in on my desk and stirred and cooed and stirred and cooed until contest time. Lisa sat in her office, shopping online and making fun of my pants, waiting for the deli manager to get his lunch break so he could deliver her chili. When another employee happened to spy him in our parking lot, lugging a crock pot to the door, Lisa avoided disaster by introducing him as her husband.
Well, I'm proud to report I won the chili contest that day. I don't remember who came in second. But Lisa came in third. She didn't speak to me for days. Just so it's clear-- my boss was so angry I had won a contest that she had entered and CHEATED in, she refused to say hello to me.
I Hate My Cheater Boss Chili2 Tbs. olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
10 garlic cloves, chopped
2 lbs. hot ground sausage (I use Johnsonville)
2 lbs. ground beef
5 Tbs. chili powder
1 T. cumin
1/2 tsp. oregano
2 28-oz cans crushed tomatoes
1 6-oz can tomato paste
14 oz. chicken broth
dark chocolate to taste (I use about a 1/4 - 1/2 of a bar-- a normal sized bar, not a crazy person sized bar)
a bottle of Guinness (a normal sized bottle, not a crazy person sized bottle)
2 cans chili beans
salt and pepper to taste
- Heat the oil in a large dutch oven; cook the onion and garlic until transparent.
- Add the ground beef and the sausage and brown, breaking up any clumps that form.
- Pour the extra fat off the pot, add the chili powder, oregano, cumin-- stir.
- Add tomatoes, tomato paste, broth, chocolate, and beer-- stir.
- Cook for a totally indiscriminate period of time. Preferably a couple of hours or more.
- Add the chili beans-- cook another thirty minutes.
It's not even that great, as far as chili goes, but it's deeply,
deeply satisfying. Don't burn it. Serves thirty-two. Hundred. Thirty-Two Hundred.
