Entertainment Nightmare!

Bizkit the dog supposedly suffers from nightmares and this past weekend, I endured a potential Entertainment Nightmare that almost had me hitting the wall like Bizkit.

I had invited the NBC Action News managers over Sunday for the Chiefs-Chargers game...and decided to follow the advice from The Food Network.  I'd make chili!  But those who know me well, know that I like to live on the edge.  Whenever I invite people to my house for vittles, I like to make something I've never made before.  Untested, unknown.  I generally choose my recipes by typing in some search words and most of the time, I trust The Food Network because...well, I just do.  Cooks.com is also a great resource.

Frankly, it's been awhile since we entertained.  I used to have parties in Memphis regularly but we didn't live in Syracuse or Baltimore long enough to build much of a "friend" base so it's been a few years.  Still, old habits die hard so Saturday morning, I was on the internet, searching for that perfect new recipe.  Testing my culinary skills.  Testing the tenuous bonds between me and my managers. 

The Food Network has more than 2,000 entries when you search "chili" but I quickly settled on this one for "Steak Fajita Chili" because it encourages adding important food groups like tortilla chips, cheese and sour cream to the dish prior to eating.  Now that's chili!  (Sorry gang, I'd never heard of Aaron McCargo, Jr. until Saturday.)

John and I spent an hour-plus at the Hy-Vee, purchasing the short ribs and other items for our party.  We cleaned the house, moved furniture around to seat as many as possible in our family room and Saturday night, I baked two different kinds of brownies because if I'm going to break the diet, I'm going to BREAK IT BAD.

The deep freeze storm gripping most of the Midwest meant about an inch of snow that blew around mightily into the early hours of Sunday and I woke up to find 1.  No newspapers and 2.  Disfunctional cable TV.  I guess I can live without the KC Star and NY Times for one day but the TV thing was disconcerting.  How could we invite people to watch football on the digital mosaic that we were getting on both the analog and digital channels?  (And why the hell do I pay so much for cable, anyway?  I'll tell you why.  ESPN.)

At around 11am I started cooking the chili because my plan was to have it ready for consumption when folks arrived at 3pm.  I got through the first part of the recipe just fine.  I can brown meat.  But then I read that I needed to cook the onions/peppers/spices/flour in one cup of canola oil.  Which for me was two cups because I doubled the recipe.  What?!?!  I broke one of my cardinal rules which is to follow the recipe to the letter and used a cup of oil instead of two but it still seemed like waaaayyy too much.

Meanwhile, John spent an hour on the phone with the Comcast representative who promised to do what he could.  Which ended up to be nothing but as the day unfolded our signal improved and by game time, only a few glitches remained.

At about 3pm, our guests began to arrive and that's when I tasted the chili for the first time.  OMG!  It was like eating Crude Oil Soup!  I tried not to panic.  I greeted people.  I smiled.  Inside, I was freaking out.  And as more folks showed up, I realized that I did not have an edible main course.  There was a hint of flavor to my chili but it was completely masked by grease.

Thank God for the cold.  Outside, the thermometer read 20-degrees so I took the entire pot out to the deck and left it there in the wind and chill for the entire first half of the game.  There were other things for my guests to eat and drink and while the Chiefs were stinking up the field, I was dying a thousand deaths.  With about four minutes left in the half, I excused myself and prayed all the way to the kitchen.

Thankfully...the weather did its work and my chili was covered by a frisbee-sized frozen disc of fat.  I chunked that garbage out to the freezing birds and other creatures (probably the Basset hounds from next door), returned my dutch oven to the burner and when the half was over, I was just about ready to serve my guests their chili.

They said it was good, some had seconds and one even asked for the recipe.  Even my finicky husband declared it a success.  I think it's a typo and the amount of oil needed to saute those veggies can be 1-2 tablespoons.  You'll like this chili, though.  Dee-lish!

Unfortunately, the Chiefs were not nearly as successful in dealing with adversity.  Three games to go and they need to win out.  Meanwhile, I'm planning my next get-together!