When I decided to enter a chili cook-off for Super Bowl Sunday, my competition training plan was to make three batches of chili, some exotic, some traditional, and figure out what people liked best. I did a very traditional, bean-free truck stop chili recipe from the Tex-Mex Cookbook by Robb Walsh (which is a great source for the history and evolution of our favorite fart food) and served it alongside a "Cincinnati" chili, known for a spice profile that includes cloves, chocolate and cinnamon (and is "kind of weird ... maybe even gross," according to one of my tasters). The third test batch was a recipe from a recent issue of Cook's Illustrated that purported to have set out to find the best chili recipe. 


More...