I make very good chili, if I do say so. This was probably my best batch ever, and there are 3 quarts of leftovers, two of which have gone directly into the freezer.  And despite having some meat in it, it's pretty healthy stuff--not much fat, lots of beans and onions and peppers, and it's yummy. Although I'm pretty much OVER the boring mcCormick chili powder from a jar.  I need to find some real chile powder, powdered anchos and chipotles and stuff, to make my own without the salt. 

I try very hard to get interested in football.  But it just doesn't take. I can appreciate a good dramatic run to the end zone, which we've now had two of (one per team),  but mostly it's just very boring.  And all I can think of to do is play on the computer and munch.  Two smallish bowls of chili, a slice of my husband's homemade (okay, breadmakered) beer bread, which is very good.  Two beers. We split a big bottle of the Trader Joe vintage reserve ale, and now I'm having my Goose Island Pere Jacques--FABULOUS beer!--and he's having his Unibroue Fin du Monde. I married a beer snob. I never thought I liked beer, but then all I'd ever had was the crap we drank in college, when MGD was considered "the good stuff."  Then he got me sipping some of the nicer Belgian stuff, and the Trappist ales, and the darker beers from all over the place...and I'm fairly hooked.  And once I discovered Pere Jacques, the Goose Island version of a Trappist ale, I've never looked back.  Most food/drinkstuffs I have several I enjoy and would be hard pressed to choose a favorite (or even if I did, I'd choose other things for variety every now and then), but Pere Jacques is quite simply my absolute favorite beer ever.

Developing a taste for the good stuff, sort of like what happened when I first started getting accustomed to really good chocolate--on the one hand, it's a lot more expensive keeping myself in the good stuff.  On the other, I am not even remotely tempted by, say, a Milky Way candy bar any more, which is better for my waistline. 

Oh look--another exciting play. Touchdown. Game almost over.  Thank God.

Must have more beer. Beer good. Beer foamy.
--J