A highlight of my year is judging a neighborhood chili (and apple pie) contest over Veterans Day weekend. Each year the competition grows, and the chili just keeps getting better. Some participants get creative with their garnishes—topping their chili with crème fraîche, yogurt, sour cream, or an assortment of snacks like Fritos, Bugles, and tortilla chips. I’m always impressed by the effort and flavor combinations that home cooks bring to the table. It’s a pleasure to support our veterans and be part of a community that celebrates good food and camaraderie. I was so inspired this year that I decided to share one of my own chili recipes.

At the beginning of my career, I commuted into New York City to work in some of the finest restaurants in the country. One winter night, during a raging snowstorm, the bus got stuck, and a few of us decided to walk home — a few miles for me. The highway was quiet, the snow falling heavy under a bright full moon. By the time I reached home, cold and very hungry, my parents were sitting at the dining room table with a steaming pot of pasta e fagioli, crusty Italian bread and a bottle of Italian red wine. Simple, humble, and absolutely perfect — the kind of meal that reminds you why food matters.

Every culture seems to have its own way of celebrating squash. Years ago, when I was invited to assist the amazing Puerto Rican Chef Alfredo Ayala at Worlds of Flavor at the CIA San Antonio campus. I spent the morning carefully preparing diced pumpkin and other mise en place for Puerto Rican Sofrito, Adobo & Habichuelas Guisadas (Bean Soup) Chef Ayala arrived in the kitchen with a paper bag of Ají dulce, (Rocotillo peppers) from Puerto Rico and the other Latin chefs went wild! When he came to greet me he tossed all of my pumpkin dice into the garbage, poured a few cups of rice onto the table and discussed how to peel garlic. He explained he had eaten this same, exact rice dish every day of his life and shared the pumpkin I had prepared was for Halloween; he needed butternut squash. I had told the procurement chef the same thing earlier but decided to keep that to myself… an absolutely amazing experience learning to cook pumpkin and rice with Chef Ayala, a true master!

I was very fortunate to spend several months on a cruise ship traveling around Alaska and Canada. I was able to learn how fisherman caught salmon and the native Alaskan people canned salmon. There are five types of salmon, the guides loved to share the 'salmon fingers trick'. King salmon is considered the most flavorful salmon with a fatty, buttery flavor. (This is the longer, middle finger) Coho or Silver salmon is firmer with a milder flavor (ring finger for silver); Sockeye salmon (pointer finger) is lean and has a darker red color. Pink salmon (pinky finger) is most common and used by Alaskan people for canning and Chum (thumb) salmon is mild and seems to be the least popular. I prefer farm raised, Atlantic salmon for forcemeats due to the milder flavor and fatty texture. I spent a week fishing for halibut in Alaska and we rigged up the belly of a chum salmon for bait... it worked really well!

My mother liked to cook a variety of fritters, with leftover holiday ham or turkey but in the summer she prepared delicious squash flower or corn fritters which were more like savory pancakes and inspired this recipe.

I've been growing figs for more than 50 years! In fact, I have about a dozen fig trees in my yard. Several are from cuttings propagated from trees at my parent's home and one fig tree is from a cutting of a fig tree in Monticello! I like to think Thomas Jefferson and I enjoy delicious figs from the same tree...

I liked to begin each class day of Skills Development class at the CIA with a quote. One of my favorites went something like this, 'You can walk to the corn fields but you must run back to the kitchen'. Basically it speaks to the sugars in sweet quickly converting to starch when it's harvested. We Chefs know a thing or two about food chemistry...

I agreed to be the Chef Advisor for the Gourmet Society at the CIA, an amazing honor to work with some of the best and brightest students. We planned to demonstrate preparing pesto with a mortar and pestle and also with a food processor-then evaluate them both side by side. We all suspected that the food processor would aerate the pesto, possibly the heat generated would be a problem- One student brought in a molcajete, the traditional mortar from Mexico, made from volcanic rock used for grinding spices, making salsas, moles, etc... I'm not sure this was the preferred mortar and pestle to use, these days I often use a marble mortar and pestle and make small batches. The 'mortar and pestle' pesto was much more delicious than the food processor version at the CIA that day.

I was born to sauté... I remember thinking this and smiling when I finally made my way up in the kitchen brigade to the Saucier spot. I loved the pulse of the kitchen, working the saute station with a dozen sauté pans on the flat top, delicious stocks and mother sauces held hot in the steam table and carefully prepared mise en place so I could make delicious meals for the customers... one order or two at the time. Everything was cooked with love and respect.

I remember my days working as chef/manager for food service cafeterias. People loved muffins for breakfast! We used dry muffin mixes or large tubs of various, premade muffin batters; scooped the batter into muffin tins and made dozens of mini, regular and large sizes daily. I love topping the muffins with garnishes like oats, chocolate chips, streusel, nuts etc... Morning Glory was my favorite, I bet I baked thousands of muffins in my five years at Gardner Merchant! I think my 'go to' muffin is a delicious, corn muffin grilled with butter on a plancha-New Jersey diner style!

I remember learning to make an emulsion sauce for called Rouille at Le Cirque. It's one of my favorites! Rouille is a delicious, classic French garlic mayonnaise served with bouillabaisse, a famous, French fish soup. I was taught to use EVOO, saffron, garlic etc... and cooked potato in the recipe. Other famous emulsion sauces include aioli, vinaigrettes, dressings, etc...