Another Recipe?

Is that all I do? The new year has come and gone and here we are bracing ourselves for another Nova Scotia winter. Years ago when I was in the pharmaceutical business with Roche Oncology we used to get together before meetings in small groups, cook good meals, drink great wines, and share brilliant stories. It morphed into larger groups to the point where the whole sales group would come in 2-3 days before a meeting.

Often we'd rent out places where there were kitchens so we could all participate and cook. Those are the memories I cherished the most out of that because we all developed such strong relationships. All these corporate team building exercises designed to help us grow together never ever surpassed our small groups of fun.

So as you can guess, our early arrival group then became an official part of any meeting within Roche Oncology and we then all started arriving early in order to form into teams and have cook-offs. One year we were in Banff for a meeting and naturally formed into teams of 5-6 (we were now a group of 40 people, a huge growth from 4 reps, Bob, Marty, and 1-2 others when we started this) and had about 6 teams. We had a budget to prepare our part of the meal. The company hired actual chefs to judge the meals prepared with the wines we bought that we thought complemented our part of the meal....it became a contest with prizes!

My team, can't remember who, can't remember what we even cooked, were the favorites since it was Marty and me who pretty much started this whole thing years before! Well, we were quite pleasantly surprised and impressed with another team lead by an incredible guy by the name of Dom Di Curzio. Dom joined Roche Oncology early in 2001-2002 and lead a team for that contest. He was going to cook chili. Whatever we all thought....chili....how good can you make a chili? Dom's chili kicked some serious ass! Wow....his team won the event and to this day I cook Dom's chili in honor of him...one of my favorite people from the drug business. Here's Dom's recipe as I wrote it down that night....there might have been some wine involved but Dom concurs that this is accurate:

Dom's Chili

1 Can Red Large Kidney Beans
2 Cans pureed tomatoes
1 can chili paste
2 cups fresh mushrooms, chopped and satueed with garlic to brown
1-2 cups white onion also sauteed
1 glass of wine, preferably a bold red to drink while browning above
3-4 cloves of garlic chopped and sauteed with above, no not the wine but the veg
2-3 bay leaves
Chili paste to taste
Cumin to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste (S&P)
2-4 striploins or equally good steak beef, flash bbq'd about 1 minute on high flame on the que just long enough to get those searing lines in the beef, then cut into cubes after cooled down.

Transfer the sauteed onions, mushrooms and garlic to a larger cooking pot. Throw in the tomatoes and allow to cook together. Add more garlic if necessary, the bay leaves, the S&P, cumin, chili powder and let cook on low-medium heat for 30+ minutes.
Enjoy another glass of the red and perhaps a snack or two.
Add meat, the beans and let stew for another hour or more covered over low heat.
May as well finish the bottle, heck you're already half done, have a nap and when you wake up, the house will smell of Chili that will impress most!

Enjoy with your 2nd bottle and some bread and remember that this recipe comes from a good friend and colleague, Dom Di Curzio.