Best Thing: Jim's Chili

One of my favorite things about my college experience was having such awesome professors. I don't know if it was because I went to a small school and it was easier to know your profs, or if I was just lucky enough to have amazing people as teachers, but either way it was great. I loved having teachers that would invite you to their house and eat lunch with you in the cafeteria.

At Halloween each year the Art Club and the art professors threw a big dance party with food and snacks. We blared music and gave away costume awards and scared the rest of our conservative campus and had a ton of fun doing it. Everyone in the art department made an appearance (even alumni) for one reason: Prof. Jim Hendrickx's Chili.

Jim's Chili, Fall 2009

 I always ended up on the clean-up committee, but it was worth it - inevitably Jim would go home long before the party was over and ask us to take home his crock pot and bring it to class on Monday. Which meant my apartment ended up with leftover chili. Score!

Now that I've graduated, fall feels incomplete without a steaming pot of his thick and delicious homemade chili. I finally convinced someone who knew his secret recipe to share it with me (thanks, Chris!) and even though all I had was a list of the ingredients, I figured I could wing it and end up with something close. I'm not sure if my final product tasted exactly like his, but it was so good we cleaned out the pot and didn't even have leftovers! The recipe for what I ended up making is below.

My version of Jim's Chili

Jim Hendrickx's Chili

1 lb ground pork sausage
1 small onion, diced
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 can kidney beans, undrained
1 can northern beans, undrained
1 can black beans, undrained
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
4-5 bay leaves
hot sauce to taste

In a large pot, brown ground sausage until no longer pink.  Add onion and garlic, stir. Add beans and tomatoes - do NOT drain any of the liquid, just dump everything in. Add remaining ingredients, adjusting for taste. Stir to combine and let simmer for at least an hour in order for the liquid to thicken (mine was on the stove for 3 hours).

When I Grow Up

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a writer. I hoped that someday I would be able to go to the library and see books with my own name on the front cover. At the time I could only read picture books, so I assumed I would have to be an artist as well. This is evident in the "books" that I would make back in the first and second grade. Loose-leaf notebook paper exquisitely bound by three staples, they were only about eight pages at the longest, but included everything that an actual book did. Not only did I draw a cover with crayons, but I also had a dedication page, chapter headings, and best of all, on the back, reviews from imaginary newspapers telling how this would be the next bestseller. (I was quite the self-assured child, apparently.) My story marched across the pages, with illustrations close in step. I was so proud of my book. 

Now that I am older, I can see how those young dreams have shaped my life. I continued to write stories and create my own books, newspapers, and magazines. Little did I know that it was possible to actually grow up to do all of the things that I dreamed of as a little girl. At present I am in my third year of college at a small university in my home state of Ohio, planning to graduate two years from now with BAs in both English and Graphic Design. I have found myself falling in love with Helvetica, Bansky, Vonnegut and Pantone - things I never would have been exposed to otherwise. I sometimes sit back and am flabbergasted by the fact that I have become exactly the kind of person I wanted to be in Kindergarten. 

Which is why I have started this blog. (I am somewhat of a blog-addict; at one point I was posting either by myself or with groups on seven different blogs.) I want to write more, but in a more sophisticated style than I use when I write in my journal-type blogs. I admire the style of Donald Miller and his sitting-across-from-you-telling-a-story type prose, and will most likely talk to you as if we have known each other all of our lives, possibly referring to you directly, as Charlotte Bronte refers to her Dear Reader in quite possibly my favorite book of all time, Jane Eyre. I'm holding my copy of it now, the one my mom bought for $3 back when I was in eighth grade. The pages are stained from being spilled on, the binding broken in to the point that the novel itself is soft and pliable, notes written in the margins. There is nothing in the world like a cozy and worn in good book. My new goal is to someday write a book that becomes someone's Jane Eyre. And this is my starting point.