If I may risk sounding boastful for a moment, I wish to announce that my "Louisiana Chili" took first place again last night at the 6th annual McCubbin Chili cook-off. I suppose I should really consider retiring it (something I said I was going to do two years ago) for the sake of the other competitors.

[On a side note, these Kentuckians have an odd practice of putting chili over spaghetti or even worse, they sometimes put the noodles straight into their chili. Often when I mention my chili to the locals, someone will ask, "Do you put spaghetti in yours?" I quickly explain that such an action would be considered an abomination to my chili. I've discovered that the practice of putting spaghetti in chili comes from the Cincinnati area. Figures--I knew it had to be a Yankee innovation. However, I should offer that putting my chili over rice is certainly acceptable.]

The McCubbin Chili cook-off began a few years ago after a bunch of us went to Phoenix Hill Tavern's chili cook-off. I haven't been back in a number of years, but at the time, Phoenix Hill's competition had essentially become dominated by the local restaurants as opposed to the average Joe's homemade chili. So J.T. and Jenn McCubbin decided to start sponsoring their own chili contest among friends and the rest was history.

My chili is not overly complicated, but unfortunately I can't reveal its recipe due to the fierceness of the competition. Most of us simply like the food we grew up with and at some point, I realized that my mother's chili had somewhat of a distinct flavor due to one of the ingredients she put into her recipe. So a few years back, I began by duplicating her recipe, but I've tweaked it in two significant ways. One of these departures from her recipe I can't reveal for the aforementioned reasons of competition, but one difference between hers and mine I can reveal.

In addition to the standard ground beef, I add sausage to my chili--two kinds in fact. Originally, this meant both ground sausage (since coming to Kentucky I've begun using Purnell's made right here in Simpsonville--good stuff) and smoked sausage cut into quarter-inch pieces. For the first three years of the Annual McCubbin Chili Cook-off, my chili would place second, but never first. So in the fourth year of competition, I knew I had to do something different if I was going to get that coveted first place win. So I thought to myself that if I'm going to call this Louisiana Chili (named because I'm originally from Louisiana and I use Mom's recipe) I need to give it even more of a Louisiana flavor. So I ditched the smoked sausage and began adding authentic andouille (pronounced an-doo-ee) sausage instead. Andouille sausage used to be difficult to obtain in Kentucky, and I had to import it from Louisiana during my trips back home. These days I can obtain the genuine article from a local meat shop or if I'm in a bind, Johnsonville makes a decent andouille (although Louisiana purists would probably frown upon a Yankee-made sausage).

Well my switch to andouille did the trick. I won two years ago after making the change. Unfortunately I had to sit out last year's competition because I was in the midst of studying for comprehensive finals. But this year I returned and was able to retain my place as reigning champ beating out a dozen or so other chilis of all varieties.

The win is certainly satisfying, but where do I go from here? Once I received first place, and now that I've successfully defended my spot, well, now what? One year I entered another chili--a spicy peanut butter chili, a concoction of my own making. It won third place, but I felt it needed some tweaking, too. And maybe that's what I need to do--retire the Louisiana chili from competition and began experimenting with new creations.

You know, it can be quite lonely at the top, but the chili sure tastes good...

Tags: chili