Coming up short
Despite best efforts, Brendan Ahern’s chili didn’t make the grade
Well my friends, what can I say?
I devised a combination of ingredients which, if simmered in my trusty slow-cooker, I felt would have been enough to win the day.
In the end, it wasn’t enough. Literally, it wasn’t enough. I ran out of chili with about 30 minutes of voting left in the competition which I shared with my formidable opponents from the Pictou Advocate and 97.9 CKEZ FM. This shortfall cost me at least 15 possible votes at the chili cookoff competition, held at the New Glasgow Farmers Market on Saturday morning.
Who can say how things might have gone if those people could have tasted that chili? What I did was this.
First, I mixed onion, garlic and hamburger together with sriracha chili sauce and pepper. Fried that all together until properly cooked. Then into the pot it went with sweet corn, green and red pepper, two kinds of beans, chili powder and cayenne pepper.
Then I played Rome Total War II until 1 a.m.
Consolidating Roman power on the Italian peninsula was no easy task on very hard mode. On the island of Sicily, the Greeks and mighty Carthage were vying for control, but the immediate danger was in the northern provinces where the stubborn Etruscans held the settlements just north of Rome and west of the Apennine mountains.
It was against this host that general Julius Libo led my legions to battle outside the small settlement of Velrathi, where we routed the Etruscan force garrisoned there. It was the first of many victories, and by morning the Roman standard was planted from the slopes of Mt. Etna, all the way up the lowlands of the Alps, beyond which lie future conquests.
So, the day wasn’t an entire loss. Also, congrats to Alex Theriault at Radio Classic Rock 97.9!