I’ve reached an odd place in my food adventures. I can eat a food, and enjoy it while at the same time gagging. This happened today with the vegetarian chili I made. It tasted just fine, but the texture — yuuuuuck!!!  I wanted to spit it out! The experience reminded me of learning about French kissing for the first time. Remember? How could that ever be a good thing? Sticking your tounge in some guy’s mouth?? YUCK. We all laugh at those memories, wise adults that we are, but it makes me wonder.

Is it possible that one day I’ll find chili as attractive as an intelligent man?

And if there is hope for chili . . . could exercise ever be interesting?

Naaaaa. Let’s not get carried away.

And what lead to this moment, anyway? What made me, despite my trepidations, attempt to eat chili? Which, as you know, is nothing more than mushy, disgusting vegetable slop. There are several metaphors and similes for that revolting sludge rolling around in my head, but they wouldn’t be polite to write, so let’s move on.

HelloFresh sent me a chili with my last box, and I never cooked it because the thought of all that mush turned my stomach. But then Plated.com sent me chili the following week, so I took it as a sign. The universe wanted me to make veggie chili.

The experience started glossing surreal shortly after I realized the HelloFresh stuff was a week old, and probably needed to be thrown away. Much to my surprise, the ingredients were fine despite a week in the fridge, excepting the green onions. And — another sign from the universe! — I had a fresh bunch of green onions in the produce drawer!

Damn. That meant I had to actually make HelloFresh chili, since I couldn’t afford to throw out perfectly fine food. Plus the whole sign-from-the-universe thing.

In the midst of cursing this mushy abundance I realized I could make the chili, take it to work, and feed it to people who might actually enjoy vegetarian chili. And if I made the Plated chili too there would probably be enough for my entire office. So I pulled out the slow cooker, chopped a crazy lot of vegetables, and threw both recipes together. Black beans, chickpeas, poblano pepper, red bell pepper, chilie pepper in adobo sauce, red onion, white onion, butternut squash, a ton of spice, vegetable stock . . . extra cayenne from my spice rack since the boxers have to cook for the lowest common denominator (which sure as heck isn’t Texas) . . . oh, look what’s in the freezer!  Black bean quinoa leftovers I froze a few weeks ago. And that stewed okra dish I didn’t like.  The freezer’s getting crowded, let’s throw in the last of this frozen corn.

I let it cook overnight, untasted.

That’s right, I cooked the chili and never tasted it.

I could not force myself to taste something so disgusting! But that didn’t stop me from offering it up to my guinea pigs . . . I mean co-workers . . . along with some Beanitos, Fritos, cheese, and sour cream.

No one died. People even said the chili was good.

I reminded myself that I like and respect my co-workers. They aren’t delusional. And, with the possible exception of JM, they wouldn’t try to trick me into eating something vile. So I took courage from their praise.  I half-filled my tiny, tiny melamine bowl with Fritos, then ladled on some mushy slop. And took a bite.

It wasn’t bad.  It probably needed more cayenne because I could still taste the vegetables, but overall not bad.

Then I bit into a mushy chickpea, and shuddered. I waited, poised over a trashcan, until the goose flesh subsided. I chewed some more. And winced when my teeth sank through the squash. I worked through the entire bowl in a small series of shudders and pauses, trying to let the taste triumph over the texture. The Fritos were my dietary heroes. I never could have made it through the chili without their comforting crunch.

After I finished the entire super-tiny bowl the internal argument began. Did I like it? Did I hate it? Was it good?

I couldn’t decide, so much to my surprise I ATE ANOTHER TINY, TINY BOWL.

I’m still not sure if I liked it. Vegetarian chili, for the time being, will go on the “gray list.”  I’ll eat it (provided there are Fritos) but I don’t think I’d cook it voluntarily.

So, in the final analysis, no.

Chili is not equal to men.  Wrong kind of shudders.

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Aside:  I’ve been writing code at work, so I want to write that as an equation.  Maybe attractiveness is a function, so the f(chili) < f(men)?

f(men)

hahahahahahahaha