First of all, after Kevin Millar made a good defensive play in the bottom of the first inning of the Sox-Angels game, ESPN color commentator Rick Sutcliffe asked the director for a close-up of Kevin Millar’s face to make sure it wasn’t Doug Mientkewicz in a Kevin Millar uniform. Someone’s been reading baseballrelated.com!
Second, and more important, I commiserated with the Rocketship by making chili con carne to eat during the game, and this is the recipe I used.
2 pounds lean ground beef (I guess any ground meat would be okay)
2 medium onions
2 bell peppers (I used one green and one red)
2 garlic cloves
1 28-ounce can ready-cut (“Recipe Ready”) tomatoes (because cutting up the onions, peppers, and garlic is plenty without having to cut up tomatoes, too)
1 15-ounce can kidney beans
1 15-ounce can pinto beans
2 cups water
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Dash of salt
Shredded cheese
Chop the onions and bell peppers into small pieces. Chop the garlic into very, very small pieces.
Brown the meat and drain.
In a big pot, stir together everything but the beans and cheese. Cook, covered, over low-to-medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Drain the beans and stir them into the chili. Continue cooking, still covered, for another 30 minutes.
Serve in bowls and put shredded cheese on top. As listed above, the recipe makes about 8 servings of chili, which is good in my case because although it’s good right after it’s made, it’s even better as a leftover. It should be fairly easy to halve, although you’ll probably have to make a choice between kidney beans and pinto beans instead of having both. (Why am I not having people over to my place? Fewer baseball fans among my southern California friends, worse start times in terms of people being able to drop by for the game after work, and the fact that my bathroom is a mess because the apartment complex maintenance staff is working on the ceiling.)
Here’s what it looks like before the cheese is put on top (and, no, you don’t use the whole bag on one bowl unless you like cheese more than you like chili)…
Goes great with $7.00 beer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar…
And it tastes even better when Johnny Damon is on TV…
Incidentally, the advantage to having a local team in the playoffs while you’re trying to TiVo their game, airing on ESPN, is that the coverage is duplicated on a local channel. In this case, the game bounced from ESPN2 to ESPN once the Twins-Yankees game finally ended, but L.A.’s UPN 13 carried it straight through, with a minimum of scrolling messages informing all 10 or 11 potential viewers of the UPN show “Kevin Hill” that tonight’s episode would be airing on Saturday.
Original comments…
Levi: One thing you might try in the future, Jim: Fritos. I think the only reason they’re on the earth is to be put in chili just before you put in the cheese.
We didn’t see much baseball last night, just a bit in a hotel bar while waiting for Stacey’s aunt and uncle to show up from the airport. So we saw the Yankees leeding 5-3 in the 8th, Rivera coming in. “Oh, we don’t need to watch–we can go sit in the lobby. We saw Rivera blow a lead in 2001, so we won’t see that again for another few years.”
Checking in a few minutes later, finding it 5-5, we decided to leave a note at the desk telling Auntie where to find us.
But then, at dinner, it all went bad. Stacey and I were occasionally our heads in the bar–where the bartendress was a Minneapolis transplant and where there was also one Yankee fan who, when I said to the bartendress, “Everybody hates the Yankees!”, said, “Not everybody!”. Stacey saw that the Twins had gone ahead in the 12th. Next thing I knew, I saw from across the restaurant a crowd of bouncing Yankees. And they didn’t look like they were bouncing the bounce of despair.
Oh, well. There’s always game 3.
Jim: “Bartendress”?
By the way, Rogue Dead Guy Ale was a $7.00 beer in Pittsburgh, and it’s still a $7.00 beer in L.A….but in this case, it’s $7.00 for a 6-pack at BevMo in Van Nuys. Actually, $6.99 plus “CRV” (deposit).
Dan: SMG, still hot? I lost track a few years back.
Jim: She’s no Alyson Hannigan, that’s for sure (although Alyson is admittedly more “intensely cute” than “hot”).
Levi: I’m so with Jim on the Alyson Hannigan thing, although I do tend to think SMG is hotter than, say, most blondes. But that’s mainly because she kills vampires, who are not hot.
