My other work related youtube video story

Well it's been a while since I blogged or looked at this blog but I recently did a blog comment on Yeoman's Watch blog and to get it posted I had to list some personal data (email, name, etc.) and one category was "website". So I listed this blog and then came here and then decided to write a post. So a while back we had a chili cookoff at work. I often avoid work related shit, especially the company parties at xmas. This one I figured I would participate though, because I make good chili and have for years. At least I like it. I make it for my own tastes. It's based on a recipe from the Washington Post food section now long lost that I've mutated over the years. That recipe had the unlikely name of "Texas Democrat Chili" and I think it was featured back when Clinton was first elected. That I'm not sure about. Anyway google it and tell me what you find in a comment below. So the recipe is summarized a little farther down. I had decided to make the batch on a weekend before the Wednesday contest so I bought the stuff on Saturday and went to work on it on Sunday. My wife was sewing upstairs pretty much the whole time. I was a little pissed off because the rules of the deal stated you had to provide your recipe so at the last minute I figured I'd make a youtube film of me cooking it and tell the folks in HR to just watch it for the recipe. That got me filming bits of the whole process. There were a couple hiccups during the filming, which I accomplished by propping my iphone in various vantage points in the kitchen. One was that I lost all of the blending sequence which happened because my camera came untaped and ended up filming the shelf surface instead of me finding out my stick blender had seized up and freaking out then improvising with a regular blender. I also had a lot of headaches getting all the film clips to go from MS Movie Maker up onto Youtube. In the end I shortened it way down and needlessly killed all my wonderful captions (thinking that was the problem) and after I got it under fifteen minutes and figured out about reducing the video density or someshit it finally went in. I didn't finish the video in time for the contest so i just wrote it down. Turned out they just wanted the ingredients anyway. I feel I had a continuous improvement (kaizen) breakthrough which was - I made a really nice toasted spice rub (trust me on the toasting, it's been edited out) and I mixed the rub directly on the raw meat (pork and beef) before I ground it. That technique I'd seen done on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives one time when they were making sausage. It worked great for me. Also, I'll never use burger again I don't think, because home ground meat really tastes a fuck of a lot better. By the way, it began life as a 45 minute video and had a way better soundtrack, including the John Lee Hooker song "The Pots On and the Gas is Up High" from Endless Boogie. My wardrobe changes back and forth in the tape because I went out for a run and took a shower and changed clothes. Then during editing I rearranged stuff for clarity. And if I say so myself, the first 3 seconds of the video are totally awesome. All song credits are in the last few seconds, hit pause if you're curious. Here are a few paragraphs I glommed from an email to my daughter when she saw the video and wanted to know what all went in it. The seasonings were chili powder, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, cayenne and red & yellow pepper pastes that I have only found at my local hispanic market. One was from Goya (the yellow one) and one from some Mexican company I'd never heard of. They give it a good flavor and blend really well into mix. I also usually buy those spices from the same Mexican market because they are so much cheaper there. As for quantities I guess all told I probably have 1/2 cup of chili powder, 2 tablespoons of cumin, one tablespoon of paprika and 1-1/2 teaspoons of cayenne. Oh yeah, I also threw in some generous shots of whatever Mexican hot sauce (salsa picante) I had in the cabinet. There is one 15 oz. can of tomato sauce and a bit of water. I strained the seeds out of my tomatoes but threw the juice in the pot. For meat I just bought 3 lbs of the cheapest chuck that wasn't too fatty (2/3 I ground, 1/3 I cubed) and 2 lb pack of boneless pork chops, also some diced and some ground. I cut most of the fat off. I had gotten that kitchen aid grinder attachment for xmas a while back and it really makes short work of grinding that amount of meat. It was on the coarse grind setting. If you don't have one of those you should - IT'S AWESOME! (Except for cranberry relish, which it's way bad at). So by the way I lost the goddamn cookoff, but I made a lot of extra which got variously re-purposed, with particularly tasty results as Huevos Rancheros. Anyway, thanks for watching.