Chili con carne, cornbread

Aw, you lost your color. That's alright, I'll put it back with paprika and tomato paste and stewed tomato.

Corn milled like this is best brought to a boil first. It will absorb 3X its mass in liquid to a sludge. That will be the corn component of cornbread batter. The other half is wheat flour and liquid. The total mass is tenderized with butter, fortified with egg and lifted by it along with additional baking powder. Sweetened with sugar, and flavored further however you wish. This has fresh jalapeño, and melty cheese, powdered cayenne and salt.↑

↓ The chili has chocolate, both buttons and powder, the addition of tomato at the end cloaked the disc chocolate taken from a box in the pantry in another room behind me and with the powdered cocoa right there at hand so a scant 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder is added on top of the tomato and that changed the whole thing, added depth like garlic does except more delightful.

The idea is chili con carne the way children will have it, say at school cafeteria, basic with minced beef and American cheese. Cornbread instead of saltine crackers. It just seemed good, and it is.

The whole way through I was thinking of ways to improve it. I have poblano chiles that are excellent for a thing like this. But no, this is kept simple. 

Except the minced beef is extraordinary. Ground beef. Chuck, I think. I don't know. Expensive as h-e-double cattle prods I had ground beef out to thaw but then went on a mission in the freezing sub temperatures to Oliver's for rib-eye steaks for a dinner tomorrow and while there at Oliver's asked the guy to wrap 1/2 a pound of ground beef. It is different. It smells funny. Aged. All by itself as minced beef browning it tastes quite amazing. Adulterating all that are three bratwurst sausages pinched out of their casings. So about a pound of meat to go with this small amount of beans.

It is cold outside. The sun finally came out full blast and the remaining snow on the scrapped streets evaporate with the snap of the fingers while the un-scrapped streets remain frozen as ice. I am in the truck in bright sunlight, warmed by it, and in front of me is a towering wall of gray with no top visible.  Today again as yesterday that same wall of weather is observable advancing on the city from the West, obscuring the mountains and everything between right up to where it doesn't and the buildings are clear. There is no fading out area at all. Solid gray wall. And cold. I could actually see the cold coming right at me while I'm sitting fat and happy in the bright warming sun.

There should be a rainbow or something equally extraordinary for a thing like that.

The traffic was frenetic all day. All parking taken. Drivers running right up your tailpipe. Everyone moving, eager to do something, move somewhere, get things done quickly, but also eager to get out of the cold fast as possible.

East is top. Because that is how it is in my head when I'm going there. 

Bottom left corner to top right corner. From Art Museum to in between Cheesman Park and Denver Country Club. I did not realize how posh that area is until I saw it from Google Earth. I've been in there a million times and had no idea the alleys between properties are doubled like that to the right. No wait! Those are streets. I did know that.

There is parking across the alley, obscured by trees, so shaded in summer. They moved a few years ago, up a bit, so different layout all around now. The additional parking surprised me. I was expecting to have to park on the street.

Oliver's has an extremely loyal fan base. If you type "oliver's denver" Google Earth takes you directly there.