Cynically Optimistic

Instead of trekking it to D.C. for the weekend, Tom came to visit me here on LawngAyelund. The weather didn't cooperate initially, but the rain finally cleared up. I drove him around in the rain for a while, doing my best to hilight the non-crappy parts of the island. I bought some Jelly Beans at the candy store, and then we went for a Guinness in a dive bar. I introduced him to the folks from the lab initially at the Outback Steakhouse, and then Sunday at a Super Bowl party.

Oh, and we made kickass chili! Fo Shizzle! I was chopping onions for about 20 seconds and my eyes started burning and crying, so Tom insisted that I wear safety goggles. Yeah, I'm a big science nerd and I own safety goggles. You know the chili recipe is great when it includes lines such as, "Pour 2 shots of tequila. Add one to the chili, drink the other." We did have to scale it down from the original 10 pound recipe, and scale up to 2 chefs. In the end, we had 5+ pounds of medium spicy chili. 4 hours. Simma! I thought it tasted great, and we received many compliments during the Super Bowl. I was expecting to take some of it home, since there was a lot of food at the party - but 15 people tore up our chili bowl! I only got to eat a little bit for leftovers. Or maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.

I feel like the photos do not do it justice, maybe I should have consulted a food stylist. I think I know one of those. Somewhere. The visit was great fun, and Tom even got to spend a day in the lab, working remotely on Monday, where we continued to receive flatulent flattering comments about the chili.