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South Austin Chili

Black beans, fresh rinsed
obsidian jewels,
drop through fingers
feeling for stones.

Pasilla chiles, toasting,
warm the air. Later,
ground and simmered in oil,
they seethe in a mild lava.

Chocolate softens,
flows into the chiliβ€”
an ebony swirl
rippling on a midnight sea.

β€”

This is for Read Write Poem’s What’s Eating You?.

One of my favorite things to cook is The Soup Peddler’s South Austin Chili recipe in his Slow and Difficult Soups. I like the end result, but I love the process of making this chili. The time spent in the kitchen working the ingredients and listening to music while enjoying a beer as the pasillas toast in the oven is sheer joy.

The chili itself is wonderfully rich with a slow chipotle burn, and with the chocolate added it comes off almost like a mole.

Published inPoemsPoetry

12 Comments

  1. it is an amazing image , I was tempted (though I do not like chili…and I can not imagine it cooked with chocolate)…but it is appetizing in this poem, especially the beans as obsidian jewels…

  2. sam sam

    I must say this poem really engages the senses. I can smell the slowly-toasting chillies and reach to stir the chocolate swirl… lovely.

  3. Thanks for you comments. It is a very good chili. It’s the only recipe I’ve come across that uses chocolate and while the finished product doesn’t taste like it has chocolate in it, it adds a richness to it that’s makes the chili unique.

  4. I really like how you include all the senses, even in such a short poem, without seeming at all forced. Only taste is left out, and that is what leaves the reader salivating! πŸ™‚

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