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That picture right there? My chili looks better than that, but my photography skills are lesser than that, so that’s what you get. And for the record, you don’t put effing guacamole on MY chili!

Now that that’s out of the way – It’s getting to be perfect weather for chili, and I make a pretty damn good one from scratch (more or less). I told Megan I wanted to make it this past weekend, and she thought that sounded like a great idea. Now, being a Food Network junkie and having fallen under their gastronomic spell, I decided to make this one a bit differently. Same basic ingredients, just change up HOW I put it together. Here’s my original recipe:

J’s Chili

2 cans chili beans (in sauce, if you like)

2 cans black beans

2 cans kidney beans

2 cans pinto beans

2 cans diced tomatoes (seasoned, if you like)

1 can (12 oz) V8 Spicy

4 lb chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks

5 T sugar

5 T chili powder

4 T ground Cumin

4 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed

1 T salt

1 C beef stock

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 white onion, diced

Put everything but the peppers and onion in a 5 quart crock pot. Don’t drain the beans. It should all barely fit. Cook on low for 8 hours. 90 minutes before cook time is through, add the peppers and onions. Tada.

It makes a ton for our little family, so we usually end up eating it for a few days afterwards, and it’s a yummy chili that warms the bones and sticks to the ribs.

Yesterday, I added two ingredients – lime juice and bacon, as well as quite a bit more work, and I omitted the V8. Here’s how I made it:

Put the meat in a 1-Gallon Ziploc bag with the juice from 2 limes, 1 clove of garlic (minced or pressed), and 1 T chili powder. Add ½ cup water for moisture, mix it all around and let marinate at least 6 hours.

You need enough bacon to give you a substantial amount of bacon grease. I prefer thick cut bacon from the local deli, and about a pound should do. Cook it all and reserve the grease. Dice up about 1 cup of the cooked bacon to add to the chili later.

Put all the beans and the tomatoes in a big-ass crock pot or stock pot on low (this makes about 7 quarts, so a 5 quart crock pot just won’t cut it.

When the meat is done marinating, put about half of it into a shallow dish and toss gently with about ½ c of flour. Heat the bacon grease until it’s rippling, then cook all of the meat several pieces at a time, just searing the outside. I found that about 2-3 minutes per side worked well. The goal here is to sear the meat and add a little char, not cook it completely. Add to the chili mixture in the pot, don’t worry about draining excess bacon grease – it’s all good.

Keeping the bacon fat hot, add the peppers and onion, and sauté lightly until the onions are translucent. Add 1 C beef stock to deglaze the pan (which should be good and glazed by this point), then add the whole thing to the chili mixture.

Add the 1C of diced bacon to the chili mixture.

Simmer on low for an hour or two until the meat is tender.

Tada.

Now, I’ll let Megan write her own review of last nights chili. I like the second preparation a lot more. The bacon adds a slight smoky flavor, and sautéing the vegetables and searing the meat adds a nice depth to it. It has a richer flavor, which I really enjoyed. That said, I think I’ll find an alternative to the lime juice, that flavor didn’t blend as well as I would have liked. The truth is, they’re both delicious recipes. You should give ‘em a try. You really can’t screw this one up. OK, you can, but you’d have to be a damn moron, and if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t.

Salt Lake City has a number of excellent dining establishments that are generally not thought of for special occasions. You see, usually if there’s a special occasion, places like Romano’s Macaroni Grill or The Cheesecake Factory are suggested. I can only assume that this is because Utahn’s have no idea how to celebrate a special occasion, or that they really have no clue what a great dining establishment is. Don’t get me wrong, Macaroni Grill and Cheesecake Factory serve some pretty good food, and ambience counts for something as well, but they’re nothing compared to some of the excellent establishments available here. One of the better ones I’ve been to is The New Yorker.

On Friday afternoon, Megan closed on the house – clearly an occasion worth celebrating. I figured if she can buy the house, the least I can do is take her to a nice dinner. She chose The New Yorker, which is located in downtown Salt Lake at 60 West Market Street. Although there’s a large sign that fills the entire side of a building, The New Yorker can be a bit tricky to find if you’re coming from the wrong direction, as it’s in the basement, but don’t let that put you off – once you go down the stairs and step through the doors, you’ve entered an entirely different world of casual, yet refined dining.

Megan and I were greeted warmly by the hostess, who seated us in the cafe section (the booth’s are by reservation only). Although she was a bit disappointed with our seating location, the beautiful stained-glass domes (recovered from the original Hotel Utah) overhead made for a beautiful atmosphere of class and nostalgia. Terry, our server for the evening was knowledgeable and friendly, and suggested a 2007 Ecco Domani when I inquired about his selection of Pinot Grigio. It was a perfect compliment throughout the meal, tasting crisp and fruity without any overwhelming sweetness.

For starters, Megan selected the Tuscan salad and I stuck with my old standby of Onion Soup Gratinée. When Terry brought our starters, I was impressed with mine right away. Being somewhat of a connoisseur of french onion soup I’m always eager to find subtle taste differences based on the preparation methods. The broth had a very rich, deep flavor profile which I always enjoy, the broth/onion ration was perfect and the croutons were still crisp in the center as they should be. I would have been completely satisfied with my choice had I not tried a taste of Megan’s Tuscan salad – a mix of Radicchio, Sopresetto, Provolone, Olives, Cherry Peppers, Iceberg Lettuce and a very light oil dressing. It was beyond fabulous! The flavors had a very Mediterranean/Italian feel to them and it was absolutely divine.

We both opted for the Filet Mignon as our entree, although Megan asked for a side of the pumpkin risotto that typically comes with the salmon. I’ll come back to that. I ordered mine rare (not my typical extra-rare, I wanted a bit more sear on it tonight) and Megan’s was a perfect medium-well. The entrees arrived right on time, just after we’d finished our soup and salad. The filet came with a crust of panko and Gorgonzola on top, which added a wonderful texture to the meat and enhanced it’s flavor ever-so-slightly without overwhelming the natural flavor of a perfectly cooked steak. Our entrees were served with mashed potatoes covered in a mushroom jus, which was a perfect and very subtle compliment.

Now, about this pumpkin risotto. I’m not a fan of pumpkin, or squash in general for that matter, but this was absolutely brilliant. Megan swears it was one of the top five best foods she’s ever eaten. The small dices of pumpkin throughout the rich and creamy risotto added a nice texture to the experience overall, and if I enjoyed squash I’m certain I would be in complete agreement with Megan. But I don’t, so I’m not.

During our dinner, Megan let me know that we were getting dessert, regardless of how full we were. Once Terry had presented us with dessert menus, Megan got that cute glimmer in her eye. I knew before she said anything what she wanted. “Yes, let’s get two desserts” I said. Not only can I not argue with that look, I wanted two desserts as well! We chose the Grand Marnier souffle (hey, it’s got liquor in it, and one of my rules about desserts is liquor!) and the pumpkin bread pudding (which, incidentally, had a rum cream sauce) topped with house-made cinnamon ice cream.  Both were a revelation. Understandably, we waited for quite a few minutes for the souffle to be done, but it had a wonderful sweet orange citrus flavor accented by little finely shredded bits of orange peel. Heaven!

If the souffle was a light, airy, orangey heaven, the pumpkin bread pudding was it’s decadent opposite. Served in a pool of the rum cream sauce, it was rich, heavy, moist and phenomenally exquisite. I know, I know – I’m not a fan of squash or pumpkins, but this experience would have made a believer out of anyone! When we were finished with our meal, Terry brought some after-dinner coffee which was the perfect finish to our celebratory meal.

The New Yorker isn’t an economical restaurant, but if you’re celebrating, you may as well go all the way  - there’s simply no excuse for half-assing it at Olive Garden when eateries as wonderful as The New Yorker are here within a 15 minuted rive.

Y’know how we each have certain memories that are forever burned into our soul, and not in a good way? Maybe I’m alone in this, but I have several memories that haunt me. Not in a “wish I could go back in time and do it over” kind of way (although to a certain degree it’s almost universally true), and not in a beat-myself-up-over-and-over kind of way either. I wouldn’t even necessarily classify them as regrets, because I really don’t believe in regret – I’ve learned from each of these memories. But even though I’ve learned from them, I can recall each one so very vividly, and I experience the same depth of emotion as I did in the moment it actually happened. Here’s one example:

When I was 13 and my brother Brian was 10, we got skateboards for Christmas. Now, I had asked for a skateboard because one of my friends had a Powell-Peralta “Skull and Sword” which was wicked awesome. He was an only child and kind of spoiled, so naturally he had an expensive skateboard that was pretty damn nice. I wanted to skate home from school with him, so I asked for a skateboard for Christmas. I don’t know why Brian got one, too, but that’s not the point.

Our skateboards were identical and had a really cool black-and-white checkerboard pattern on the bottom that kinda flowed back into the word “DOMINATOR” written in red in a really tough-looking font, and they both had red wheels. Hey, there was a time when black-and-white checkerboard patterns were cool. It was 1984. Back off.

Anyway, Brian and I used to skate in our driveway all the time. Even though I was painfully uncoordinated, I tried to learn simple tricks, and could do a few things that looked pretty cool but weren’t that difficult and so impressed no one. Brian had some friends who knew a few tricks, too, and so he’d try to learn right along with me. I loved my skateboard because it meant I could skate home with my friend, and I imagine Brian loved his for the same reasons, but needless to say, we LOVED those skateboards.

On this particular day, Brian and I were skating and we got into a fight over something. I don’t even remember what it was that we fought over, but it’s not like the two of us fighting was an unusual occurrence. Mom and dad weren’t home, and so there was no one to come outside and break it up. We weren’t swinging fists or anything, but we were yelling at each other pretty good, and I was getting really pissed. His skateboard had somehow ended up near my feet, and in a fit of anger, I picked up a pick-ax that was sitting in the carport and raised it over my head like I was gonna smash his skateboard. He just looked at me and said “you won’t do that because then you’ll get in trouble!” Ahh, the wisdom of youth. If only that had been true.

And this is the moment that still hurts me enough to bring me to tears and make me want to vomit all at the same time.

I brought the pick-ax down hard, driving a hole through his skateboard deck and splitting it in two.

Brian’s face just fell, and I wished that I could take it back. He ran in the house, crying. I just stood there, sick to my stomach and feeling so terrible I just wanted to cry, too. I put the ax down, and picked up the two pieces of his skateboard to examine them. Maybe it could be fixed? I knew that this was not a possibility – the damage was way too severe. I wanted to hide what I’d done, it hurt too much to look at it, to know how I had intentionally hurt my brother with malice and anger. Was this the kind of person I was? The same kind of bully that pushed me around at school and hurt me? Did Brian look at me the same as I viewed them?

I don’t remember what the consequences that were handed down from my parents were, but I remember the face of my 10-year old brother looking at me in fear and pain as I destroyed something he loved in a fit of anger, and that look, that moment still haunts me.

It’s been 25 years since that day, and I’d like to think I’ve learned some lessons on how to treat people and how to conduct myself from that moment in time. But even if I’ve learned from it, it still follows me and hurts me from time to time. I know that the best I can do is to live my life in such a way that I don’t collect many of these haunting memories. I’m not perfect at it, by any means, but I work each day to ensure that I am not so careless with peoples feelings and lives.

Jason Chaffetz is a damn moron.

I’m not kidding, he’s really pushing for dumbest political figure in Utah, and lord knows we’ve got way more than our fair share of ass-hats and idiots. Look no further than Chris Buttars and Michael Waddoups for proof of this.

What did Mr. Chaffetz do to make himself a contender and throw himself in league with this elite class of fools and blowhards? He thinks Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who was shredded by the media for her anti-opposite-marriage comments in the Miss America pageant, has a bright future in politics! This is like saying the poor schmuck that just rolled his car on I-15 has a future as a NASCAR driver.

Here’s what he said, as reported by TMZ.com: “that she “has the ability to draw crowds and if she has a strong message to go with that, who knows what she can do? She has star power which can open doors.”

Then he went on to add that “”We’ve all made mistakes when we were 17. (The sex tape) is going to be an impediment, but people are excited about her convictions and her beliefs.”

Yes, we’ve all made sex tapes when we were (allegedly) 17, and although it can be an impediment to, you know, common-effing-sense, that shouldn’t in any way deter people from being excited about what you have to say about morals and Christianity. Right?

Now, let’s just take a quick trip down memory lane, and re-visit a few of the tremendously epic blunders Miss Prejean has committed, shall we?

First, she gave the second-most-retarded answer to a question ever given in a pageant. Prejean was asked by pageant judge Perez Hilton whether she believed every U.S. state should legalize same-sex marriage

“Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.”

What was first, you ask? Caitlin Upland, Miss Teen South Carolina’s answer to the following question:

“Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Her answer?

“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.”

Yes, there are people this dumb walking around without supervision. Unlike Prejean, Miss Teen South Carolina had the good sense to realize she screwed up and leave well enough alone.

Prejean, however, freaked out when she didn’t win, saying first that her first amendment rights had been trampled (hardly. She got to say what she wanted, so she was allowed to freely exercise her right) and when that didn’t work out so well she cried that she was being discriminated against for being a Christian. Really.

Which is kinda funny, considering that just days after the pageant debacle, and after being directly asked if she had ever posed nude or semi-nude (to which she responded in the negative), a semi-nude picture of her surfaced. Now, of course she claims that as a young, impressionable teen model she was exploited and taken advantage of by the photographer, which could possibly be true, if it weren’t for my next point.

Not too much after that photo surfaced, someone discovered a few topless photos of her, posing on a windy cliff. Now get this, since the “photographer took advantage of me” argument didn’t work on the first one, she tried a new tactic. In the photos, she’s seen wearing a bikini bottom and an open vest, exposing her breast. She claims that the wind blew the vest open and the photog snapped a picture. Only problem is, her hair is blowing one way and the vest is open in the exact opposite direction.

All of this understandably stirred up quite a bit of controversy with the Miss California organization.

So to cut their losses, the Miss California pageant decided to let her go, saying she was in breach of contract for not showing up at scheduled appearances and fulfilling the terms of her contract with the organization. Prejean responded by counter-suing, claiming that they had scheduled an unreasonable amount of appearances and had unfair expectations of her. The pageant then

Then, incredibly, an even bigger bomb was dropped. In a preliminary meeting with the Miss California pageant’s attorneys, wherein she was sueing for 1 Million dollars, the negotiations were brought to a hasty conclusion when the pageant’s attorney’s played 30 seconds of a sex tape featuring – you guessed it – the “Christian” Carrie Prejean. Upon viewing the tape she basically said, “shut it off, I’m dropping the suit.”

Her comment? “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done and I regret it every day”

Sure ya do, sweetie.

But it get’s better. Pretty much right after that meeting, she called her ex-boyfriend, whom she had sent the video to as some kind of present or something, and asked him to say that she was 17 at the time. His response? Hell no! That’d make him a possessor of child pornography, and truthfully, I think he just wanted to see Carrier squirm some more like a slug under a heat lamp and sprinkled with salt.

And as it turns out, she didn’t make just ONE sex tape. Oh no, she made SEVEN! And she took 20-30 nude and explicit photos of herself, to go along with the videos. Who got some Jeebus now?

Speaking of Jeebus, she also recently commented on her implants, and how Jeebus was totally cool with it, saying:

“No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting breast implants as a Christian. I think it’s a personal decision. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn’t get breast implants.”

Now I’m not saying that there IS something wrong with getting implants if your a Christian. All I’m saying is that Carrie Prejean is retarded and this quote supports my case.

So, to summarize, Miss Prejean is a liar, a porn star, a hypocrite, has no accountability, and is incredibly stupid.

Which brings me back to Jason Chaffetz. I can only imagine the role models this retard had growing up. If he thinks Prejean is a good example of anything other than a train wreck, he’s probably dumber than she is.

So, all you dumbasses in Utah’s Third District that voted for this ass-hat, I’ll do my best to avoid your fair locale, because if this is the kind of official you elect, I can only imagine with terror in my heart what other idiocy happy valley may be teeming with.

17 years ago this month I took the first step on a journey that has impacted my life more profoundly than any other single decision I have ever made, and it all started when I asked a girl for her phone number.

What are you doing Tuesday night?

It was November of 1992, and I’d been home for about 6 months after serving a two-year LDS mission in Argentina. I had met a girl and gotten engaged  shortly after returning, but we’d broken up in late September after she went away to school. I felt like I was recovering from the whole break-up thing pretty well, in spite of how painful it had been. I mean, this was the first girl I ever kissed, and I had asked her to marry me and she’d said yes. Anyway, I was ready to get back into the dating scene. So when My friend Kirk and I pulled into the Hires car-hop bay and the girl was cute, I asked for her phone number.

“What are you doing Tuesday night?” She asked me.

Hell, I ask for her phone number and she’s already planning a date? I am SO in!

At least that’s what I thought.

Happy camp

I called her the next day and she told me to meet her at an address near 2100 South and 300 west in Salt Lake City on Tuesday at 7:30. I showed up and was a little put off by what I found there. It wasn’t her house, and I’d been pretty certain of that when she gave me the address. It was a brick office building and there were dozens of people milling about outside, hugging and greeting each other very warmly, and they all seemed to be really happy. Like unnaturally happy. Like church happy.

Shit. She’s gonna try and convert me to her bible-study group or something. Well, she was cute, so I might as well play along for another few minutes. I parked my car and headed for the building. She met me halfway to the door, grabbed my hand and dragged me inside “Let’s get you registered, they’re about to start!” she said as we hustled inside. I wrote my name, address and phone number on a clipboard and was given a name tag that read “Hello, my name is J”, which she stuck on my shirt as she dragged me down a hallway through throngs of people hugging and excitedly chattering away. She hurried me through two sets of double doors and into a very large and beautiful room with marble columns and drapes hanging from all four walls. There were chairs set for about two-hundred people, and just about every one of them was full. A woman walked to the stage at the far end of the room and everyone fell silent.

After introducing herself, she gave a 30 minute lecture on comfort zones, how each one of us live within our own, and why we have constructed this reality of walls and limiting self beliefs that supposedly protects us from the pain of the outside world. It made a lot of sense to me, and I listened intently. When she had finished talking, she asked us to partner up with someone we hadn’t come with and didn’t know – a risk, she said, an opportunity to stretch our comfort zone in a safe environment. I found myself seated across from a girl named Jennilynn. The presenter proceeded to ask several questions, and Jennilynn and I shared openly and honestly, getting to know each other and enjoying the process.

OK, so it wasn’t church, but exactly what was this place?

After going back and forth answering the presenters questions for about an hour, she again took the stage and explained that we had just experienced a little taste of the training that they offered there. She asked us to close our eyes while she played a piece of music. It was “Hero” by Mariah Carey. It was the first time I’d ever heard it.  I listened to the words, and knew that I wanted to know more about this place. After the song, the presenter explained that the first part of the three-part course cost $495 and started the next day. I knew that I wanted to do this, but I didn’t know if I could get the time off work or if I could afford it. The girl who brought me, Jaime, said she’d call me the next day if I had any questions, and to offer assisatnce and suport in finding solutions for these two problems.

Mariah Carey gives me a sign

I went to work the next day very uncertain of what to do. I had the money in the bank, but it would mean not paying some of my bills and I didn’t know if I was willing to do that. I was off work by 3:00 each day, so the 4:00pm start time on Wednesday and Thursday wouldn’t be a problem, but I’d need Friday off.  At 2:30, after we had closed and I was cleaning up, when “Hero” came on the radio. I took it as a sign. I went to my manager and told him I needed to take a personal day on Friday. He agreed without asking any questions. I ran to the bank and pulled out $500 dollars on my way to the office building I’d been to the previous night. I called Jaime before I left and told her I’d be there. She said she’d meet me there.

I pulled up to the building around 3:45. Jaime was standing outside waiting very impatiently for me to arrive. She met me at my car this time and immediately grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the building, which seemed to have three times as many people now as it did the night before. Once inside the doors we wiggled our way through the tightly packed crowd of people to a registration desk. I hastily filled out several pages of release forms and contact information, and received another name badge, this time one of the plastic ones that you slide a card into with a pin on the back. I struggled to pin it on as Jaime wormed her way through the crowd with me in tow. We went down the hallway to the same room we’d been in last night, only the doors were closed.

“DOORS ARE OPEN!”

At 4:00 PM sharp two men opened the doors and bellowed what I would come to recognize as a standard greeting and the start of something amazing. The crowd went wild with cheering and clapping. I followed the rest of the uninitiated into the room, wondering what all the cheering was about.

And so my journey began.

The longest journey begins with a single step

In the first four days I learned how valuable integrity and accountability are to me and my success. I learned that whatever I choose this life to be is entirely up to me, and I started to see possibilities for what lay before me. I was the author of my own adventure, and it started NOW. This all sounds very cliche, and I’d heard it before, but through this experience, I felt it for the first time.

Two weeks later I returned for the second part of my training – four more days of very intense training with a silver-haired lady with wire rimmed glasses named Eleanor who scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I saw her and whom I love and am grateful for to this very day, even though I’ve never seen her again. I learned to risk, and stretch WAY beyond my comfort zone. I learned WHO I AM –  a loving, compassionate, beautiful man. I learned why I am here, and how to actively create the world that I want.

Two weeks after that, I began the third part of my training where I learned how to work with all the tools I’d learned in the first two parts. I had a coach that I made regular phone calls to. She asked me hard questions, and supported me in being accountable for what I had created and worked with me to see new possibilities – lovingly holding my hand and gently guiding me to my own realizations, break-throughs, and “A-Ha!” moments.

She chooses to be on this journey with me

Three years later, I met an amazing woman whose life was full of pain. I could see the joy, sweet tenderness, loving, and intuitive woman inside, but she wasn’t sure of any of those things. Just as Jaime had said to me 3 years earlier, I asked her what she was doing Tuesday night. The next day, Megan began her training.

It’s been 17 years since I went through a life-changing training. My sweet wife is now the executive director of the company that offers this training – The Great Life Foundation. Her and I have been involved with this company to varying degrees throughout the years. It’s been instrumental in building our marriage and has influenced thousands upon thousands of people. I continue to work with The Great Life Foundation because it so profoundly changed the way I view the world and who I am. I have formed lifelong friendships with some of the most amazing and inspiring people in the world – people who actively and consciously use the tools they’ve discovered through the training working to make this world a better place.

I have no idea where this journey will lead, but I know that above all else, I’m in good company.