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White Chili, My New Best Friend

It's a cold, very blustery gray day in Brooklyn today - the kind that makes it hard to believe it's the first day of spring. And since I evidently have the circulation of an 85-year-old, my fingers and nose are freezing as I sit here typing. So, what better time to talk about cooking up a big pot of bubbling chili?

When we were in North Carolina for the New Year, D and I spent a night at his folks' place in Raleigh before heading out to the coast. His mom sent us on our way with a fresh batch of white chili, which I'd somehow never encountered in all my years of eating. How sad not to have experienced such deliciousness earlier in life! But Jean made it easy for me to play catch-up... when she packed up the chili, she also packed up a copy of her recipe.

White chili is so called because its primary ingredients are white beans and chicken, making it a considerably paler relative of what the word "chili" normally conjures up. Most recipes for it tend to be milder, too, but that's easily remedied.

Not long ago, I spent a couple afternoons preparing for and tinkering with my own pot of white chili.

I probably opted for the most time-consuming method possible (read on), but in the end it was worth it.

Talking Water with Peter Hoffman and Fred Kirschenmann

Last night, I attended "Adventures in the Global Kitchen: Watering Our Breadbasket," a talk with Fred Kirschenmann and Peter Hoffman. It was presented by the American Museum of Natural History in conjunction with their current show, Water: H₂0=Life (an exhibit, I must point out, that was partially designed by my hunky boyfriend).

Hoffman, chef at Savoy in SoHo, spoke largely about local issues, explaining how New Yorkers' buying decisions can affect our water supply and describing State governmental efforts to protect our fresh water supplies.

A lot of this segment fell under the category of I Had No Idea. For instance: In 1997, the federal government sued New York State for failing to install a filtration system for its public drinking water. In response, rather than spending the money on building the filtration systems, the State reached a Memorandum of Agreement with the government to acquire land within the New York State watershed and implement protection efforts that would keep our drinking water drinkable without filtration. The five-year MOA was renewed in 2002 and again just this past July.

I always hear people talk about the quality of New York City drinking water, in that it's some of the best in the country, but I never realized that it was unfiltered. Turns out the watershed protection doesn't just benefit those of us who drink the stuff down here in the five boroughs; it's brought about some major successes for upstate farming, such as the Pure Catskills program from the Watershed Agricultural Council.

Kirschenmann spoke to the larger issues of water consumption and sound agricultural practices, along the way delivering some startling statistics.

Best of All, There's Only One Pot to Wash

A trip to the Tompkins Square Farmers Market this fall yielded some ground turkey from DiPaola Turkey Farm (Hamilton Square, NJ), which I immediately froze.  I realized today that I should probably come up with a use for it and decided to whip up a batch of chili.

I love chili for so many reasons -- it's really cheap and easy to make, it freezes well, and it's yummy.  A pot of decent chili can cost less than $15 plus labor time to make, and for someone like me who's generally only cooking for one or two, one recipe can make six or eight meals' worth of soup.

Winter in New York has been mild thus far, but I'm prepared for the cold snap if and when it arrives.