When the office cries for a chili luncheon, they come crying to me. And knowing that the chili bowls in the office would be full for a good cause, I didn’t have a difficult time stepping up to the plate.

On Friday afternoon, as part of Hot Tomali’s commitment to United Way, we all took a break from work for an hour and converged as a team in the boardroom for some home-cooked chili. This, of course, meant that on Thursday night, while my husband cooked hot dogs for our dinner, I was up to my eyeballs in beans, peppers and sirloin.

The Before Shot

This is what my tiny kitchen counter looked like before I started prepping everything. That’s two cans of red kidney beans and one can of white; garbanzo beans, plum tomatoes and black-eyed peas; two onions and a whole head of garlic; two jalapeños; one poblano pepper and two bell peppers, as well as a can of chipotles; a 2 lb sirloin roast with an extra pound of lean ground; and a plethora of spices. One and a bit of the two bottles of chocolate stout made it into the pot, as did two cups of freshly brewed coffee and two squares of unsweetened baker’s chocolate. There’s a reason the base for this recipe (which I have modified greatly over the years), is known online as “The Best Chili You Will Ever Taste”. (For the record, the glass of wine on the edge of the shot didn’t go into the chili. That was just for me.)

The After Shot

I pulled everything together into the crock pot and started its cycle around 11:30 pm. When I woke in the morning, I had a perfect pot of goodness on my counter. Getting said perfect pot of goodness from the counter to the office across the city… this was going to be fun. MacGyver style, I taped the lid on, wrapped the whole thing in a bath towel, secured it all with heavy duty elastic bands, and away we went.

It didn’t take long for the smell to permeate the whole office. By lunchtime, all of us were tortured by the aroma calling to us from the kitchen. I knew the boys in the office had some mean appetites, but I honestly believed that I’d be packing up “to go” containers to get rid of the leftovers. Not so. I think just about everyone went back for seconds, and all I had to carry home was an empty crock pot.

Adding the $10 bowls to the other fundraising we did during our 2009 campaign, Hot Tomali raised more than $1,600 for United Way of the Lower Mainland. Knowing that such a small effort from me could make such a difference was heartwarming. Wait, maybe that warm feeling was just from the chili. At any rate, I’m currently trying to come up with excuses reasons to feed the team more often. Any ideas?