I'm a Carla

Which Test Kitchen editor are you? [View this email in your browser]( [Bon Appétit Newsletter Banner Pink]( It’s chili szn It’s cute how healthy everyone gets the week after Thanksgiving. We are the Macy’s Thanksgiving balloons, trying to deflate. As we dragged our feet into the office on Monday, I noticed social media manager Rachel Karten had an extra-large cup of her usual breakfast green smoothie. Restaurant editor Elyse Inamine got a salad from Chop’t that we’re pretty sure had romaine in it. Healthyish posted some reset recipes on Instagram. Associate editor Christina Chaey steamed salmon and cabbage. But me? I kept the Thanksgiving spirit alive this week. On Sunday, my dude made a huge [pot of chili]( I made [cornbread]( and we sat on the couch yelling at the TV. (He was disdained at Michigan football; I was screaming “WHEN IS THIS OVER SO I CAN WATCH MY STORIES?!”) At halftime—that’s when your bowl of chili is half-eaten—we refilled our servings with extra Fritos. The chili recipe wasn’t BA’s, but a family recipe we have to dig up in Gmail archives every time we make it. However, the recipe pictured above is a good starting point. It’s all about the dried whole chilies, such a game-changer after only using four-year-old chile powder. Get the recipes: [Beef Chili]( [Cornbread, the moist kind]( Ya like ham “GIT UR HAM!” I beckoned the people with latex-gloved hands. I was the ham lady at our live podcast event in Brooklyn this week, and it really felt like a calling. I love ham, I love making people happy with ham. We were serving up ham sandwiches on crusty baguettes with thick layers of Bradford Leone’s cultured butter and a sprinkle of Jacobsen salt. That’s it. Unless any of my hairs or personal bacterias dropped in. Oh well! Elsewhere, Amiel Stanek’s signature [hand salads]( were passed around, and Chris Morocco’s new [cornflake snickerdoodles]( were tucked into every goodie bag. And what’s that? Molly Baz’s dad holding up her tiny dog Tuna like Simba in The Lion King? That was a special moment. Hope you had fun, friends! Get the recipes: Ham sandwich: Cut bread. Coat both sides with an unholy amount of good butter. Add ham. Eat. [Hand Salad]( [Snickerdoodle Party Cookies]( A Trader Joe’s Breakthrough A recent update to my rigorous, unrelenting review of [everything new at TJ’s]( had one of my favorite new products this year: pepita salsa. It’s mostly tomato, but the heat from chipotles isn’t shy, and I dig the oily-nutty texture of the blended pepitas. We scarfed it down with Tostitos Scoops, which turned into Carla telling us a story about when she worked for a fancy celebrity chef who’d use Tostitos Scoops in all of his TV appearances. At the time, Carla and her colleagues couldn’t figure it out. Why does this guy loves Scoops so much? They’d crush them up and batter things in them, fill them with all kinds of stuff. Then they found out he’d signed a huge contract to ca$h in every time he cooked with them on air. Ahhhhh. I’m a Carla [What about you?]( Really Old Booze On Monday, Alex Delany and I went to a tasting of some Really Old Booze—pre-prohibition stuff, squirreled away in a rich man’s secret underground cellar in California—that’s about to go up for auction by the case-load at [Christie’s](. We mingled among a crowd of mostly men where I counted two fleece vests and one puffy vest. I like to know the Vest Count of any room I’m in. I asked one vest, “Does this whiskey taste 100 years old to you?” He said, “Not really, maybe more like 70, 75.” Wow, he was good. It tasted like bananas foster made inside an antique cabin you visit on a field trip where you dip wax on a string until it’s a candle. I wondered if the rich banker who hid this away during Prohibition didn’t end up drinking it because it was swill compared to the other stuff in his stash. Hermitage, the distiller of the 1914 whiskey we were drinking, didn’t make it through the 20s, and when Prohibition lifted, they started making chairs instead. “Does this taste like a chair to you?” I asked Delany. He said: “canoe.” Evocative. One whiskey, Green River (1910!), was still burning, like a toasted marshmallow, with notes of cherry and deck varnish. Our favorite. Happy bidding! Unnecessary food meme of the week Breaking news [French fries are...bad for you]( But if you close your eyes, tap your feet and dream of Kansas, pat your head and rub your belly, while you savor only a half of a fry at a time—that makes them healthier. Unnecessary food feud of the week Associate editor Alyse Whitney hooked us up with some Girl Scout Cookies this week, which spurred the inevitable “which cookie is best” feud, an especially unnecessary feud since Tagalongs are clearly the best. [EDITOR’S NOTE: EW, NO.] Smooth UFOs of instantly melting chocolate over a soft peanut butter patty and barely perceptible cookie—heaven! Brad, who was inexplicably holding a watering pail, picked up a sleeve of shortbread and said, “These are de-lish!” Basically editor Amiel kept calling Samoas “samosas,” I’m pretty sure on accident, while noting that the newer S’mores was a “missed opportunity.” Vincent Cross slinked over, took some Thin Mints, and only said they were his favorite because he chose a cookie that was plentiful “so no one would know I was here.” Classic Vinny. Food director Carla Lalli Music and assistant to the editor in chief Ryan Walker are team Thin Mint, preferably frozen. Delany called Samoas “the undisputed best,” which was wrong [ED NOTE: RIGHT], even though I ate four to be sure. The box of Savannah Smiles remains unopened next to our aging sweet potato. Your aging sweet potato, Alex Beggs Senior Staff Writer What do you think of the BA newsletter? Send us your thoughts at staff.bonappetit@gmail.com. [Advertisement]( [Powered by LiveIntent]( [AdChoices]( Get The Magazine [Bon Appétit] [SUBSCRIBE]( This e-mail was sent to you by Bon Appetit. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, [bonappetit@newsletters.bonappetit.com]( to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( Copyright © Condé Nast 2018. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.