(or what we learned from your feedback on the white chicken chili)

Sometimes the name of a food thing doesn’t matter much. Take Kombucha tea. Other than being fun to say (try it with me now, komBOOCHA!, jumps right out of the yapper, like a good sneeze…abrupt but you feel better after), the name doesn’t tell you a damn thing about the drink itself.

But you’ve likely never had it before, your crunchy foodie friend (or Robb Wolf recently) said it was good for you and it sounds exotic. So down the gullet it goes, no expectations, likely no regrets.

Well, what’s ok for surprisingly vigorous tea drinks (and meteorological events, seriously, “derecho”?), is not so good for riffs on iconic food dishes. That’s essentially the lesson you shared with us in response to our request for tough love critique on the chicken chili dinner a few weeks back.

The net comment? I’m paraphrasing here….If you name your little bundle of meal joy Chili, it had damn well better walk, talk and shake hands like Chili. A little more color on your take:

  • some of you agreed with us it was something of a dud (more spice, more veggies, more sauce)
  • some thought it was just ok (which stood out from the norm, good to hear)
  • a few even gave it a mildly positive nod

But across all these reactions, one sentiment was universal, hacking the famous VP debate quote a bit… “I know chili, and sir you are no chili”. All in all you gave us 35+ thoughtful and descriptive responses (thank you!), including classics like this one from Eric:

“I like my meals to be not only meat driven, but vegetable driven too. Like a tandem bicycle of flavor. And only one person was pedaling on this meal.”

So with clear marching orders (make it better, make it chili) in hand, we’ve whipped up a new recipe, the aptly named White Chicken Chill – Part Deux. It’s coming in next week’s (7/23) delivery so give it a whirl and tell us how we did. Order by midnight 7/18 to get in on the review party.

You’ll not only help us tasty up this particular recipe, you’ll also lend us a hand in establishing a good crowdsourced approach for recipe coaching in the future.

Meantime, easy with that Kombucha, and please, flat out swear off the derecho.