Chili Jam 2015 is fixin’ to be more fun than a bag of kittens in a tub of puddin’! This year, we’ve got a bunch of Chili Jam virgins, champing at the bit for a chance to take home that sweet, brass belt buckle. YOU BEST GET YO TICKETS, SON.
You may recognize Tapalaya’s Anh Luu from such nationally broadcast television programs as CHOPPED. She’ll be serving up her “Famous” Pho Chili: pho-scented chili with a side of Vietnamese Realness: star anise and charred ginger will scent her fatty beef brisket, tripe, and tendon, all stewed up tender-like with tomatoes and green chiles. Scallions, cilantro, and Thai basil will purdy things up real nice. Pussies to the left, cuz’ this’ll be one wild ride!
Bamboo Sushi’s Jin Soo Yang is another Chili Jam newb, bringing his own Southeast Asian flair. His is beef and pork chili with fermented chile pepper dashi, infused with binchotan charcoal (them’s those fancy white briquettes they use in Japan, y’all!).
Maya Lovelace, the bubbly chef-owner of Mae, is stewing up Quintuple Pork & Sea Island Red Pea Chili! This means Anson Mills’ Sea Island red peas straight from South Carolina, cooked low and slow in Benton’s country ham stock with salt pork, bacon, braised pork cheeks, ground pork, chiles & sorghum molasses. This is all topped with cornbread croutons, and she might just have another little trick up her sleeve to gussy it up even more.
We’ve also got Mi Mero Mole’s Mago de Mole, Nick Zukin. He’ll be working his sorcery with beef brisket smoked Texas-style, served up on a crispy homemade tostada. It’ll be all slickered with his mole negro: black mole from the coast of Oaxaca made with blackened chiles and chile seeds, nuts, tomatillos, and chocolate. Lip-smackin’ good!
Brian Spangler, the funky scientist and mastermind of Apizza Scholls will also be looking down Mexico way, with dark mole-like spices (a chilmole, perhaps?) spanking his beef short rib chili with beans. If he pays a fraction of the mind to this that he does to his pizza dough, we’re all in for something special.
Stay tuned for more, coming soon!
Ha, these types of events let the residents of Downtown Portland and The Pearl pretend that their lives aren’t lived within a painstakingly whitewashed urban environment. Just like Pok Pok for example is a painstakingly Whitewashed restaurant that lets its clientele pretend they are so very multiculti.