Texas Beef Brisket Chili with Butternut Squash

Jesse James
Outlaw and Chili Lover

Every year about this time, we get a blast of cold air that makes us yearn for a big bowl of chili.  I am certainly no Texan and despite the fact that Andrew’s family live there, they’re native New Yorkers.   But I’ll take a bowl of Texas chili over any other kind.  After all, the Texas legislature declared Chili the “State Food” in 1977 “in recognition of the fact that the only real 'bowl of red' is that prepared by Texans."  I wonder what took them so long? It’s reported that Jesse James (1847-1882), outlaw and desperado of the American West, once gave up a chance to rob a bank in McKinney, Texas because his favorite chili parlor was located there.  What distinguishes Texas Chili? Well any Texan worth their cowboy hat knows you don’t know beans about chili if you use beans in making the real thing. There’s even a song on the subject:

Spaghetti with Crab Meat, Cherry Tomatoes and Arugula From Florence Fabricant by way of Nick and Toni’s Café, Manhattan

         Of all the restaurants in the Hamptons, none is more reliably celebrity-packed than Nick and Toni’s (136 North Main St. East Hampton, New York 11937 Phone: 631-324-3550).  But unlike so many haunts of the rich and famous, Nick and Toni’s has spectacular food.  So between servings of Alec Baldwin or Christie Brinkley or Steven Spielberg, you can be certain of delicious, fresh food beautifully conceived by Chef Joe Realmuto.  There may be one small problem with the restaurant; the likelihood of getting a table on one of its nights of a thousand stars.  Make that a dozen stars but you get the picture.