Is it sad to think that it's taken me 48 years to really compose my first thoughtful food recipe?

Growing up in the '70s, my family ate a lot of the first wave of convenience foods: Microwaveable! Just add water! Comes in a box! Julia Child was the only celebrity chef and vegetables came in a can.

Sure, we always had tomato & rhubarb plants in the backyard, but we never went to a farmer's market. As a kid I wasn't much into tomatoes, but my Mom made a super killer rhubarb cake most years.

I never really learned to cook and have always preferred my food fast and easy.

But as I mature and learn more about how the world actually works, I'm feeling compelled to clean up my act. Last year I cut way back on my meat intake and today I'm very content eating meat maybe once a week. I made this change because I don't believe it is necessary for us to be killing so many animals to feed us in today's environment with year 'round global food distribution (at least for those of us in the rich countries who have the luxury of such a choice). But I'm not being militant about it. If I'm at a party and there's only pepperoni pizza, I'm not going to pull the pepperonis off. I still enjoy the taste of almost all beef, chicken, fish, guinea pig, sea urchin and whatever other animals people eat.

For me, I guess it's about finding a balance. When my body has the occasional meat craving, I'll go with it. But I've decided that my taste buds are not more important than the life of the animal that was torturously raised & killed to temporarily satisfy or please them.

And so this winter I set out to make myself a damn good vegan chili. Starting with a recipe online, I just kept tweaking it over five batches until I got super excited with the flavor and spiciness.

As Julia Child would say, bon appetit!