Instructions: Salt a large cast-iron skillet. Turn heat to medium and add meat, onions, and garlic. Cook until all meat is browned. Add tomato sauce, ketchup, water, and vinegar. As mixture begins to boil, add everything else. Adjust spices to taste, adding more salt if it needs perking up, turmeric and cumin for a sweatier chili flavor, cinnamon, cloves, and mace if you want it sweeter, cardamom for more bang, unsweetened chocolate for body.

Cover and simmer at very low heat for about 1 hour, stirring and tasting occasionally, adding tomato juice if it is getting too dry to ladle up easily.

Constructing the Chili

8 ounces thick spaghetti
1 pound Wisconsin Cheddar cheese, grated fine, as fluffy as you can make it

(16-ounce) can red kidney beans
2 onions, chopped

The bottom layer is always spaghetti, the thickest you can find. In fact, we found none in our supermarket that was thick enough, so we got perciatelli - long, thin macaroni. We broke it into 4 inch pieces and boiled in salted water to which 2 tablespoons of olive oil were added. For a touch of swank, melt a stick of butter
into the just-cooked noodles before you dish them out. You will need about 2 to 3 ounces per serving. You want them soft enough to cut with a fork, but not so soft they lose their oomph. Remember, they are the support layer for four other ingredients. Spread them out to cover the bottom of a small plate

(preferably oval).

Next comes the chili. Ladle on enough to cover the noodles.

Kidney beans. One (16-ounce) can. Wash, heat with 2 cups water, then drain.

Dont season them or do anything fancy, though. Theyre here more for texture than for taste. Spoon a sparse layer atop the chili.

Chopped onions. Spread them out, to taste, over the beans.

Quickly now, so it melts a bit, spread the grated cheese to cover everything.

Dont skip. Cheese should completely blanket the plate, enough so that you can pat it into a neat mound with your hands, just the way they do in Cincinnati.

You may, if desired, omit either the beans, or onions, or both, for Three-Way or Four-Way Chili.

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