Madmen, Chili Dogs and the Unexpected Pleasure of Being Old on Campus

I spent some time on my old college campus this week, which means that I got to feel older than dirt.

I return to the University of Cincinnati with some regularity, of course, but that's almost always for football or basketball games. The gameday atmosphere I soak up on those trips is terrific, but it's an atmosphere entirely distinct from the life I lived in six years of school, with tens of thousands of other non-students converging on campus to root on our beloved Bearcats.

This was different; I was in on a normal class day, visiting in a professional capacity to speak to prospective interns at a career fair.

(It's funnier if you forget that I have a day job, and can imagine me taking on interns to test out new recipes for this newsletter. Sadly, we're not there yet.)

Without the distraction of marching bands and tailgates, a visit back to campus is a sobering reminder of just how long it's been since I was a student. The sheer geography of the place is different. The drafty old house I lived in for two years of undergrad is gone, replaced by a tidy condominium complex. The bar where I celebrated my 21st birthday was razed in favor of a 5-over-1 with a fast-casual Asian-fusion joint at street level. The parking lot where we once launched water balloons and dining hall oranges from a 7th-floor dorm window? It's buried somewhere under a glittering new football practice facility, where I can only hope that Bearcats quarterback Brendan Sorsby gets the same kind of air time that we did when one of the guys brought a three-person slingshot into the mix.

The place has changed a lot, but what's more jarring are the parts that haven't changed. Inside the design school complex, things look almost exactly the way they did twenty-five years ago. They even smell the same, a musty bouquet of cardboard, modeling clay and spray glue that triggers in me the terrifying sense that I've got a critique coming up and I haven't slept in three days. It's all just as I remember it, save for one unsettling detail: it's full of children pretending to be college students.

Who are these kids?, I think to my myself.

Was I ever this young?

The answer is yes, of course I was, and I was almost certainly dumber and less mature than many of these kids, as evidenced by the confessions I made above. I was that young, because that was a long time ago, long enough for me to become an adult with a mortgage, a sore back and a couple of kids of my own, kids much closer in age to these students than I am.

I know all of this. I am, to my persistent chagrin, conscious of the linear progression of time, and I've seen my classmates aging in social media photos for years. If they've all been getting older, it stands to reason that I have been, too. Following it on Facebook or LinkedIn is one thing, though; seeing it firsthand makes it hard to deny.

It's natural, when face-to-face with this information, to feel pangs of regret–to pine for one's lost youth and abilities. I can't drink twelve beers and go to class the next day like I once could. I can't run forty miles a week on a diet consisting almost entirely of Jimmy John's, Chipotle and Red Bull. I can't stay awake for three days straight–heck, I struggle to make it past 11pm now.

I also can't imagine a world of limitless possibility like I did when I was the age these kids are now, because I've had to make choices in life. I've picked a path, and I'm well on my way down it.

I could choose to be troubled by that, but I'm not; I'm heartened by it. I dreamed big dreams back then, but I was also preoccupied by the idea that I had to figure out the answer, the one big secret that was going to unlock those dreams. I'd spend those all-nighters toiling away in the architecture studio not because I was being productive, but because I was tormented by the sense that the answer was just one more sleepless hour away.

Now? I'm comfortable knowing that I'm never going to have all the answers, and confident that there's no big secret to life. You just have to pick a direction, move forward, and try not to worry too much about what's there when you look behind you.

It's freeing, and almost worth the sore back.

(I just hope none of those kids heard the sound I made when I stood up to shake their hands.)

Friends, it's Friday once again at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.

It's not all existential ruminations today, I swear.

In fact, I've got an extra-large and fully-loaded Friday menu ahead of us!

This week:

• I debate the limits of my Madman Theory of Chili Cookoffs
• I make one last warm-weather drink as autumn moves in
• I crank some loud music, crack open a brand-new Dad Book, and more!

It's Friday. Let's show those kids how it's done.

In which I confront the limits of my Madman Theory of Chili Cookoffs

Every October, I develop and share a new chili recipe here.

I try to find a slightly different angle every year. I've done a big-and-beefy Smashburger Chili, and a Thicc Vegan Chili. I've made a straightforward Beef and Sausage Chili, and an intentionally-strange-but-technically-compliant Heretic's Chili. I've even grudgingly bowed to the palates of my spice-averse family, and made a terrific Scout Dad's Chili in the process.

Along the way, I've developed a pet theory, one that I urge you to heed as we enter prime Chili Cookoff season: you've got to be just a little bit mad to win.

I realized a fundamental truth—you have to stand out. If there are ten Crocks Pot lined up on a card table, and you bring a “normal” chili? Well, you’re probably going to fade into the background. But if you do something a little out of bounds, you get attention—and that opens a path to victory.

“What if people don’t like what you did, though?”, my son asked, intrigued but wary as I explained this theory on our way to the grocery store.

“Look at it this way. If there’s ten chilis, and half the people hate what you did, but three or four of them like it? That’s enough to win if the other nine chilis are all competing for the other six or seven votes.”

(I did not explain to him how heavily this theory was influenced by the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. I can’t say I’m thrilled by where that experience led us, but hey: there’s lessons to be learned wherever you look.)

As I kicked around ideas for how I might employ this strategy this year, I hit upon a revolutionary idea: what if I inverted the chili dog, and made a pot of Midwest-style Coney sauce with cocktail weiners in it?

"You should absolutely not do that," my wife said, alerting me to the startling fact that I had apparently had this idea out loud. "People are not going to like that."

"Some people might like it," I meekly protested, while already realizing that she was almost certainly right. There are limits to the Madman Chili Theory, much as it pains me to admit that. You have to be a little bit crazy to win. You have to zig when everyone else is zagging, but you can't steer yourself into a ditch. You can't risk becoming The Hot Dog Chili Guy in the eyes of your real-world acquaintances.

This is where I disappoint you by saying that I did not fully execute this idea, proof that I've grown as a person since I first launched this newsletter. (I absolutely would have made it in 2020.)

I had already gotten chili dogs on the brain, though, so I decided to go so far as to make my own Coney sauce (somewhere between Detroit-style and Cincinnati-style) and serve it over dogs the "normal" way.

If you wanted to make it in a big pot and throw some cocktail weenies in there, though? Well, I won't be around to stop you.

Wink wink.

Coney Sauce for Hot Dogs