From Guest Blogger Greg Melikov:

More than three decades ago when a friend asked for my favorite chili recipe I offered Chili Surprise, a blend of a dozen recipes that I had tried up to then.

I spread them out and tallied up the top half-dozen ingredients in each. Surprise! The only common ingredient was chili powder. The next most popular, in order, were onion, ground beef, kidney beans, garlic and tomatoes.

When I later inquired if my friend encountered any trouble preparing the chili, he replied, “None.”

Then he admitted when ordered to mow the lawn by his wife, his 10-year-old son volunteered to cook. The boy “spent four hours in the kitchen, but stuck at it,” dad said. “He didn’t have any real problems.”

The exchange appeared years ago in my self-syndicated food column called Pilot Light. “We had guests and we all loved it. You know, my boy hasn’t been that quiet for four hours in months.”

Since then I have prepared chili more times than I can count. Back in the fall of 1986 I made a batch in a giant stockpot for an overflow gathering at a house warming in North Miami-Dade.

I have tried various celebrity concoctions from such notables as actor Vincent Price and President Nixon. I’ve used only beef, ground and cubed. I added Canadian bacon once. I’ve substituted tomato sauce and tomato paste for crushed tomatoes. I tried the chili purist way, but can’t do without beans.

One constant was the brand of chili powder I discovered during my vacation trips from South Florida to South Texas. In Waco, where my wife was born, I tried Gebhardt’s after my late father-in-law cooked a variety of Tex-Mex dishes with it. This chili is not sweet. It's not sour. Smooth is the right word to describe it, but GOOD it is! This recipe allows the blend of the whole dish to reach the taste buds. Cayenne, can be added, if you like it hot.

I always brought back a good supply of the Gebhardt’s chili power in the slender three-ounce bottle with the red cap. Frankly, when I plan to make chili, I don’t go anywhere without it. One reason: there’s no lingering chili flavor aftertaste. (If you aren’t heading to Texas any time soon, Gebhardt’s chili powder can be ordered online from The Great American Spice Company.)

By the way, chili is no longer a Surprise for me (or to my meal-time guests), so I renamed the dish.

Retired newspaperman Greg Melikov writes articles and columns on a variety of subjects from food and lifestyle to humor and horse racing for print publications and websites throughout the world. He grew up in Chicago, worked in South Florida and lives in Greater San Antonio. He can be contacted at gmelikov@satx.rr.com.