Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins Read Online Free PDF Page B

white albacore tuna tossed with homemade vinaigrette and capers and served on focaccia with lettuce and tomatoes, but she loved it. If she took a fancy to you she would spring for a meal at McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant, at least until she found out they were big Republican donors; then she switched to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.”

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Are You Feeling Chili?
    MOLLY LOVED FOIE GRAS, RACK OF LAMB , tournedos, and roasted duck breast as much as the next food freak, but she was just as much at home whipping up a pan of jalapeño cornbread as accompaniment to a spicy bowl o’ red. She served her chili in heavy, oversized blue-and-white bowls emblazoned with images of broncos, cowboys, and lassos.
    A sincere chili aficionado, she clipped all manner of recipes for it, and even organized chili parties during her stint in Colorado as the
New York Times
’s Rocky Mountain bureau chief.
Denver Post
reporter Jack Cox, a longtime friend, still remembers the 1979 “First Annual Rocky Mountain Correspondents’ Chili Cookoff,” organized by Molly and Oklahoman Gaylord Shaw, who, the year before, had won a Pulitzer Prize for the
Los Angeles Times
. Her wry wit is again evident even in the flyer she mailed out to friends:
    Chili is a variety of nutriment invented by Canary Islanders and perfected by Texans, Oklahomans, and, some claim, others as well, for over a century. Its virtues include, but are not limited to curing trombonophobia, preoperative lobotomy complications, decreased mental alertness, antropomania, peptic ulcers, falling hair, fallen arches, ingrown toenails, in-law troubles, recession, apathy, frostbite, cynicism, pollution and acute sobriety.
    As was often the case with Molly events, families and children were welcome. Jack brought his daughters, who are now adults. “[Molly] had a rent house in Denver, and we actually dug a pit and built a fire in the backyard,” Jack recalled. “People were bustling around in the kitchen and Molly was giving orders. Itwas a kind of organized chaos.” Chaos is a recurring theme where Molly and cooking are mentioned.
    Her archives include dozens of recipes for one kind of chili or another—a festival version of Frank X. Tolbert’s Chili, Neiman Marcus Chili, Senator Barry Goldwater’s Fine Chili, Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Pedernales River Chili, and Louisiana Bayou Chili from US representative Lindy Boggs. There is also a recipe for Joe Cooper’s Chili, whoever Joe Cooper might have been, with a note from Molly’s mother informing Molly that it had taken her father two days to make it.
    The invitation to “Ze Beeg Chili Cookoff” of ’79 featured a guest list that could easily have been plucked from a “Who’s Who” of Colorado Democrats, give or take a governor or two—John Echohawk, executive director of the Boulder-based Native American Rights Fund; Howard Higman, founder of the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado (more about that later); Pat Schroeder, the first woman elected to the US House of Representatives from Colorado; and to affirm her egalitarian sensibilities,
Denver Post
reporter and noted contrarian Joe Sinisi was also part of the crowd.
    â€œI have one of those memories where I remember stuff like Mickey Mantle’s batting average in 1955, and a really good chili party,” Sinisi said. “And she had a really good one when she had that little house down in Englewood [a close-in Denver suburb]. There were about thirty-five to forty people and the chili was good and spicy. It was a Saturday afternoon and there was a good mix of people, not just a bunch of media types but people who tended to be more interesting than a bunch of reporters. There was a table full of snacks and stuff. Nobody was gonna go home hungry.
    â€œWhat really impressed was the fact that she had done all the cooking. Molly wasn’t the type to have anything