Cafeteria crew teams up for chili cook-off win

Lunch ladies at San Luis Middle School have always had cries of "Mmm!" and "More please!" to confirm that they know how to make school food rock.

Now they've got an award to prove it.

The school cooks recently teamed up with some folks from Arizona Western College to chop, spice, simmer and serve up something yummy at a recent chili cook-off. The result was a huge kettle of something worthy of gastronomical applause - and the top honor.

"We were all shocked to be honored," said Donna Warren, food service director for Gadsden Elementary School District. "I think this is a real morale boost for everyone in the cafeteria. A lot of times you just get a lot of negativity about cafeteria food. We've gotten lots of compliments before, but this is really great for the girls who helped out."

The chili showdown took place at AWC, hosted by the AWC Classified Employees Association. Second place went to radio personality Jay Walker, with AWC Student Financial Aid coming in third.

The winning school cooks competed on a team with some folks from AWC'S South County Campus, located in San Luis, Ariz. One of those AWC employees, Arnold Trujillo, eats from time to time at San Luis Middle School and figured he knew just the people to invite onto a team for the cook-off.

"He loves our chili beans," Warren said. "He eats his lunch here. He's been enjoying our food for a long time."

Everyone got together and whipped up a recipe based on the school district's official chili recipe from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, plus a spicy spin from a recipe that was a childhood favorite of Warren's.

"My family was pretty poor growing up and we ate a lot of chili beans," Warren said. "It was just an economical meal that could go a long way."

Chili still amounts to an economical meal when serving the district's 4,800 students - plus all the adults.

"We call it our 'chili beans on a budget,'" Warren said. "The kids love it, too." For the cook-off, the team made enough chili for a small and hungry army, about 100 people.

She said that the secret to great chili is sauteing the onion, tomato and bell pepper, then throwing in some pickled jalapeno slices "for that extra kick." She also suggests using packaged chili spices, both for ease and for that exact amount of this and that.

"Then you don't need to worry if you've put in too much cumin or paprika. At home I also like to make chili the day before. Everything has the chance to settle, the juice thickens. Everything is better the second day."

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Darin Fenger can be reached at
dfenger@yumasun.com or 539-6860.