Soup Diary 091223

For the past couple of months, a good friend (who shall go unnamed) has been singin ghte praises of the chili served at the Tim Horton's outlets scattered on every other street corner in Western New York. Like most natives of the region, I've long enjoyed the doughnuts on which they made their reputation, but I don't think that I ever did try the chili. Until this past Monday. I was out Christmas shopping and after spending some time and money in a local toy store was loading my purchases in the car when I spotted a Tim Horton's across the parking lot. Since it was lunch time, I decided to try some of the vaunted chili my friend extolled at such length. It was served as you see above, with a nice fresh roll on a silver platter. Frankly, I found the stuff a bit thin-- more like the topping you might ladle over a chili dog than a real hearty meal in itself-- and, for the record, big chunks of mushrooms (as in this stuff) adds absolutely nothing to chili. In fact, I found the roll to be the highlight of the meal. But despite the evident shortcomings, I did not find the chili inedible. Unfortunately, it was not so forgiving to me-- later that afternoon I started experiencing some uncomfortable rumbles and... well, suffice to say, I spent much of the evening and ensuing night quick-stepping to the nearest WC-- and could not bring myself to down anything more than ice water the next day. It was quite unpleasant. Far be it from me to lay this entirely at the feet of Tim Horton's-- after all, there is that aforementioned friend who loves their chili-- but on my future visits, I'm sticking to the crullers.