As I was sitting by the kitchen window watching the red-feathered cardinals hop from one bare limb of the cherry tree to another, I was wondering what I could make for dinner that night. It was a cold and frosty morning and the last thing I wanted to do was slip out of my warm pajamas and slippers to get started with the day.



I sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window. As I took sips from my coffee, I remembered back to the dinners we used to enjoy with family back home in Montana. Grandpa loved to make his famous chili. Not the chili we are used to eating today, the one made from ground beef. This chili was made with chunks of sirloin. The meat was fresh from the cattle rancher down the road from where my grandparents lived and grandpa always got the best cuts. Half of the meat he smoked to enjoy during the winter, and the other half he used for stews and chili. When we came to visit, we were treated to his prize-winning chili.

Last year, we made it back to Montana. Grandpa surprised us with loads of his chili and stew, which he had divided into small batches using his heavy use vacuum food sealer. After he had divided and packaged each batch, he placed them in the freezer so that when we left to go back to the city, we could take some with us. Each grandkid got to take several batches to enjoy later in the year. Since grandpa had used a vacuum food sealer to preserve the chili and stew, the batches lasted several months without being spoiled by freezer burn.

As I sat drinking the last of my coffee, I decided to check the freezer in the basement to see if any of grandpa's stew or chili was still there. It had been almost seven months since I left Montana and my grandparents' home, but maybe some of his wonderful cooking was still to be found deep within my basement freezer.

There, at the very bottom of the freezer, I saw the corner of a package that looked like the one's grandpa had put together for each of us grandkids last year. I pulled at the corner of the bag and let out a short shout of glee when I discovered that indeed, one last package of chili was still to be had. As I left the package of frozen chili to defrost in the refrigerator, I thanked grandpa in my mind, for having used his heavy use vacuum food sealer to safely store his precious meal.

That night, as my family sat around the kitchen table watching through the window as the snow slowly fell upon the still landscape of our front yard, I reminded everyone of how special grandpa was for having made the meal we had so enjoyed that evening. We all agreed, grandpa made the best chili ever and we soon would fly back to Montana to stock up again!