Brow Beat

I admit I was surprised by the results of the Slate Reader Takeover poll in which I invited you, dear readers, to turn the tables on me and explain which recipe I’m doing wrong. I had felt confident, going into the poll, that you would choose my (open-faced, not grilled) grilled cheese recipe as the most erroneous of the bunch. Instead, you chose another mushroom-containing recipe: my black bean and tempeh chili, which one commenter wrote “still haunts my dreams.” Judging from the comments below the poll, it seems that plenty of those voting for the chili recipe did not actually try it for themselves—but that’s OK: This week’s column is not about how wonderful tempeh tastes when you crumble it and braise it with beer and spices. It is, rather, about the deeply held chili-related convictions of Slate’s readers.

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