Category Archives: About Brian

Pandemic Hair Color Change

Posted on by

I’d always wanted to try dying my hair, but I never thought it was very work appropriate, especially for someone presenting male. Lucky for me, the pandemic changed office work!

First off, I bleached it.

It really turned red, huh? I decided to try blue.

Looking back, it wasn’t great, but I think I was also terrible at styling my hair. I was also horrible at keeping the color vivid, so that fall I let my natural hair grow back.

I think that was about as good as it got. I doubled down the next summer and tried purple highlights, but it wasn’t very great.

Holding Livia in 2021

Oh well. I’ll stick with my natural color.

I Won a Chili Cookoff

Posted on by

Back in November 2021, Sister’s Sludge hosted a chili cook-off. About twelve people entered it, each bringing in a crock-pot of chili for tasting. The judges were three of the cooks/staff from Northbound Smokehouse.

I’ve been pretty proud of my chili, it’s Alton Brown’s Pressure Cooker Chili, but in a pot on the stove for 6 hours (since I don’t own a pressure cooker). It’s pretty unique for a chili:

  • There’s three different animals (cow, pig, sheep).
  • It uses cubed meat that maintains its fibers (instead of ground meat).
  • It usually comes out a pretty dark brown, if not black.
  • It’s beanless.
  • ….in fact, there aren’t other discernible ingredients, it’s very meat forward.
  • It’s rich as hell.

The competition was two types of chicken chili, a veggie Verdi chili, at least three classic ground beef chilis, and a few interesting ones (with one going really heavy on cocoa).

The contest was judged without toppings (to the detriment of a few of the chilis that counted on sour cream or tortillas) and was judged separately by the judges and the crowd.

I’m proud to say I won both contests handedly! Woo!