St. Paul fire hall brings the heat with its chili

March 10--Jay Yamamoto's job is to put firefighters on fire.

With jalapenos, habaneros -- however he's gotta do it.

"How's your forehead?" Capt. Rick Zech asks his station's rookie, Joe Stuber, a few minutes after he and the rest of the Frogtown 18 crew sit down to eat Yamamoto's dish.

"Getting shiny?" Stuber asks, dabbing a bit. It is.

Rain or snow, on sunny days and holidays, St. Paul firefighters put in 24-hour shifts at the station. Which means lots of cooking. Everyone's gotta be a chef.

And some have earned a reputation. A district chief once told Yamamoto, then a fledgling firefighter, his chili should be outlawed.

Even though the now-18-year veteran has won local and even national contests for the dish, Zech still has his opinions about its place at his table.

"Did you ever say to your wife, 'Let's go out for dinner and get some chili'? You never have and you never will," Zech says. "It's a side dish."

Everyone has a ready response -- they've likely listened to the tirade a couple dozen times.

"Who says chili can't be for dinner?" one firefighter belts out when they're done.

There's a reason, maybe, that Zech recently lost 35 pounds. As for gaining any back, "There won't be any problem with that. ... A lot of guys make chili just because they know I don't like it," Zech says.

Yamamoto smirks. "Not true."

His partner in the back of the rig, Bill "Chainsaw" Rondeau, has a love-hate relationship with the chili. Well, maybe hate's too strong: He'd cook his own, he says, but he doesn't want to embarrass anyone.

And as for their driver, Brian Burks, well ...

"Brian's level is: ketchup's hot," Zech says. Burks nods.

But everyone eats. That's one thing, despite the razzing, Yamamoto can count on.

"They're just really good eaters," the chef says.

"We eat out here," one of the crew says.

"Everybody likes to eat," says another.

"Nobody's starving," puts in a third.

So there you go.

Not for nothing, but Yamamoto lived in Cincinnati for years. Apparently, chili's a thing there. And his brother, also a St. Paul firefighter, also won a national chili competition -- against Yamamoto.

"A lot of times I make better stuff than him. Can you tell him that?" Tomo Klepp says over the station phone.

Yamamoto doesn't laugh out loud much. He smiles. That's a good one.

But St. Paul's offered him some humility.

The same year his "Blazing 8 Chili" won the 2003 National Five-Alarm Hormel Chili Cook-off, it placed 23rd in a local competition. The person who put on Hormel's contest was promoted, and the company stopped doing it a couple years later.

And there's always the Freiberg factor: the big shoes of Capt. Ken Freiberg, formerly of St. Paul Station 14, whose oven-baked beans and chili anchored him at the Minnesota State Fair, and became the basis for Captain Ken's Foods on the city's West Side.

As a whole, the Station 18 crew won a KSTP-TV grill-off against a Minneapolis station years ago. Not that they talk about it.

"You're firefighters. You gonna cook shrimp?" Yamamoto says with a chuckle. The Minneapolis station did shrimp, apparently. Station 18 cooked ribs. Not that they talk about it.

While his chili makes an appearance at the station now and then, Yamamoto's also earned a rep for other things. Even his partner notes "his egg rolls are unbelievable" -- presumably in a good way.

Still, as the crew's playing cards to see who'll do dishes, Zech makes a concession about the "side dish."

"Best chili I've ever had," he says, "for dinner."

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Jay Yamamoto's chili recipe:

3 pounds ground beef

1 pound ground chorizo

1 large onion

1 large can diced tomatoes

1 large can tomato sauce

2 cans spicy chili beans

1 can black beans

1 can red beans

2 cloves of garlic

4 tablespoons chipotle powder

4 tablespoons chili powder

4 habanero peppers

3 jalapeno peppers

Brown the meats and onions and half the peppers. Add all cans to large stock pot and turn on low. Or if you have a slow cooker, set it on low.

Cook eight to 10 hours, stirring when you're putting out a fire.

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