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In the kitchen Chris Layton's blues turn red-hot. The drummer for Austin-based Double Trouble (the band fronted by guitar samurai Stevie Ray Vaughan), Layton has been a professional musician for twelve years. But he actually has a longer career as an amateur chef and recipe inventor. "I read recipes," he says, "but I never use them whole. I'll just take a bit here and a bit there. This chili, for example, was an idea that came from reading another chili recipe. Every time I make it I start messing with it." Kitchen creativity is Layton's respite from the cares of the road and the studio: "It's kind of therapeutic -- it's what I do when I'm home to relax. I'll be chopping onions, and I can think about the band, the tour, the album, financing, merchandising. I work on new bits for the drums -- you hear little rhythms in all that chopping.

"I can't remember how I got started making chili, but I do remember cooking as early as sixth grade. I made a pizza for the teacher." Not as convenient as an apple, maybe, but if that pizza was as good as this volcanic magma of a chili, Layton got a lot of extra credit.

Two-tone Chili
Serves 12 - 15

2 bottles dark beer (Dos Equis) or
2 cans (15 ounces each) chicken stock
Juice of 4 limes
6 tablespoons Pickapeppa steak sauce
3 pounds venison stew meat
5 slices bacon
1 large white onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
4 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 pound ground pork sausage
1 tablespoon ground fennel seed
2 dried ancho chiles, seeded and finely chopped
1 can (6 ounces) chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
(available at Mexican groceries), chopped (reserve sauce)
1 tablespoon apple-cider vinegar
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Combine 1 bottle beer or 1 can stock, lime juice, and 4 tablespoons Pickapeppa sauce, and pour over venison. Marinate 2 to 4 hours.

In very large skillet, fry bacon until fat is rendered. Remove bacon, and reserve. Sauté onion and garlic in bacon fat until tender. Drain marinade completely from venison, and discard. Add venison to onion and bacon fat. Brown lightly. Add chili powder and basil. Cook a few minutes longer.

In another skillet, brown sausage lightly. Add fennel, ancho and chipotle chiles, and 1 tablespoon reserved adobo sauce. Cook until sausage is done. Add pork mixture to venison. Add vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Chop bacon coarsely. Add to meat. Simmer until venison is fully cooked, about 20 to 30 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons Pickapeppa and remaining beer or stock for desired consistency.

Note: This is a spicy chili; chipotles may be reduced by half. For extra-hot chili, add ground or freshly chopped cayenne or Thai pepper, to taste.