1) Rather than bell peppers, I fire roast poblano peppers, peel, seed, and then chop up finely. I think they add a deeper, richer flavor then bells, along with some mildish heat. I also personally like heat, so I fireroast a couple of jalapenos as well, and do the same. I also like to buy a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and add that, but for texture it's better to blend them up. They add a lot of heat, though, so be careful.

2) To me, good chili has to have good tomatoes--the quality matters. If you don't have fresh garden tomatoes (and I usually don't), use the Cento brand canned tomatoes. I usually use the crushed, but the San Marzano tomatoes blended up would be really good. This costs just a touch more, but it's worth it.

3) I love good chili with ground beef and pork. It can be amazing. But, to amp it up several notches, go with a beef chuck roast. Someone posted about a brisket chili, and that would also be amazing, but chuck is fantastic here. You can give that a quick smoke, then chop it up, or even render it in a crock pot for convenience. While I prefer the smoking, both turn out well. For chili, use a rub that has cumin, chili powder, black pepper, and plenty of salt.

4) You'll see some chili recipes add cocoa powder. This really adds to the flavor complexity, but I prefer a good quality unsweetened baking chocolate instead (i.e. Ghirardelli) --not too much, just a couple of squares.

5) I really like the flavor of tomatillos. I like to add one or two to my chili. It's extra nice to give them a little char on the grill (I do this with the peppers in #1 above).

6) Fresh garlic cloves, finely minced, will give you the best flavor. Start off your chili by sauteeing your diced onions, then sautee that garlic for maybe 10-20 seconds until fragrant. Don't burn it!

7) I always start off with my veggies separately, sauteeing the onions in garlic (#6), then add the chopped peppers, then tomatoes and other seasonings as recommended by the recipe. I enhance the flavor as needed with bouillon (usually beef if it's a beef chili), and extra onion powder. That part of the concoction alone should be really tasty already. Keep working on that until it is. If you get that foundation right, when you add in the meat and beans, that only makes it better. Your chili will be good.

8) I personally like beans in my chili, but doing everything I said above, you can make beanless. When I do add beans, however, I don't add too many. I'm perfectly fine with canned beans (rather than soaking dried overnight). I like to use black, small red, and chili beans in my chili. I like the beans to be a texture and flavor accent, not overloading the chili.