SOME LIKE IT HOT! SOME DO NOT: CHILI RECIPES AS IN DIVIDUAL AS THE COOKS

When it's really cold outside, there's nothing quite like a hot bowl of steaming chili or soup to warm you up on the inside.

But there is no one recipe for chili; people make it how (and when) they like it.

During the last full week of every month, the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau has what it calls "Meals With Friends," where people can come and eat a good, hot meal for free.

Sandra Trapp, dubbed by her husband Capt. Elmer Trapp as "chief cook" for Meals With Friends, will make chili from time to time for the "friends" the Salvation Army serves.

"Chili is really very easy to make in large quantities, but it's hard to judge just how many it will feed when you're done," Trapp said. "As you add the ingredients, it grows.

"When the weather is bad, chili is one of our more popular entrees," she said. "It's a very hearty and filling dish."

When you're making chili for more than 100 people, you've got to cut some corners.

"I cheat," said Trapp. "I use seasoning packages and chili beans to flavor the meat and beans."

The Salvation Army typically has enough volunteers to do the chopping and dicing, Trapp said.

"There's really not that much preparation involved," she said. "We never use anything fresh other than the meat and the onions -- everything else is canned."

Trapp also makes a cabbage-beef soup, ham and beans or sometimes beef stew for the people who come to 701 Good Hope looking for a hot meal.

But the meal is not complete without proper side dishes, Trapp said.

With chili, she serves peanut butter sandwiches, raw vegetable sticks and cubed cheddar cheese. Ham and beans is served with cornbread and the beef stew is accented with biscuits.

"Soups and chilies are perfect when it's cold outside," said Trapp. "And it is so easy to make."

Chili is one dish members of the Cape Girardeau Fire Department can all agree upon, even if it does not agree with them. The perfect chili recipe -- well, that is another story.

Lt. Paul Breitenstein, who works at Fire Station No. 1, prefers "Texas style" chili, made with cubed beef roast and no chili beans.

"To that you add stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, chili powder, a dash of Cheyenne pepper, salt, pepper, sugar and a little bit of paprika," he said. "And you've got to add a cup of black coffee -- that makes all the difference in the world."

What goes with chili?

"We have saltines, cheese, peanut butter mixed with honey on bread; that kind of stuff," said Breitenstein. "But it's really good with a tall glass of beer."

Moving north to Fire Station No. 4, firefighter Dennis Ainsworth has found a formidable way to cut corners when it comes to seasoning chili.

"All you need is a jar of picante sauce and you're set," said Ainsworth. "Since they make picante sauce in mild, medium and hot, you can adjust the chili the way you like it."

Ainsworth likes it hot -- the hotter the chili, the better.

"One day I made a pot of chili out here that I thought was very good; so did (Fire Capt. Don Smith and firefighter Jim Moyers)," he said. "But the next day we came to work, one brought the tar and the other brought the feathers.

"We always have a good supply of Tums or Rolaids on hand when we're having chili," he said.

Fire Station No. 3, nestled in a residential district across Sprigg Street from Southeast Missouri State University, is home to the health-conscious firefighters.

Head chili-cook, firefighter Jerry Emerson, starts off his dish with a mix of one pound of ground chuck and a pound of ground turkey.

"We try to keep the cholesterol down in what we eat out here," said Emerson.

As the meat is browning, the chopping begins. Emerson adds a couple of onions, tomatoes, green peppers and, every once and a while, a stick or two of celery, for taste.

The seasoning is the trick. Emerson uses chili powder, pepper and a dash of cumin. But the bulk of the flavor comes from the hot chili beans Emerson adds to the mix.

To finish it off, he adds a spoonful of sugar.

"It makes a really good chili that everyone likes," Emerson said. "There's nothing too hot in it, but there's still a lot of flavor."

Moving across town and to the other end of the nutrition spectrum, Fire Station No. 2 professes that they will stock their chili with just about anything that once walked.

"The deader the deer, the better we feel about it -- that's pretty well the rule," said Todd Soong, rookie firefighter and self-appointed chief cook of the station. "We like a lot of meat in our chili and we usually throw it in there cut in pretty big hunks.

"You've got to do some gnawing to get through a bowl of our chili," he said. "It's the kind of chili that sticks to your ribs."

The chili is seasoned with a packet of chili-powder mixed, augmented with a generous amount of garlic.

"When we make chili out here, it's an all-day affair," Soong said. "There's no set meal time -- we just eat until it's gone."