Chili Cook-Off
How sad, its been almost a year since my last post....
My newest competition -- CHILI. I'm still interested in triathlons, but inbetween the tris I need to fuel myself and others with chili. Today I participated in my first chili cook-off at the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. So needless to say there were a lot of people ready to taste "the best chili." There were 14 teams total. I partnered with my friend Joanne. Her husband, Clayton, helped set up in the morning. It was a little intimidating looking around the other booths and seeing all of the creative decorations and different cooking styles/ tools. I started to think, "Who am I trying to compete against these experienced cookers?" I had everything preped the night before so we didn't need to cut meat or onions or even measure spices. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for me and Joanne so that all we needed to do was dump and stir, dump and stir. And that is what we did. We made 7 gallons of chili and all 7 were eaten. The public was invited to buy $1 tickets to get samples. We collected over 220 tickets (and some were repeat customers!) We got so many great compliments about the chili... and our name and aprons. We had a 10 foot banner made with our team name on it -- Hot Mommas. Our aprons said, "Caution: Chili peppers make me horny." We kind of got a lot of attention for that which we then directed towards the chili -- we're not just pretty faces, right? Finally at 5pm our samples were sent to the judges and I "patiently" waited for the judges to judge. I couldn't believe how excited I was and how I couldn't wait to hear the results. I was prepared to just have a good time and not be dissapointed when I didn't win anything. But after all of the great comments we received I was starting to hope for a happy outcome. And I got it! We won 3rd place which included a trophy and $250. I'm sure this will not be the end of my cook-off experiences. I think I've caught the bug....
My newest competition -- CHILI. I'm still interested in triathlons, but inbetween the tris I need to fuel myself and others with chili. Today I participated in my first chili cook-off at the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. So needless to say there were a lot of people ready to taste "the best chili." There were 14 teams total. I partnered with my friend Joanne. Her husband, Clayton, helped set up in the morning. It was a little intimidating looking around the other booths and seeing all of the creative decorations and different cooking styles/ tools. I started to think, "Who am I trying to compete against these experienced cookers?" I had everything preped the night before so we didn't need to cut meat or onions or even measure spices. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for me and Joanne so that all we needed to do was dump and stir, dump and stir. And that is what we did. We made 7 gallons of chili and all 7 were eaten. The public was invited to buy $1 tickets to get samples. We collected over 220 tickets (and some were repeat customers!) We got so many great compliments about the chili... and our name and aprons. We had a 10 foot banner made with our team name on it -- Hot Mommas. Our aprons said, "Caution: Chili peppers make me horny." We kind of got a lot of attention for that which we then directed towards the chili -- we're not just pretty faces, right? Finally at 5pm our samples were sent to the judges and I "patiently" waited for the judges to judge. I couldn't believe how excited I was and how I couldn't wait to hear the results. I was prepared to just have a good time and not be dissapointed when I didn't win anything. But after all of the great comments we received I was starting to hope for a happy outcome. And I got it! We won 3rd place which included a trophy and $250. I'm sure this will not be the end of my cook-off experiences. I think I've caught the bug....