modom (palindrome guy) wrote:
> Today was the 6th annual chili cook off here in Cow Hill. As you may
> or may not know I've entered before.
>
> I've lost.
>
> I'm a champeen chili loser, in fact. I made chili with red wine in it
> only to discover the deep truth that you don't serve red wine to red
> necks. I made chili with Dos Equis in it only to learn that you don't
> serve THAT to chili judges either. In short I'm a chili chowderhead
> when it comes to contests like this. My chili isn't what counts in
> competition circuits. I could lose a chili contest in my sleep. If
> Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, and Wolfgang Puck were cooking chili with
> me, we'd lose. Some geezer from Longview would haul in the laurels
> and we'd have to clean up the cook stoves.
>
> Nonetheless, today I and my compadres entered the chili cook off
> again. Irrepressible children that we are, we vied for a local chili
> (non-CASI-sanctioned) prize of $1,000. We entered as Team Community
> Garden, for it was the garden we sought to enrich with our chili.
>
> And cook we did!
>
> I ground the beef and pork yesterday. And I toasted and ground the
> anchos and guajillos yesterday as well. We showed up with Gebhardt's
> and toasted and ground chiles and a passel of other seasonings like
> cominos, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, and paprika. We set up
> a second camp stove to make a stock from pork neck bones and pasilla
> negra chiles to augment the chili reduction in the first pot. We
> tasted and adjusted our dish. We sampled the competition and compared
> it with our dish.
>
> We were satisfied with our effort. It was good chili, meaty and
> tasty.
>
> I filled the judges' cup and delivered same to the anointed site. And
> we waited. And waited. And waited.
>
> And...
>
> The best local chili award went to a team from Kennesaw Georgia.
>
> WTF?!!!?
>
> The best chili in Cow Hill Texas was made by a team from Kennesaw
> Georgia? Who's running this thing?
>
> We were robbed.

Don't feel too bad. When we lived in Saudi Arabia the company I worked
for sponsored an employees only chili cookoff. A damned Canadian won,the
judges preferred his chili over everyone else's. The bad part of the
contest was that when the spectators got to eat the chili they ate all
of mine before they even tasted the winner's. Here's the worse part of
the deal, I TAUGHT THE CANNUCK HOW TO MAKE CHILI.