MONDAY - May 18, 2009
in 106 degree heat.
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Salsa 3rd Ron Judsen
2nd Susy Decker
1st John Jepson Completes Hat Trick
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Verde 3rd
2nd Jim Watson
1st Lynn Robinson
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Red 3rd Margo Knudsen
2nd Barbara Beaver
1st Jim Watson
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Wild Wild West Fest/Chili Ole' Regional
and
Southern
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As part of the Wild Wild West Fest activities for the weekend, two Regional cookoffs were held in downtown
Saturday's weather started off cold and cloudy, and by mid day, the sun finally came out, warmed things up, and brought the crowds out. John Elway, the PBR parade Grand Marshall, never did get around to the Saturday's cookoff, as we hoped he would, to be one of our "celebrity judges". Sunday's weather started off warm, no clouds, and got even hotter.
Thanks again to all the sponsors, George Lott for putting these cookoffs together, his two sisters, Patty and Susan, who were "doing" everything asked of them, Jim Burns for showing up to judge and announce, Al Henry (Current World Salsa Champion), and my wife, Kathy Plager for scorekeeping, wrangling, and keeping things going on time, and all the great judges that we had for both days.
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Now for the winners:
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Wild Wild West Fest/Chili Ole' Regional
People's Choice - Priscilla Licon
Best Booth - Priscilla Licon
Salsa
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Chili Verde
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Red Chili
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People's Choice - George Lott
Best Booth - George Lott
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Salsa
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Chili Verde
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Red Chili
Tie for
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Great cookoffs, great winners, great event and great help. What more can you ask for?
Bob Plager - Chief Judge
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Helllllo, Chili Cooks! Anybody out there? Inland Empire Regional Chili Cookoff is just one week away, and we really need to know that you're planning to compete. If you've overlooked sending in your online entry, please get it to us soon.
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This will be the 7th year for this great event. If you've been here, you know that there's a huge public. The Arlington Business Partnership tries very hard to take the People's Choice pressure off of the ICS cooks by having as many contestants as possible in the Community Cooks division. And to make it worth your while, there is a nice prize of $250 for the winner of the ICS People's Choice contest. The Community Cooks have their own prizes, so you're not competing against the locals, just against the other ICS cooks.
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Overall the cookoff offers more than $3,500 in prize money to the ICS cooks, including $100 for the Best First-Time ICS Cook. If you've been thinking about jumping in to the competition, here's your chance to show your stuff! We sure hope you'll join us next Saturday, May 23rd, for
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Bill and Karen Ray
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WHEELING FEELING REGIONAL COOK-OFF
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The 8th Annual Wheeling Feeling Cook Off In Wheeling, WV will be held on June 6, 2009 at the beautiful downtown waterfront park.
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Although there have already been a couple of postings on the two Acreage Music and Chili Festival Regional Cookoffs, and the results are out there, I wanted to add my two cents.
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Guys and Gals: we have TWO NEW OUTSTANDING ICS COOKOFFS! I say that after 28+ years as a member of ICS…on both sides of the stove.
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To start, the cookoffs epitomized the principle of "Take Care of the Cooks". To list but a few examples:
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It all started with the organizers arranging for a special rate at a Headquarters Hotel. A very nice and recently renovated Marriott Courtyard, easily accessible from the Interstate and centrally located to both the party and the cookoff.
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An outstanding party Friday night. Free beer (which continued flowing at the bar after they had to remove the keg from the dance floor, in order to accommodate dancers once the band started); delicious food, to include some of the best Buffalo Wings Marshall and I have had; reserved tables at the edge of the dance floor; terrific live band; an "impromptu" dance demo by the "Chili Chicks" – a great fun evening.
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A beautiful cookoff location. "Perhaps a bit remote" according to
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Superb "cook logistics" to include: reserved nearby paved parking; easy set-up; overnight security, so no tear down required if doing both days; tear down assistance, to include staff volunteers with golf carts since the events continued past the natural end of the chili portion, with the crowd remaining for additional entertainment; a large tent to accommodate all the cooks that did not chose to bring their own tent. I could go on; believe me, all first class and professional.
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The cookoff was also privileged to have Dionne and
Multiple comments about how much they had appreciated and learned from the feedback on their chilis & salsa, which they had received from Dionne and Skip. If you think about it, how often do you get two active Red Grand Masters (22 & 20), Verde Masters (and soon to be among the first inductees into Verde Grand Masters), plus a former World Salsa Champion, personally critiquing your bowl and making suggestions for improvement.
Dionne, Skip, thanks a million for your invaluable help. We would love to have you cook next year; however, were I to be totally selfish, sure wouldn't mind at all if you're already qualified and can instead join us again as judges.
As to the rest of the story: large and enthusiastic crowds (the events actually made some money; something very rare in this economy…and by what were de-facto "new events" in size and scope); great vendors with excellent food - I had one of the tastiest Greek lamb gyros for lunch (actually two; one each day); terrific live entertainment with name Nashville bands, plus several performances by the Chili Chicks; an incredible amount of stuff for small kids to do – a real "family event" – as well lots of fun stuff for "big kids".
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Here, I would like to add a special thanks to COSTCO; who not only enthusiastically participated and brought volumes of their Stagg Chili both days, but who also "saved the day" on Saturday.
The size of the crowd was so unexpectedly large, that even with restaurants and a substantial number of People's Choice participants (as well as the non-People's Choice participants who nevertheless also give out chili), the "crowd chili" was running very low by around 4 PM (an hour before awards). At Robert's mention of this problem to COSTCO, they jumped on it and distributed cans of Stagg Chili to other cooks, so they could heat them, "doctor them up" and have more sources of chili for the crowd.
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Thank you COSTCO and CHRIS RITCHER!
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I can't say enough good things about
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Great Job…or as we used to say in the Navy – BRAVO ZULU! By the way, that is the "B" and the "Z" signal flags hoisted together - signal flags are those colorful things which ships hoist up the mast to communicate certain messages - and that message translates to: "Congratulations – Job Well Done!"
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Finally, some quick notes about next year.
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To start, (barring the unexpected) there will be the 2010 cookoffs; Robert is already planning on it. The cookoffs will probably be earlier in the year (dates to be announced, lots of hoops still need to be jumped through) and we will work with Vickie to avoid conflicts; both of which were simply not possible for this year.
Although the goal is for earlier, the cookoffs will not return to their historical date – the weekend after the Super Bowl. The reason being that date is (was) just two weeks after the huge (and I mean HUGE) 99.9 KISS COUNTRY CHILI COOKOFF.
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In
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Acreage also has mostly different cooks; however, here there would probably be a crowd attendance problem if you have the cookoffs that close together. To paraphrase Robert: "not only do many of the folks from here in Palm Beach County attend the 99.9 KISS COUNTRY COOKOFF (Palm Beach County is just north of Broward County, where the KISS COUNTRY COOKOFF is held); but if we were to have our cookoff that near to the 99.9 one, that event would step all over my advertising"…makes sense, and something that never occurred to me not being a professional promoter.
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Hopefully, the above plan will meet the needs of our long-time out of state cooks, so you can join us again next year. Trust me, you won't be disappointed…and by the way,
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We'll keep everybody posted,
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Sergei Kowalchik
Chief Judge
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posted by Dick @ 7:20 PM
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