Sacramento Regional winners
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 Adrian Fuhrman
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
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Southern Colorado Regional Results
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As part of the Wild Wild West Fest activities for the weekend, two Regional cookoffs were held in downtown Pueblo, Colorado, May 16th, and May 17th. With the support of all the sponsors, these cookoffs went off without a hitch. The Chamber of Commerce, and the Professional Bull Riders Association (PBR) want us back next year.
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
3rd Place - Paul Cordova Sr.
2nd Place - Nolan Cordova
1st Place - Paul Cordova (Best of the family)
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Chili Verde
3rd Place - George Lott
2nd Place - Mary J. Parker
1st Place - Mike Gatschet
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Red Chili
3rd Place - Mick Joplin, TX
2nd Place - George Lott
1st Place - Nancy Swenberger, AZ
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Southern Colorado Regional
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People's Choice - George Lott
Best Booth - George Lott
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Salsa
3rd Place - Edward Huffman
2nd Place - Priscilla Licon
1st Place - Tori Cordova (A Salsa Family)
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Chili Verde
3rd Place - Diane Gatschet
2nd Place - George Lott
1st Place - Dick Swenberger, AZ (Learned to cook Pueblo Green)
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Red Chili
Tie for 4th Place - Nolan Cordova and George Lott
3rd Place - Mike Gatschet
2nd Place - Priscilla Licon
1st Place - Mick Joplin, TX
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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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Inland Empire Regional
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 Riverside's Inland Empire Regional Chili Cookoff. We promise good weather and a great event. Chief Judge Steve Porter promises properly-officiated contests. We look forward to seeing you.
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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. Wheeling, WV is only about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh and is convenient to Interstate I-70. A great cooks party will be held at Wheeling Island Casino & Gaming Center on Friday eve before Saturdays event. Cooks will receve a continental breakfast & great goodie bags & can be on site at 8:30 am Satturday. A class car cruise, kids play area & various bands will fill the air...along with chili!! All proceeds benefit the United Way .Over $2,500 in prize money for Red , Verde & Salsa along with Peoples Choice. Winners go to the World from this Regional Event.Register on ICS or contact Rose Warmuth, Chair at 304-234-3636 or rosejhw99@hotmail.com Thanks, Rosemary Warmuth
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South Florida Back-to-Back Regional Cookoffs
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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 Dick Steinert's posted comment (I would prefer the term "rural suburban"; "remote" I associate with Tropico in the early 80's, before housing developments arrived a few blocks away); however, it was an easy 25 minute drive from the hotel, there was a Publix supermarket nearby for last minute stuff…plus negligible traffic at the cooks' travel times.
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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 Skip Cooley come from Reno and judge on both days (they already had their "Hat Trick"). Not only do the results reflect this expertise, but I received a ton of highly positive feedback from the cooks.
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 Robert Trepp and his staff – to include key players Zori Mickle and Sofia Rossi – on their efforts with the two Acreage Music and Chili Fest Regional Cookoffs. Not only did they leap in and pick up the ball following the unfortunate (and relatively late) demise of Key Largo, but they also produced two superb events in but a few short months time – in what is a massive understatement on my part: "all of us in ICS are incredibly fortunate to have them onboard and involved."
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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 Key Largo, that was sort of a non-issue. Not only a mostly different group of cooks, but more important a different geography with a different crowd; in spite of the fact that the cookoffs were not that far apart in distance, the Keys are not only a "different world", but draw from a totally different population for the crowd.
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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, Key Largo is only a couple of hours drive away, should you still want to "do the Keys".
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We'll keep everybody posted,
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Sergei Kowalchik
Chief Judge
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