Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone on finding their way to baconisgreat. Don't be fooled by the
false prophet!
Last weekend we went to a Chili cook-off that was being held for charity. It was a good time. The cook-off was a Pro-Am format - 7 Stamford restaurants and 7 locals had chilis entered in the contest, and you could go in, sample chilis and vote for your favorite. I tried about 10 of the 14 chilis, and then had seconds of my 4 favorites to help me decide on my vote.
After much tasting, soul searching and deliberation I voted for one of the amateur entries, which the guy described as Quattro Carne: a moderately spicy, smoky, and delicious blend of seasoned chicken, beef, veal and sausage. It was damn good. We went with a group of people (6 in all) and 4 of us ended up voting for him. He won the contest by a margin of something like 5 votes we were told.
I also enjoyed a chili that was made using cut up meat instead of ground beef which was made by another amateur. I liked 2 chilis made by restaurants - one was loaded full of chipotle (small sample cups, so even with 2 samples
Chipotlaway wasn't needed), and the other had apples in it. I liked it because it was different.
The event is an annual fundraiser, which I would definitely go to again.
The next big event on the chili calendar is a chili cook-off we are actually making a chili for in November. We made what we thought was a good chili a couple of weeks ago, and going to the cook-off last weekend gave us an idea of what we like about our chili, what we could try to improve it, and what people might be like in judging chili. The competition sounds like fun - they have a chili dog intermission during the sampling!
By the way, the episode of South Park referenced in this post was awesome. In fact South Park since the break has been cool. New episode tonight, in HD!!! And, yes, it does look better in HD.