"Slippery and Slimy"

Yesterday was Chili Verde and Salsa day at the World's and hopes were high for both Rick in Verde and Wendy in Salsa.  The weather was supposed to be cold, wet and rainy - but thankfully that only lasted the morning and by early afternoon it was a beautiful fall day in Charleston.  I spent a few hours at the shops in town and then headed down to the venue where things were in full swing.  The chili had already been turned in, and the band on the stage was country so I was definately enjoying the atmosphere!  I don't know their name but they were flying back to Vegas last night as they are regulars at the Golden Nugget.  For some reason the lead singer was signing his autograph on 8x10 glossy's of Tim McGraw, who he looked or sounded nothing like.......

 We hung around the booth and handed out the giveaway chili, there were a few more people than on Friday, but nowhere near the crowds that came out in Manchester.  No shortage of interesting and eclectic individuals though!



Andrew and I at the booth

 

Wendy handing out giveaway chili

 

Rick and Larry Lentz - King of the Chili Royal Family

Michael and the Rat Pack - Scott on the far left came 2nd in Verde!

Finally it was time for the awards and trophies.  Apparently all of our booth and showmanship skills peaked on Friday as South of the Border was completely shut out of both categories on this day.  Sadly the chili and salsa entries did not place either and the team was left empty handed for the day.  Whatevs, there's always next year!  We headed down to the judges tent to see what comments were made on the scorecards - even Rick couldn't help laughing at one judges verdict on his green chili - she said it was "Slippery and Slimy" - one mighty articulate juror!  The rest were all fairly reasonable and decent,  just not what they were looking for on this day.

Here's a couple of the winning booth / showmanship teams:

 The eventual winner of the Chile Verde is a 2 time winner, he previously claimed the title in 2009 - the last time the World's were held here in Charleston, so he's declared it his favorite city!  We were very happy for the 2nd place winner, Scott, who cooked in the same booth next to Rick for the day.  He, his wife and little girl were part of a group of chili cooks that call themselves the Rat pack and all have chef coats with their rat names on them - Michael did his best to see if he could join them and forever more be known as "Rink Rat", however apparently someone has to die in order to get a spot (which someone did for Scott's wife to get her spot!)...

Instead of going out for dinner, we had a special treat waiting back at the hotel.  Rick had smoked a pork shoulder at home in Windsor and brought it and I had put it in the oven on low heat before I headed out for the afternoon.   So we all sat down to pork tacos, nachos and Wendy's competition salsa!  A really delicious meal and relaxing evening after another long and busy day.

So today is the final day of competition, the big one - Red Chili.  Since no one in our group qualified to cook, we decided to go have a nice breakfast at Bob Evans and head down to the venue in order to finally get a look at the judges comments from Michael's last chance chili on Friday.  They hadn't released them earlier as they didn't want cooks that did make it through to read them before today.  Here's all of the comments he received:

• Gritty, chewy, good bite
• Good consistency, good meat, good heat
• Too much smoke, needs sauce
• Good heat
• Too thick, tender, hot but good
• Smokey, good heat
• Thick, but not too spicy
• Too thick, good flavor and bite
• Nice thickness, funny taste, good color
• Lite in gravy, tastes more like spaghetti sauce

So all in all some pretty good comments and some stuff to work on, but for his very first pot of chili, and for it to be at the world's with judges that have been doing this for quite some time - it's a great start.  I'm very proud of him!

When I left earlier this afternoon Michael had been given his judge's medallion and wrist band so is hoping to get an opportunity to judge an early table at the red this afternoon.  I'll be heading back down later to see the awards and the tribute to Carroll Shelby.

It all wraps up later today and we head out on a 6am flight tomorrow morning so I likely won't get a chance for a final wrap up until we get home.  Looking forward to seeing the family tomorrow for our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner.  Also want to wish a very Happy 34th wedding anniversary to Rick and Wendy today - what a romantic way to spend it!!

Chili out!

What a day!

Well, it didn't go exactly as we might have hoped, but in other ways it exceeded all expectations!!!!!

After a delicious breakfast with lots of other chili cooks that are also staying at the Residence Inn, we headed down to Magic Island to begin the day.  We unloaded and headed down the hill to the venue - it was a really beautiful morning and promised to be a sunny, warm day.



The view from the truck of the venue

Next up for Michael was the cooks meeting and for me was to get started on setting up the Freddy Beach Chili Co. booth.  I had bought 2 different fabrics and made a table cloth with the red & green chili cloth and a large diamond of white with red maple leafs to centre our booth.  Scoop & Save has just enough chili party supplies to help decorate, and with a few extra borrowed items from Wendy's stash, I thought we had a pretty nice looking set up.  



Our logo proudly displayed



Our first ever booth!

Michael quickly got down to business measuring out his spices and organizing his stove and utensils.  Before we knew it it was 9am, and the shout came out "Chili cooks, light your fires"!  All across the field you could see the fires lighting and smell the meat start to simmer. For the next 3 hours it was stir, add spices, taste, smell, add this, add that, taste, stir, and taste again. 



Measuring his spices



Looks like Chili to me!



The Freddy Beach team!

Seasoning his cup

 At 12 noon the call came out for cooks to turn in their chili to the judges tent.  All was now in the hands of the judges.  A quick kiss for luck and off Michael and Rick went with their submissions.

The final product

Heading to the judges tent

Time to relax and wait for the verdict - at least for Michael & Rick.  Wendy was just gearing up to compete in the afternoon Homestyle competition and I was busy at our booth handing out chili samples to the public and smiling and chatting up judges for the booth & showmanship competitions.  There were only 3 Canadian entrants, so there were lots of references to beaver and moose meat in our chili, and "eh" just never gets old with Americans....meanwhile Michael was hanging with his new friends - twin brothers from Louisiana who were introducing him to their specialty - Apple Pie Moonshine.  Apparently it's a delicacy...



Sippin' Moonshine

  

Mikey's new best buddies from Louisiana



At 4pm it was time for Wendy to submit her white chicken chili for the homestyle event.  This is the first year ever for this competition so no one knows what to expect.  We know of at least 3 other cooks submitting white chili, a few greens and lots of reds.  Judges for this event come from outside the ICS, there are no real rules - just what tastes good to you and what you grew up with.

The next couple of hours were long - waiting for the results.  A lot of tasting other cooks chili submissions and just chatting with people from far and wide, quite an interesting group of people gather for this event.  Here's a few pics I took during the wait.

Uncle Rick's truck

Finally just after 6:30 all of the judging had been completed and the stage was set up with the trophy's and plaques.  To start day off they began with the Best Best booth prize.  It was great to hear them call out the 3rd place winner - RICHARD CHAUVIN!!! 

And then what came next blew us away - yep, I'm serious folks - 2nd place for Best Booth, complete with a plaque and a cheque for $200 goes to - MICHAEL LESPERANCE!!!!!!!!!

There were 69 cooks in the last chance cookoff, with Michael being the only first time cook (which was mentioned from the stage).  And while we do know that many of the major booth decorators arrive today and tomorrow for the green and red chili competitions, it was still pretty awesome to win and be called to stage at our very first competition ever, and it being WORLD's is crazy!

But wait peeps, there's more!!  Just as they were walking off stage the next awards were called.  Starting with 3rd place, the award for Showmanship in the Last Chance Cookoff, complete with a plaque and a cheque for $100 goes to, you guessed it! - MICHAEL LESPERANCE!!!!

I was losing my s#%t trying to get to the front to get pictures and burst out laughing when I heard a woman say "yeah, well I bet his chili sucks" - lady, there was no ruining this moment!  We were thrilled!

Next up were the Homestyle awards and it was great to hear WENDY CHAUVIN being called up for 3rd place BEST BOOTH, a bit of double dipping by the Chauvin's with the same booth for 2 seperate events!

Michael & Rick on stage after winning Best Booth awards

Michael heading off stage just before being called again

Back for the Showmanship award

 Crazy, wha?

 Yeah, I'll take a little credit too!!!!

He looks pleased!

$300 American

 The winners with their awards

 Yeah, he doesn't seem to excited!

 So for a few moments we forgot about the real reason we were there - to compete for a chance to cook in Sunday's Red Chili final.  So next up were the 10 names of the cooks that would have that chance.  With 69 cooks, there was 1 chance in 7 of making it through, we were all hoping those odds would be in our favour.
Unfortunately, it was not to be.  Neither Michael's nor Rick's names were called...........

The agony of defeat...

And since they all won together, the streak remained and they all lose together! With the next announcement of the top 5 winners in the homestyle competiion, unfortunately Wendy was not called either.  However, Tom Pardikes, a chili friend from Michigan won the top prize for his pot of green chili, so congrats to him!

 

All in all it was crazy, fabulous day - while there was disappointment in not having winning pots of chili, the sting was certainly softened by the excitement of making it to the stage and really being welcomed by the chili community.  The one good thing about neither qualifying for red - it means both will be able to judge on Sunday (if either had gone through, the other would not have been able to as there are rules regarding family members judging).  So Michael is excited at the opportunity to put his new judging skills to work.

 

We headed out for dinner at Appleby's and back to the hotel for some prep work for the next competitions and an early night after a pretty tiring and exciting day.

 

Today is another day......Rick is competing in the Chili Verde and Wendy in Salsa.  Michael is back to his "bitch" duties for the South of the Border team!  He and Andrew will make sure that all runs smoothly!

 

The weather unfortunately has made a turn for the worse - we are expecting cold temperatures, rain and wind today.  Being the fair weathered chili girl I am, I'll hanging back today and plan to get in some shopping and sight seeing!  I'll be back to the venue in time to help with handing out the giveaway chili to the crowds and of course to wait for the results of the day.  I'll be back as soon as I can with what happens!

 









We're here!

We made it to Charleston at 10:25am yesterday morning after a nice evening in Bangor where we enjoyed a great dinner at the Olive Garden.  Got to the hotel by 11am and there was a big welcome for Chili Cooks in the lobby, our room was ready so we unpacked and headed out to tour the city.

It's beautiful here, nice mature trees everywhere and lots of hills.  We checked out the venue for event and in doing so had to drive by all of the antique cars that are here for the Doo Wop car show this weekend too, some really cool vehicles.

Stopped for lunch at, where else - Chili's!!!

Rick and Wendy arrived around 3:15 and met us downtown at the Marriott so that they and Michael could attend the judging class.  All were awarded the high honor of "Certified Chili Judge" and came home with the pins to prove it.  Andrew and I headed back to our hotel to relax and unpack.

After the course they met us back at the hotel and we were off in search of ingredients at the Walmart Superstore - had a few interesting experiences to say the least, but made it home safe and sound.  A nice dinner in our suite and off to bed early.

So today is the big day- the last chance cook-off.  Michael is super excited and looking forward to a great day.  It's 6:30am and we are just about to head downstairs for a quick cup of coffee, then off to the WORLD'S CHILI COOKOFF CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!