I love me a good chili cook-off, so I was pretty excited that one coincided with my trip to my other house in West Michigan.
The chili cookoff went from 1-5pm on Sunday. It was in the parking lot of Coral Gables where they usually have the climbing wall and kid bungees. The difference between this chili cook-off and the previous ones I've been to was this one was a cook-off between local restaurants. There weren't any private individuals that competed. Admission was $5. I bought $10 worth of tickets, which is 20 tickets. What did I just get myself into? Each ticket was worth an 8 ounce sized portion of chili. I did about 3-4 rounds of 4 chilis each. The ingredients ranged from brisket, chicken, ground beef with a number of accoutrements like a churro and jalapeno cream sauce and varying levels of spicy. Everything was going good, I was thoroughly enjoying the chilis when it hit me. I got real full after number 12 or 14.
I stopped and realized how much actual chili I had eaten and decided I needed to drink water. They had run out of water and I still had 6 tickets left, what to do? I bought 4 more tickets and got a Griffin Claw Screamin Pumpkin. I was taking sips but felt like it was taking too long and I wanted to head back to the house. I slammed the drink and stood there with a weird feeling in my stomach. I seriously didn't know what was going to happen next. I was sweating and just not right. I edged out of the chili tent area and saw the public restroom. I wasn't sure what I needed to do so I sat down on a bale of hay next to the side walk. I then proceeded to burp for 5 minutes. I'm just looking at this restroom, sitting on a bale of hay micro-burping non-stop. The burp attack ended with a big one, which kind of signalled to me that I was okay to drive for 10 minutes back to the house.
As I was walking to my car I muttered "Why did I do this to myself?" Previous chili cook-offs gave sauce cup tasters of chili, which was way more manageable. The portions were just too big at this one or maybe it was meant for people to pace themselves and not devour 14 chilis at a constant rate until they explode.
So when's the next chili cook-off!?