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The Great Miller Lite Chili Cook-off 2009
I had the pleasure of
attending the Great Miller Lite Chili Cook Off 2009 at Stone
Mountain Park in Georgia this past Saturday, September 29th,2009.
The weather started off cool and comfortable but quickly turned wet
and ugly. Because of the tremendous amount of rainfall, I
wasn't able to visit all of the chili booths or meet as many people
as I wanted. The parking lot even flooded enough that my car
suffered a bit of damage but it still turned out to be a pretty good
chili cook off day.
The picture below is
of the rain soaked field...
Before I tell you
more about the chili and the chili people at Stone Mountain, I want
to let you know that I welcome any additional input on the event.
If you have pictures or a personal story, please let me know by
sending information to
danna@famouschilirecipes.com
. I feel like I missed out on a lot of good chili talk because
of the rain.
The Great Miller Lite
Chili Cook Off, or Stone Mountain Chili Cook Off as I call it, had
competition categories in chili, stew and cornbread. In
addition to the judging of chili, there is always the Showmanship
awards and believe me, I think some of the competitors spend as much
time on their costumes and booth decorations as they do preparing
their chili. I am quite disappointed that I wasn't able to see
all of the chili booths but the dancing pirates and clowns with
helium induced high pitched voices were two booths that stood out in
the crowds of tents.
Winners were
announced after an afternoon of judging. For a full list of
winners in all categories you can check out the
official cook-off page. Chili cook-off top winners were
awarded as follows. The $5000 first place winner was Steve Abbott with
Abbott's Suck-up Chili. Cecil Hutchins and his Metal Head
Chili came in 2nd with Melissa James and her James Gang Chili #1
coming in 3rd place.
Kevin Sykora and his team's Groundskeeper Chili
were attending the chili cook off for the 3rd year in a row.
Like many other competitors Kevin makes his own chili powder to use
while cooking. While the decision as to which chilis to use is
sometimes based on availability of chilis, a great deal of thought
goes into the heat levels of the chilis selected.
While the chili cook-off is not a preliminary
even for the ICS or CASI it does raise money for a worthy cause.
The main sponsor of the chili cook-off is Miller Lite and 100% of
the proceeds go to Camp Twin Lakes for children facing serious
illnesses and other physical or emotional challenges. It's a
great cause and it's wonderful that such a fun event can benefit
such deserving children.
Even with soggy weather, the Stone Mountain Chili
Cook-off was a great success and you can be sure I'll be marking my
calendar for next year's cook-off.
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