Guns and Tacos

No Holds Barred Chili Cookoff 2009

October 20th, 2009 in Insanity! by Jay | 7 responses

Last week, I was asked to be a judge for the Third Annual No Holds Barred Chili Cookoff, held at Shady Tavern in The Heights.

Who in the world could turn that down? Being a judge in a chili contest is like, every guy’s dream except this guy.

The panel of judges were:

• Katharine Shilcutt, food writer and web editor for The Houston Press
• Jenny Wang, food writer, founder of the Houston ChowHounds, and co-host of Southbound Food radio show on 1560
• Jim Gossen, food writer and President/CEO of Louisiana Foods.
• Me, a guy that likes tacos.

After agreeing to participate, I spent some time poring through chili aficionado sites, learning about the categories of aroma, consistency, flavor, piquancy, and the Scoville scale.  I learned about unusual ingredients that chili guys use. Wikipedia gave this list: sweetcorn, peanut butter, pineapples, bananas, oranges, tomatillos, beer, chorizo, cocoa, chocolate, coffee, tequila, cola, honey, cinnamon, allspice, saffron, molasses, vinegar, wine (usually red), whiskey, and/or bourbon.

There were three categories- Best Chili, Most Original Chili, and Spiciest Chili. I thought these categories were interesting.

Of course, the Best Chili category makes sense, but the Original Chili and Spiciest chili categories worried me a bit. I mean, you could put Froot Loops in it to win the Most Original, and I’d still have to eat it. And if someone really wanted to win the Spiciest Chili category, there’s no limit to what they could do to it, and I’d still have to eat it.

Obviously, I like spicy things. But years ago, I watched a close friend chew up and swallow a habanero. There’s nothing worse than seeing a friend with tears pouring down his face, eating handfuls of ice cream and guzzling milk, with that pleading, “please make it stop” facial expression. Sadistically, there is also nothing funnier in the world.

I’d love to add a video of someone eating a habanero, but incidentally, people that intentionally eat habaneros on camera are also the most annoying people in history. I wouldn’t do that to you.

I thought I’d call on a good friend for advice, so I Googled  J.C. Reid, a famous food blogger, and cross-referenced his name against city records to obtain his phone number.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Guns and Tacos.”

“What did you just say?”

“Nevermind. Do you know how to judge a chili cookoff?”

“Vote for the team with the hottest chicks on it. And don’t ever call me again”.

Now that I knew who to vote for,  I had to get the appearance thing down. If I’m going to be a judge in a chili contest, I really need to look like I know what I’m doing. In Texas, you do that with a cowboy hat.

Anyone can just put on a cowboy hat. But not just anyone can wear it. To properly wear a cowboy hat, you also need to have a Western shirt, a large belt with a large buckle, a Western jacket, and you have to wear Wranglers. Of course, I have all of these things.

Me.

I arrived at the event in my large Cadillac. As I casually walked past the Texas flag, all of the area photographers took advantage of this rare opportunity to take photographs of me, The Chili Judge.

I was missing one more ingredient in my ensemble: A cold can of Tecate.

Unfortunately there was no Tecate, so I had a Lone Star. I wasn’t sure if it was okay for the judges to drink before the competition, so I hurriedly bought beers for each of the judges so that I wouldn’t be singled out.

The Zydeco Dots were playing, and amazingly, I don’t think they took a break the entire time we were there. Nothing beats the combination of Zydeco music and Tecate Beer Lone Star Beer on a Saturday afternoon.

I took my small composition book out of my shirt pocket, and placed it on the judging table next to the cup of fresh ginger slices I had brought to cleanse my palate between each tasting. I explained the purpose of the ginger slices, and Katharine and Jenny started laughing uncontrollably. I thought they were laughing at my ginger at first, but Jenny explained that they were just laughing at an old joke, and “not your fresh ginger slices that you brought to a chili cookoff in Texas”.

This is chili. Chili gets everywhere.

There were markers and paper on the table so that we could write down our opinions of each chili dish, served in styrofoam cups. Some were garnished with lime slices and crackers, some had cornbread on top, and some were covered in aluminum foil to retain the heat. Some had a strong beer taste, some had chunks of spicy venison sausage, and others had whole cloves of garlic in the mix. Each cup had a number on the bottom to help coordinate it with our notes.

“How do I know which cup belongs to which team?”, I asked the judge.

“You’re not supposed to know which cup belongs to which team. If you did, you would probably just vote for the team with the hottest chicks on it”, he explained.

I was then forced to choose a winning cup of chili based solely upon my flavor preferences and level of inebriation. At first, I insisted on eating all the chili that they gave me, but after about twenty cups of spicy chili, I thought it may be a better idea not to do that at all.

Jim Gossen, who is possibly the coolest guy in the world, got a bit of chili on his shirt, which was really funny to me until I realized that I had much more chili on my shirt.

We agreed on the Best Chili, The Spiciest Chili, and The Most Original Chili. I broke a sweat and had to use my hat as a fan once or twice, but there were no Froot Loops in the chili, which made me very happy.

"Come and Take It", the winning team from Sugar Hill Studios. Photo by Groovehouse.

Me, Katharine, Jenny, Jim, and Lone Star. Photo by Groovehouse.