Can you make a mean chili? Fiery Foods Festival... « Columbus Underground Messageboard

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Can you make a mean chili? Fiery Foods Festival...

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Started 4 years ago by vespamary
Latest reply from Walker

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vespamary
Short North
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Then whip up a crockpot full for the North Market Fiery Foods Festival's Customer Chili Cookoff! Bring a batch of your chili concoction to the North Market on Saturday, February 16th at noon to be judged by local chefs and media foodies (our own Restaurant Widow included). Entrants to the chili contest must include at least three ingredients obtained from the North Market (as verified by receipts). The competition will garner the first place winner $100 and the runner up $50 in North Market gift certificates. Entry spaces are limited, call Mary at 463-9664 to register.
Got an official culinary title? In its third year the Chef Chili Challenge pits local chefs against one another as contenders for the title Ã¢â‚¬Å“North Market Chili Champ 2007,Ã¢â‚¬Â a special trophy and $200 in North Market gift certificates. Participating chefs include representatives of AlanaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Food + Wine, Basi Italia, Barcelona, CafÃƒÂ© Corner, CaJohns Fiery Foods and LÃ¢â‚¬â„¢Antibes. Judging for the Chef Chili Challenge begins at 11AM. Call to register 463-9664
Want to watch the competitions and then EAT chili? For $5 you get a wristband that entitles you to sample the chili created by both the chefs and amateurs (while supplies last)!
North Market Fiery Foods Festival. Saturday, February 16 at the North Market. 59 Spruce Street. Downtown Columbus.

Posted 4 years ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Mmm... chili...
:)

Posted 4 years ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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The North Market wrote Fiery Foods Festival
Are you feeling hot, hot, HOT?! Probably not as it is winter and all that...but you can, can, CAN raise your temperature at the North MarketÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s 5th annual Fiery Foods Festival on Saturday, February 16. WeÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re bringing the heat with every manner of spicy food available from our vendors around the Market.

Want to bring a little heat of your own? Customers can prove their chili cooking acumen in our Customer Chili Cook-off. The competition will garner the first place winner $100 and the runner up $50 in North Market gift certificates. In its third year the Chef Chili Challenge pits local chefs against one another as contenders for the title Ã¢â‚¬Å“North Market Chili Champ 2007,Ã¢â‚¬Â a special trophy and $200 in North Market gift certificates. Participating chefs include representatives of AlanaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Food + Wine, Basi Italia, CafÃƒÂ© Corner, and LÃ¢â‚¬â„¢Antibes. We are sure to have many more chef entrants by competition time! Entrants to both cooking contests must include at least three ingredients obtained from the North Market (as verified by receipts).

Ã¢â‚¬Å“ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s always a hot time at the North Market, but especially so during our Fiery Foods Festival. The theme is interpreted widely by our merchants who translate it in ways from zippy and authentic ethnic foods to spicy chocolates, cheeses and bakery goods.Ã¢â‚¬Â said David Wible, Executive Director of the North Market.

Fiery Foods Festival Schedule:
8 a.m. North Market opens, Urban Chefs and Sauce Cartel are special vendors today only
9 a.m. Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 2 p.m., Cooking demonstrations in the Dispatch Kitchen (dubbed CaJohns Kitchen for the day) by John Hard of CaJohns Flavor & Fire
10 a.m. Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 1 p.m., musical entertainment by the Gadabouts
11 a.m. Free maracas, sombreros, balloons and chili-pepper shaped cookies for the kids (while supplies last)
11 a.m. Professional Chili Cook-off judging of local chefs
12 p.m. Amateur Chili Cook-off
1 Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 4 p.m., Caribbean music by the Island Breeze Duo.
Hot and spicy foods featured throughout the North Market all day
2-4 p.m., Spicy Cooking for Singles class sponsored by Columbus Alive

The North Market Fiery Foods Festival on Saturday, February 16 is a free event. Festival activities will take place from 10a.m.-3p.m. Market hours are 8a.m. Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 5 p.m. To participate in the Customer Chili Cook-off or the Chef Chili Challenge and for more information, please call (614) 463-9664 or visit http://www.northmarket.com. A tasting fee of $5 enables onlookers to sample all of the chilis by both professional chefs and amateur contestants while supplies last.

Posted 4 years ago #
Anne
King Lincoln
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Anyone making chili to compete? I am just going to go to watch and *maybe* try some stuff!

Posted 4 years ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Had a great time at the Fiery Foods Fest yesterday. Was nice to chat with a few CU regulars and the food bloggers who got to judge the competition in the chili cook off. Can anyone tell us who exactly won the contest? We were standing towards the back and it was a bit hard to hear.
Anyway, I tasted 5 different bowls of the professional chilis which was totally worth the $5 tasting fee. I think my favorite was the bowl from Alana's (which I still haven't been to yet). I think it had pork jowl in it. Mmm... I also liked the shark chili from L'Antibes, which was technically more of a soup than a chili, but was still tasty.
Anyway, here's some photos of the crowds. Nice turnout!

Posted 4 years ago #
Rocknrolloutlaws
German Village
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Walker wrote Can anyone tell us who exactly won the contest? We were standing towards the back and it was a bit hard to hear.
I didn't stick around for the amature round, but for the chefs the top three (as I recall, since some of the judges post on here, they can correct me if I'm wrong) were:
1. CaJohn's
2. Barcelona
3. Sauce Cartel? (not really sure what the official name was)
(The guy who took third is a friend of mine, Max, who has a hot sauce company. He was also downstairs selling his hot sauces, right there by the Blues Creek Farm location. Shameless promotion for him: Sauce Cartel )
I made the mistake of having Max's chili first....it was super hot, and probably not the thing I should have had for my first food of the day.

Posted 4 years ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Rocknrolloutlaws wrote (The guy who took third is a friend of mine, Max, who has a hot sauce company. He was also downstairs selling his hot sauces, right there by the Blues Creek Farm location. Shameless promotion for him: Sauce Cartel )
Yeah, I sampled some of his wares downstairs. Good stuff. I tried their Green River Sauce (Jalapeno peppers and pineapple) and their Burnin' Love Sauce (Habanero, Kiwi, Papaya, and Star Fruit). Both were great, but that second one left me with a runny nose and watery eyes for a good five minutes. And it wasn't even their hottest sauce! :shock:

Posted 4 years ago #
kitsune27
powell, oh
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i'd been anticipating the fiery foods festival for a couple of weeks and it definitely didn't disappoint. we started by sampling products from sauce cartel, urban chefs and montezuma brands. now, i like hot food but don't really go for anything that could be classified as "stupid hot". i favor distinctive flavors with good back of the mouth heat. sauce cartel sells hot sauces that use a variety of fruits for flavor and sweetness that were really excellent. plus, the guys from sauce cartel positively ooze passion and excitement for their product. we picked up some green river sauce, made with pineapple and jalepenos. we also bought some soulicious wing sauce from urban chefs that had a great balance of heat, vinegar and smokiness.
next stop was cajohn's, for whom i've got a deep and abiding love. i sampled "the world's hottest chili" made with the the naga jolokia (scoville rating of 1 million!) i think the chili tasted good, but all i can really recall is my mouth burning for about twenty minutes after i sampled it. taking a break for lunch we had some pho ga from lac viet, a dish that never disappoints. don't miss the house-made chili sauce in the red quirt bottles. after lunch we attended "a chilihead's perspective" given by joe from the hot zone, a blog devoted to hot and spicy food products and chilihead culture. he talked briefly about the naga jolokia (pictured), the scoville rating system, chilihead culture and the online chilihead community. the "wings of fire" hot wing eating challenge was by far the high point of the day. a riveting mix of pain, testosterone, intestinal fortitude, endurance and sheer will, this competition was a real spectacle. presided over by the fine folks a cajohn's, there were two competitions. the rules were thus: contestants could surrender at any time by holding up a "surrender" sign or by taking a drink. for each round they had three wings to eat in 90 seconds, a 2 minute wait until the next round of three wings came out, with each round of wings getting successively hotter. among the hot sauces used for the competitions were: ignite, cojohns, ace, talon, and sauce 10. for the final round, a plate of ten wings covered in sauce 10 was placed in front of remaining contestants. whoever ate the most wings in 3 minutes was crowned the winner. halfway into the competition competitors' eyes were bulging and blinking, sweat glistening on their foreheads. in the last round of the competition, the guy i had pegged for the winner got sauce 10 in his eye and faltered. he did resume eating but the gentleman in the foreground of the picture below ended up winning the first competition.a contestant throwing in the towel:
the second competition was pretty fierce with representatives from the hot zone and sauce cartel competing. unfortunately, gary from sauce cartel dropped out:
which left two competitors at the very end to be crowned co-champions.
as joe from the hot zone limped away, guzzling a pint of milk, i heard him say "i think i saw god".
now that my friends, is some fiery food.

Posted 4 years ago #
Anne
King Lincoln
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oh man! wish I would have stuck around for the wing eating contest! :) That looked insane!
Thanks for the review kitsune!

Posted 4 years ago #
osulew
My house...in the middle of my street
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We were only there very briefly (long enough to wander around and for me to grab indian food...yum), but I tried some of that spicy mustard at Cajohn's. It made my want to tear my tongue out of my face. The sides of my tongue burned for about 20 minutes and my stomach was hot for about an hour.
Crikey!

Posted 4 years ago #
Columbusite
Minneapolis
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Looked like a lot of fun, except for the devastation my tongue would have endured. While you guys were doing that I was stocking up on some fine ice cream.

Posted 4 years ago #
bayrea
Dublin, Oh
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kitsune27 wrote next stop was cajohn's, for whom i've got a deep and abiding love. i sampled "the world's hottest chili" made with the the naga jolokia (scoville rating of 1 million!) i think the chili tasted good, but all i can really recall is my mouth burning for about twenty minutes after i sampled it.
I too tried "the world's hottest chilli" which resulted in me running to the chinese place to buy a diet coke. After downing the coke my mouth finally cooled off but I could feel it in my tummy for about an hour. And that was one little tiny dish! We got there too late to try the chili cookout 5 dollar deal and after reading about the wing eating contest I wished we would have stuck around a bit longer.

Posted 4 years ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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CMHGourmand wrote North Market - good to me and great for Columbus
Posted by cmhgourmand on February 19, 2008
I survived the Fiery Foods Festival at the North Market on February 16th. I had the opportunity to be a judge for the Chili Competition. I sampled 12 chilis in the professional category (with offerings from AlanaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s, LÃ¢â‚¬â„¢Antibes, Basi Italia and others.) One of the offerings had Mako shark in it - yep shark chili. After a short pause, it was back to work for the amateur competition and another 12 chilis. Other judges included G.A. Benton from Columbus Alive, Miriam Bowers Abbott from the Other Paper, Lisa - the Restuarant Widow and other local notables. I was in great company. Special thanks to Mary Martineau (marketing director) and David Wible (executive director) for having me there and listening to me ramble on about food. Their continued hard work keeps the market vibrant and appealing to Columbus natives and visitors. Sopressata - did a superb summary of the festival and she (Heather) was able to cover the wing eating contest which I missed out on.
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Posted 4 years ago #