Portsmouth Chili Cook-Off

The Precursor

As the air cools and adapts a crisp scent, Autumn foliage creeps in. these are the sure signs that our favorite time of the year is finally upon us.... chili season! Our particular place of employment, The Holy Grail, allows us to partake in wonderful events such as the Portsmouth chili cook-off. This is always an exciting event for us. So many people coming up to us to tell us how much they enjoy the work and effort we do.

It all starts a few weeks in advance. Experimenting, trying to find that perfect recipe. Trial and error is the way we find what we hope to be an award winning chili! From there we fast forward to a few days before the event. The focus becomes about being prepared. Once all the ingredients are in place and the prep work has been handled, the operation commences. Cooking batches of ten gallons at a time. Cooling and storing for the big day.

The Big Day

Wake up and get to work getting all that delicious chili hot for the masses. The real challenge comes with getting everything packed up and ready to leave. (on a side note we managed to do this in record time) Arrive at Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth and we begin set up. Now this is usually a painless simple process but on this particular day the cards seemed to be stacked against us. The weather was shit. Rain made things difficult but our spirits were still high, I mean come on we're giving away some awesome chili.

Once we got set up it was time to get our cars out of there. For one of our vehicles this was no problem.... but for our friend... not so much. The server we had with us locked her keys in the car half while it was running.. the rain persists. Lucky for us the event had some quick thinking volunteers that sprung into action to help. In no time we had that car out of there.

By now the event had begun. Our chili slinging team was unbeatable. We are the fastest ladles this side of the Mississippi. Folks from all around came to try ours and other's spicy delicious slop. It was wonderful. No one was going to let this cold damp weather ruin their day. The team had a great time talking with public. The most beneficial part of this is getting that feedback from them so we can improve on the subtleties we may have missed this time around.

As the evening wound down we got to take turns trying other people's chili. Unfortunately a couple restaurants had already ran out of chili, but we got to try a chili made with roasted blueberries and another made with three kinds of roast pork and ginger beer. Both were very good especially the one with the blueberries which took second place in judges choice and peoples choice!

Sadly we did not win even though we had the best god DAMN CHILI THERE!

Sorry... sorry. The wounds are still fresh.. Anyway, it was a good time. We had a lot of fun, ate some good food, got free beer, and everything went off without a hitch.

After a long day we eventually got everything packed and were headed home.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed yourself and maybe even got a laugh out of this. Have a great week! See you next time.

@bzeen & @jbaker585

^{All photos were taken by @jbaker585}