YOUR 2017 CHILI CHEFS!
REIGNING CHAMP (2016) CURT GENEAU
Chili HalleluChili
One year ago Curt saw the light and let the power of Chili into his heart. A recipe which had been given to him in a vision from above, lead the way to a victory at the annual Oliver’s Chili Cook Off. This however was not the end, but only the beginning of his journey. It has since been a year and Curt has been spreading the good word of Chili around the world and bringing Chili into the lives of everyone he meets. Often he visits hospitals and with death row inmates whose last wishes are only to have a spoonful of his award winning Chili.
There is only one true Chili and it shall reign supreme again this year!
~ Blessed are the bland, for they have yet to find Chili.
Laidy Carroll (Former Champ)
Southern Exposure Chili
The First Laidy has been absent from the competition for the last two years. A former champion, her last appearance left her devastated with disappointment.
She soon channeled her energy to the pursuit of new flavours and special ingredients. The First Laidy visited cultures in the Grand Cayman’s, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, and several other places in the Caribbean.
She is now ready to launch her new recipe which will combine the special tastes from the past with a new palate teasing experience that others will envy.
Watch out competitors. The time is now!
Don Lewis
Marathon Chili
This man is always on the move from the roads to the kitchen, sometimes to work, and back.
His Marathon Chili has been scientifically tested and proven to help those last longer in the chili-arena, on the roads and wherever else you need. Meatloaf and two out of three doctors say it gives them a veritable lift during those long winter nights.
A former winner of “Best-In-Show”, this chef returns to pick up another prize or two or 42.2.
Amy Melko
Procrastinator’s Chili
After multiple text and email reminders from our gracious
Chili Cook-off hosts, I realised I couldn’t put off writing a witty chili
write-up, rife with cheeky pop-culture references, any longer. And so, you find
yourself reading a slap-dash entry. Perhaps this entry foreshadows a chili hashed
together with supplies raided from the pantry at the very last minute. Conversely, here’s hoping the Chili cosmos smiles down on
a very last minute entry. Good Luck Competitors.
Mark Lewis
Texas Carnivore Chili
Last year’s rookie season produced a semi-final finish, but there are only two real places…..the winner and all the losers! The Texan is back for his sophomore season and looking to move into the winners circle at the infamous Chili Coliseum. This year promises to bring more heat and more meat to tickle the taste buds of even the most finicky judge. I’ll be gunnin’ for Geneau and am sure I can “Trump” Oliver’s entry this year, so good luck to all the rest of the contestants!
Just remember:
MEAT AND HEAT MAKE THE CHILI
SWEET AND HARD TO BEAT!
Min Love
Mother’s Little Helper Chili
Things are different today,
I hear every mother say.
Cooking fresh food for a husband’s just a drag.
So she buys the ingredients and she burns it in the pot,
and she goes to the Oliver’s and cooks mother’s little helper chili.
And it helps her on her way, through the cold February day.
Lianna Nelles
800 On The Hoof Chili
Lianna is the kind of gal you rarely hear about anymore: a wildlife ecologist, a poet, an interpretive dancer, an honorary Freemason, a philosopher and a consummate hunter. “It’s not about bagging something, it’s about enjoying the land, the animals, and the people.”
She has pulled herself out of the deep wilderness leaving behind her homemade longbow crafted from Russian ash and tiger sinew for the glamour of the chili stadium. Lianna knows the chili chef posers will be cooking with fear as they stand next to her, for they know there is no other meat in this world which tastes better than that brought down by her bow.
She has been tracking the chili champions in their natural habitat, studying their culinary behaviours, watching as they seasonally sniff and eat each other’s chili scat year after year.
She has them in her sights…and is about to pull the trigger!
Pete-Bob Atkinson (Original Chili Champ)
Cowboy’s Caviar
Born from camp fires of the wide open range this chili is sure to be a favourite among cowboys, like yers truly, to fancy city folk. Dang near two years in the makin’ this recipe is sure to have ya hollerin’ for a second heapin’ helpin’.
So grab a long neck, kick yer boots off and set a spell with a big bowl of good ‘ol Pete-Bob’s Cowboy’s Caviar!
Cherice Chant (2 Time Champ)
Chilvestor Stallone KNOCK OUT CHILLI – The rest are Rocky bottom!
Last year my top 5 finish was not good enough – although the free flowing booze helped ease the pain. Immediately after this loss I took a trip to Arizona to find myself and a better chilli recipe. After many long days in the desert without food or water, while at the top of a mountain, I found my inspiration in the form of a world champion boxer. The mountain was quite “rocky”. ?
Since then I have been keeping a watchful eye on all of the so-called competition. There is a better chance of getting hit by lightning twice than Curt winning again. I tasted the cafeteria food at TISS and it looks like last year’s judge will not be a threat either. Mark will be too busy making perfect ice to make a perfect chilli. This year I will return and take my rightful spot as chilli champion – as long as this year’s judge’s favourite spice doesn’t happen to be ketchup ?
A.J. Benoit (Previous Champ)
OMG That’s Great Chili
Hey there, hi there, ho there, 2016 was an extremely busy year performing throughout the region! And 2017 is going to be even busier as I’ll be touring with Celine…… (she’s been after me for years to do so but I’ve been putting her off) having said that, I always find time to be at “The Olivers Groundhog Day Chili Cookoff for a great time! Ladle’s up!
David Wilkins
Chili Opus 13
Internationally renowned, multi-Michelin starred chef David Wilkins has dined in a string of successful restaurants across the globe, from the UK and France to Cuba, and has even eaten in a restaurant run by a cook who was born in Hong Kong.
David has also become a star of the small screen on CKWS news where he was seen in a large crowd shot at this summer’s historic Tragically Hip concert. David also took the stage in the as Mr Hart in production of 9to5. (His mother said he was rude but fairly good!)
Surprisingly with such a background Mr Wilkins has never won the Oliver’s Chili Cookoff. He is quoted as saying “there are times that I like to just step aside from the bright lights and just be a regular person.
Mark Oliver (3 Time Champ)
Better Call Sol-idarity Chili
In the fifteen years since Pete Atkinson stole the honours at the inaugural Oliver’s (then Algonquin Big Ass) Groundhog Day Chili Cookoff, never has the world seen so much divide. With our friends south of the St. Lawrence River finding themselves near Civil War with each other and right here in the Great White North loud mouth Kevin O’Leary declaring himself “The only one who can defeat Trudeau”, we need now, more than ever a Chili to bring us together again.
Better Call Sol-idarity Chili promises to do just that.
With warm and comforting, familiar flavours, this chili will relax you while exciting your taste buds. This chili will nourish you while making you hungry for peace. This chili will meld, weld and damn it I’ll say it because he’s hugely popular and his name rhymes – Seinfeld – its way into the Play Off Round then ultimately end with the First Place Trophy and 2017 Chili Champ award.
Gordon Cooke
Mexican Standoff Chili
Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum or as commonly known in Northern Mexico the “Chiltepin”. There now you know my secret ingredient. These little Mexican firebombs are said to be 20-40 times stronger than Jalepenos according to the Scoville hotness scale. They were smuggled back from Mexico in the underwear section of my suitcase. Even if you manage to find the beans, you will not duplicate the delicate flavour enhancement thus imparted to the fruit. The border patrol in Nogales were busy searching for drugs and firearms and I was able to sneak through unmolested. So to speak. And you, my friends, will be the beneficiaries of their negligence.
(Disclaimer for Border Patrol bots surfing the internet looking for admissions of malfeasance: Those are not mine. Someone must have put them there when I wasn’t looking)
Amanda Simmers (Previous Champ)
Streeped Up Chili
Although some past judges have deemed my “best in show” attempts to be the most overrated in Chili Stadium, I think we can all agree that when the powerful use their position to bully our use of cheese, we ALL lose… This Hillary Flunky is in FACT all talk and all action, I am PROUD to be the 2013 Chili Champ and the 2016 People’s Choice Award Winner, and 2017 promises not to disappoint…this performance will stun you.
To my fellow Chili chefs who have felt the sting of defeat I say, take your broken heart, make it into art.
That is all.
Kent Swirsky
Hot as Hell Who Believes in Climate Change Anyway Chili?
Last season I made a joke of Making Chili Great Again inspired by the unconventional candidate Donald Trump. Huge mistake on all levels.
No more nonsense this year, for the past 32 years (data unverified) my name has been left off of the trophy. I’m tired of walk on players winning this contest (Curt the Ketchup Man Geneau). We are going full on traditional chili, no bs soaked beans, no homemade stock, no rosemary, no smoke flavour, no cinnamon (Simmers stole that from me), just regular chili.
Listen I take this as seriously as Pete’s beard or Mark’s clear ice. This isn’t some once a year make chili and have a few pints, this is a serious contest that deserves respect and culinary flare.
Get the winners coat ready (I’m a ladies size SM), bring on the contenders, prepare to watch them all fall, for I shall be crowned the 2017 Groundhog Day Chili Champion!
Rich Szydlo
Make Chili Great Again!!!
Are you tired of the same old boring socialist chili? Are you sick of some corporation taking all of our natural flavour resources, shipping it out of our country, and selling it back to you as some Tim Horton’s schlock that was produced in China?!? I’ll tell ya folks, I for one am.
I will build that wall and keep out all that invading Mexican chili! And I’ll tell you what folks, Mexico will pay for it!!! Where does Mexico get off anyway? They act like they created Chili!!!
Everyone know that it was created in the independent Republic of Texas by Davey Crocket during the ALAMO!!! Created by an AMERICAN in AMERICA!!! I’ll tell you something else Crooked Hilary doesn’t want you to know folks, Vladimir Putin makes an unbelievable bowl of Chili.
I’m tell you folks, don’t believe the liberal, lying media, those Russians know their chili and as soon as we team up with them we are going to go show those Chinese -Mexican chili drug lords that we won’t be pushed around and we will bring all those jobs back home!!!
Trust me folks, as soon as I am inaugurated as Chili Champ this year, things will change immediately!!! So, if your ready to Make Chili Great Again, just accept everything I said as fact. Even if indisputable proof is shoved in your face repeatedly, ignore your conscience, and follow me blindly to Victory!!!
Paul “Stanley” Darby
PSD “150 PROOF” CHILI
In celebration of Canada’s 150TH Birthday and the 15th Annual OGHDCC, here’s hoping our sexy chili hosts finally choose a judge worthy of the occasion and not the taste challenged yahoos from years past!!
Who can forget the fiasco of 2016 when cracker judge dismissed me because my chili was so good it would be too difficult to replicate for a convention of 1000 people! Geez send over the barmaid (that beers not going to get over here by itself! Circa 2011- copyright PSD) and give me a helmet to bang my head against the wall!
In honor of the Greatest Country in the World’s special occasion I will be presenting the PSD “150 PROOF” CHILI – that’s right Chili Minions this year I will forgo the People’s Choice Award (that was so 2010 and 2011 and 2012) – (been there done that ,been there done that, been there done that) and all my superpowers (Stan Lee or Stanley?) will go towards the coveted White Apron. If Simmers and Curt can win well I guess that just shows the quality of judging (even Bing won but that was the year(s) judges were allowed to drink).
I have been experimenting with several exotic culinary delicacies and expect my winning formula to expand the BBL (Bing’s Banned List) – Rosemary will be a decoy spice this year or will she????
Dr. Stef Jones
Death Star Trash Compactor Chili
Chef’s Bio
Dr. Jones is one bad ass mofo. Full time restaurant manager/bartender. Part time rock star/porn star. A supremely cunning linguist the good Doctor is a master debater who can issue a severe tongue lashing.
Peter Yerdon
Without a Shadow of a Doubt Chili
Chef’s Bio.
Last year I handed Curt the crown. This year he is going down!
After last year and the judging of some very good chili. (We won’t mention the use of cheese as a garnish! Or the pulled beef chili)
I have utilized my vast years of experience to search for just the right recipe. The proper blends of fresh ingredients required to deliver the most mouthwatering concoction of chili delight.
Hoping I would be invited to participate this year, I have spent countless hours in my kitchens planning preparing endless blends to find the right mix.
After endless hours I now feel confident that I have the chili that will take me to the top of the chili cook off world!
Be worried very worried!
Ahh who am I kidding I looked through the back of my spice cupboard until I found the chili spice, fried some onions and ground meat and added some tomato stuff.
Win or lose at least the beer’s free!