With a dearth of actual pictures of the chili chefs and their creations from the Professional chili cook-off, I just wanted to scribe a little about the process of being a judge for one of these contests. This was the second year out of the past three (Linda had the fun last year) that I participated as a judge for the professionals, and it’s been enjoyable each time.

My qualifications to judge a chili contest? Well, aside from running a blog about hot and spicy food and feeling pretty decent about my experience with chili, I can’t say that I’m an expert by any stretch. So, you can see me in the picture above (far right) at the judges table this past Saturday looking all studious as I tasted bowl after bowl of chili goodness.

One thing about chili, though, is that I never understood why some of the chefs in this competition always work so hard on the presentation. That’s pretty much lost on me. Since there’s no scoring category for appearance or presentation, I usually don’t care for the corn bread garnish or the dollop of (pick your favorite chili condiment) glopped in the middle of the bowl. What I want is for the chili to taste good, smell good, and have a consistency that’s like the chili I’m used to eating.

Also, it’s pretty interesting to see what the chefs come up with as far as their chili recipes…especially whether it’s something they normally have available or whether it’s something they created especially for the competition. I don’t usually know the answer to that when I’m tasting, but sometimes you get an inkling of it one way or the other.

So, the chili tasting began in earnest. Spicy chili. Mild chili. Boar chili. Mako shark chili. Ground beef chili. Veggie chili. Traditional bowls o’ red. Nouveau bowls o’ green, and stuff in between. Beans and no beans. There were quite an assortment, and surprisingly there were at least four entries that featured chilis that I would have labeled as spicy. In years past, the spicy chilis were rare in the competition…since many of the judges don’t always handle the heat all that well. I definitely had my faves as the competition grinded on, but no obvious front-runners until the last entry.

That entry, as it turns out, was CaJohn’s pineapple & meat chili. I couldn’t tell you exactly what was in it (maybe John will pass along the recipe), but it reminded me of a Hawaiian-style dish because of the pineapple and the spicy-meets-sweet flavor. Without knowing the identity of the maker when I tried it, I was glad to find out that that particular chili turned out to be CaJohns’. Out of 20 possible points, it scored 19 with me…and only one other chili scored that high. That one, I believe, also placed in the top 3 as well. John has come close to winning this competition a few times, but he finally broke through this year to win the title. At least he didn’t get the prizefighter’s robe they’d used before. The championship belt looks much more classy. Congrats, John, for winning the contest with some damn fine chili. I look forward to seeing if you can defend your title next year.