Chili Bowl

In years past, the Chili Bowl at SGP has always fallen in the busiest weekend of photo taking for me. I have wanted to make more of an effort to attend but something seems to always come up. But this year, I made a conscious effort to keep that day open. And in the end, though I wavered about going up to Storm King if Nacho was off, he had to work and so the decision to attend Chili Bowl was made. Fortunately for me, so many of the chefs were good friends and people I know can cook! So sampling their savory meaty dishes while washing it down with ample beer was just what I needed for a perfectly mild Saturday in November. I started with Chris and Jamie's superior lamb chili and moved on to more classic fare from James and a great chicken chili from Travis. In fact, there really were no losers that day. Everything tasted really great and there was a lot of love cooked into the chili I sampled. Two of my absolute favorites were the bao chili (Chris M.) with all kinds of Asian pickled toppings and just the right heat as well as the three pork one with hominy from Kevin. Oh my god that crispy bacon on top was the bomb. So yeah, I was getting pretty full by the middle of the day. But despite lots of stiff competition, the returning champion was named and it was none other than Andy Bichler with his smokey and sweet, maple-syrup laden chili. I didn't get to try it last year, but this year's version was no doubt equally good. And the crowd went for it once again making Andy and Mindy proud to carry their trophy home again. 

Mostly though it felt like this was a day to regain our park. This was the second year in a row that the Board canceled Oktoberfest so our usual fall activities had a bit of a let down when it came to celebrating the seasons in the park with friends. But Chili Bowl has clearly picked up the slack and it's wonderful to see such an inspired group of people pull others in and make something for all the members to really enjoy. There's still a lot that hurts me about how this year ended up with my own resignation. But coming out today and seeing so many faces having fun was just what I needed. It is our park. I hope we can move forward next year and really make some positive changes. We have such a great thing going in this park. I hope others will stand with me and dig deep to help out. It's such a second home for so many of us. I look forward to more time there in the new year.