Chili Madness

With November, comes the annual Chili Cookoff and this year the kids decided to do the cooking. Actually Micah was the one who was so excited. He could hardly wait to cook up a batch of "baghDAD" chili. Well, you know how it goes. The whining begins. Xavier is sullen and miserable because Micah gets to make chili and he doesn't. Forget the the fact that Xavier does not eat chili. Anyhow the plan changes and we add "Save the Cows" chili to the list of competitors. So with Cooper's chili, we have quite enough from one family. But Paige is awfully upset. She is much older than the boys and should have first-cooking rights --add "Motormouth" chili to the list. The name fits her well. So, come Saturday night we have three crockpots of chili in the fridge and Emily sulking, no fuming in the den. Cooper plans to make hers after church. Sunday morning comes and Emily is still furious and helping Cooper is not the same. Cooper really doesn't feel like cooking anyway. So the Coop's Chili becomes their chili with Emily doing all of the work and Cooper keeping naming rights. She did stir (once) and take pictures to make it officially a partnership..There were 20 something chilis at the cookoff and some were very good and some were horrid. All of the kid's chili did very well. Between the four we brought home less than three cups. There was a lot of talk about "Save the Cows" maybe winning. "D.B.'s Million Dollar" chili (named after the bankrobber/plane hijacker) flat out disappeared. Colten stuffed the ballot box for Emily and paid his brother 10 dollars to do the same. Nevertheless someone else had bigger bucks and stuffed the ballot box for someone else. Remember this is a fund raiser and votes cost money and stuffing the ballot boxes is highly encouraged. I was quite happy to have no winners and no hurt feelings. But surprise, surprise, after all the prizes were awarded there was a new prize--best in show--judged by an independent and unknown judge. Emily took home the Golden Spoon for the very best chili and she really did do it all herself.