February 16, 2000

Culinary artists spice up cook-off

By Garret Leiva
Herald editor
       Picassos of the pinto bean. Van Goghs of the garlic. Dalis of the dried chipotle peppers. Whether surreal seafood or avant-guard vegetarian, this year's Downtown Chili Cook-Off provided plenty of food for thought.
      Putting artistry in the culinary arts, nine area chefs and cooks dished out 20 cayenne and jalapeno pepper masterpieces for an audience of more than 600 chili connoisseurs at the Traverse City Opera House.
      Showing a hunger to support this art, participants forked over seven dollars to spoon up an eight dish sampler Saturday during the sixth annual Downtown Chili Cook-Off. Chili critics could also vote for their favorite concoction in eight individual categories and the overall People's Choice award.
      This year, the nine participating restaurants included Chili's, Freshwater Lodge, Horizon Shine Cafe, Kilwin's, Mackinaw Brewing Company, Minerva's, North Peak Brewing Company, Oryana Natural Foods and Poppycock's. Categories at the cook-off were One Alarm, Two Alarm, Three Alarm, Vegetarian, White Chili, No Bean, Seafood and Ethnic.
      As with any artwork, creating chili by the vatful takes plenty of Daves Insanity Sauce sweat, diced white onion tears and several cups of self-expression. After all, cooking chili is not about paint-by-numbers or staying inside the lines of preconceived culinary notations.
      "Chili is about individual expression. It's all different and it's all good," said Steve Schroeder, a cook at Northpeak Brewing Company, who brought both porter beer and Cajun crawfish chili to this year's contest. "It's absolutely whatever you want to create. There is a Three Alarm Chili of Death here, if that is not individuality, I don't know what is."
      As the mastermind behind 'C.T's 3 Alarm Chili of Death,' Chris Timm agrees that a cook is only limited by creativity and stovetop space. A chef at Poppycock's restaurant, Timm brought his 46 ingredient chili to life over the course of a week, cooking it each day.
      "This is really a bunch of artists getting together and displaying their creativity," Timm noted. Although in this case, the art is not found on the walls of the Guggenheim or Louvre, but on the walls of the stomach lining.
      Of course, as with any art, chili is in the eye and the taste bud of the beholder.
      "This year we had great fun making the vegetarian chili because we agreed on nothing," said Mike Janiga, food and beverage director at Minerva's in the Park Place Hotel. Despite these artistic differences, Janiga and his culinary cohorts served up three styles of chili including their perennial People's Choice powerhouse: white chili.
      While other art forms stir up controversy, chili seems to have a mass appeal without being watered down. From the home cook to the executive chef, from fine hotels to grandma's kitchen - chili invokes a passion seen on sweat-beaded brows and greasy smiles.
      "The scholars, the farmers, they're all here; a cross culture brought together by chili," noted first-time cook-off participant, Roger Hildinger, executive chef at Freshwater Lodge, which brought smoked duck chili, venison chili with dried cherries and '33 Vegetarian Chili' with three different kinds of beans and three distinct hot chilies.
      For those appreciative of tamales that tickle the taste buds and halbenero peppers that pummel the palette, anyway you boil, simmer or cook it, chili transcends mere beans and burger. Sometimes just the right bowl, like a painting or sculpture, can surpass time, space - even the human body.
      "I have great dreams when I eat chili. I eat it right before I go to bed and it makes me fall asleep," noted Northpeak cook, Schroeder, who has sampled every conceivable type of chili including bear and pheasant.
      "It lets me live another life once I close my eyes. I race cars and climb mountains, all thanks to chili."