Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Growing up stinks

Early last week we got an Email at work that on Wed of this week, there would be a Chili Cookoff. Two of my friends at work (Tom the Ultimate Fighter and Easy Trevor) and I were talking and I mentioned that everyone tries to win these contests. We should try to lose it. Let's make the worst, crappiest chili possible. So we decided to get together the night before, make the chili, drink beer and watch Old School. A guy's night.

We had some good ideas on how to do it. We decided to make it fairly simple. We would let Hormel provide the chili and we would add some things.

Game time rolled around Tuesday night at my place. They showed up...with Easy Trevor's wife. Normally this is a killer and EasyTrevor really should have had his tail kicked all over my street for bringing her. But Dancin' Amanda isn't just any wife. She's a cool wife. So, the Ultimate Fighter and I let it go. Not that we had a real choice.

We got to work. My job was to get the beer, chili and special ingredients. They brought a bunch of spices and sauces and Old School.

We fried some beef liver in a pan. The Ultimate Fighter boiled pig's feet and gizzards in some water. While it didn't smell good, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Easy Trevor and Dancin' Amanda put the chili in the crockpot and added some of the spices and sauces.

Here we are with the finished product.


Here's Easy Trevor with Dancin' Amanda.


This is the Ultimate Fighter after trying some of the chili, I think.


Here's another pic of Dancin' Amanda. She earned it. She earned the right to be there on guy's night this one time. She worked hard and washed all my dishes. She's a rock.


All told, we added soy sauce, salsa, hot sauce, salad dressing, a multitude of spices only Dancin' Amanda knows about, boiled pig's feet, boiled gizzards, fried beef liver and God knows what else to the Hormel chili. It smelled like rotted horse butt. It didn't taste good but wasn't quite as wretch-inducing as we'd expected.

We then watched Old School, laughed until it hurt and they went home.

On the drive to work this morning, Easy Trevor calls and says he and the Ultimate Fighter talked after leaving and they were having some misgivings about the whole idea. This was based on the idea not going over well with management if they found out. After talking to both of them, we figured the downside (counseling by management, Easy Trevor getting the boot...he's a contractor) far outweighed the upside (a fun story to tell for years). Looks like learning game theory worked out ok for me.

So in the end, we wussed out. I ended up dumping the chil in the snow outside the building (about 100 yards away at the edge of the parking lot). It looked like someone had already eaten the chili.

I guess we still have a story...and jobs.

|