I stopped by the 4th Annual Kosher Chili Cook-off held yesterday for a bit. There were 25 participants. I managed to try about 20 of the entries and not get sick. Not too bad.
I’m going to be a little harsh with my criticism. The average chili I tried was very salty but not spicy at all. What’s the point? There were too many vegetarian entries. What’s the point? All the kosher meat and utensils were provided by organizers Agudas Achim which actually makes things fair (and cheap – which you’d know if you’ve ever purchased kosher meat).
I have decided that I’m going to have to enter the contest next year and really make all those mostly Ashkenazi softies cry. They won’t know what hit them. Not on the way nor on the way out.
I don’t even know which team won but I voted for Team Ninja, their chili was pretty good. And they bribed me.
As I walked back to my car after the 2008 Hanukah (Channukkah? Chanuca? Hannukka?) Casino party, in which I lost all my fake money but walked away with six chocolate coins, I was surprised to see my car surrounded and completely trapped by police cars. “LA MIGRA!!!” yelled my hypothalamus – the same thing I yell when looking to clear out some seats in a packed soccer stadium north of the border.
Then I remembered I’m here legally. The policemen were just enjoying some mediocre pizza at Roppolo’s and promptly let me out. But I thought I’d post this since a) It’s a cool photo and b) I’ve been looking for an opportunity to blur out a license plate.
Embarrassingly, for the first time since I moved to Austin, I attended the East Austin Studio Tour (I didn’t even know about it!).
Last weekend, artists who live or have a studio, in the huge area between I-35, Town Lake (a few just south of it), Highway 183, and E. Martin Luther King; opened up their studios for people to visit, check out their work, and purchase whatever they like. This is a lot of terrain to cover in just two days! Check out the map if you don’t beleive me. I had no idea there were over 150 art studios in town, much less just in the East Austin area. Amazing.
Looks like I’m not the only celebrity in my family: In a news report for this year’s Hot Sauce Festival, local news station KXAN digged through their stock footage looking for beautiful people at previous editions. Check out the watermarked video embedded below:
Thanks to Antonio Lie for actually watching the local news and alerting me of the cameo.
P.S. Oh no! Blogger faux-pas! In a terrible turn of events, I’m shown in that old video wearing the same t-shirt as in the previous post.
Keep Austin Weird, my frieds. Among many other activities I was engaged in today I went to Eeyore’s annual birthday party(Wikipedia) (a.k.a. Igor el Burrito) at Pease Park.First time I’ve been to this festival, which is embarrasing since I’ve lived in Austin for so long. It’s full of hippies, people in costumes, drums, egg-tossing contests, music, beer, and topless women. What’s not to like?Unfortunately I did not bring my camera, so I leave you with a few photos I found in Flickr:
Bad blogger, bad blogger. Here I am, posting about something that happened almost a month ago. Shame on me.On the 27th of October, Maya mentioned to me that there was a hot sauce festival the next day.As a man who grew up eating tostadas prepared by that artisan who diligently stood by the Campo Halcones (now Troyanos); that man who mysteriously dissappeared on a faithful day of 1995; that man simply known as “El Maestro de las Tostadas” I could not resist the lure of the fire in my mouth, the runny nose, the tearfull eyes; the ringing ears; the happiness. I had to go. (of interest, I think “El Maestro de las Tostadas” may have crossed over to this side of the pond to become Don Filemon… judge for yourself).So I searched and indeed, The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival 2006 was the next day, on a Sunday. Since we were in between seasons on the City League, the day was completely open to see what this whole thing was about.It was about standing in line for 20 minutes in 40 degrees heat just to taste a tortilla chip with hot sauce on it. Repeat for each of the tens of stands. I did it three times and it was pretty good but not worth the wait under the scorching sun. However something worth telling about happened. I will do that on Part II of this story. In the meantime, satisfy your vouyeurism and look at a few photos I took (and notice how many links I put throughout the text of this post. Good blogger. Good blogger):
