Chili Cook-Off Heats Up Esplanade

They came, they tasted, they voted. Over 850 paying customers, either chili lovers, fire department supporters, or both, showed up Saturday afternoon at the Esplanade for “Great Bowls of Fire: The 13th Annual Jerry Adams Chili Cook-Off,” to benefit the Marco Island Fire-Rescue Foundation.

The event honors the late firefighter Jerry Adams, for many years the chili chef of the department, and is a way for the public to thank their first responders while chowing down on chili in a wide variety of presentations.

For those who attended the cookoff, sampling 17 different chili recipes and listening to the sounds of the James Williams Band on a beautiful early November day was a painless way to “give back.” They tasted as many of the chili entries as they could and cast their ballots in the People’s Choice competition.

Perhaps fitting for the day after Halloween, a new entrant, the Kitchen Witches, knocked off the reigning champion in the individual chefs’ category, the Spice Girls, ending their run of four straight wins. The Kitchen Witches’ posted recipe included “chunks of dragon bone, minced goblin sausage, slivers of ogre eye, crushed bat fangs,” and more wholesome and delicious ingredients, although they did provide what those items translate to: bat fangs turn out to be garlic.

In the First Responders category, the Fire-Rescue chefs wrested the title back from the police department. According to fire department chefs J.B. and Tony “Big T,” their winning entry contained eight lbs. each of beef, pork, and chorizo, and three kinds of beans – “but I can’t tell you the rest.”

Among the civic organizations, Al’s Pals came out on top, also winning for Most Festive. Other groups participating included the MIA Key Club, the Family Church, the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island, and the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church “God Squad.”

The largest cohort of contestants was the professional chefs’ division. Hideaway Beach Club took the prize in the category, repeating last year’s win, although the judges who sampled every single one of the entries awarded their top honors to the Marco Island Yacht Club chili, prepared under the direction of executive chef Loren Cogswell. Additional entries included the JW Marriott, who boasted of the “30-day dry-aged tomahawk steak” in their chili, the Hilton, Mango’s Dockside Bistro, the Italian Deli, and one restaurant that doesn’t even exist yet. Ori’s Café and Steakhouse, scheduled to open next spring, promoted their Peruvian-style chili and Brazilian cheese bread. CJ’s on the Bay provided the non-chili fixin’s and extras such as coleslaw.

The premier sponsors of the event were Rene Champagne and Bill Albanese, along with their wives, and in concert with “Chef Laura” Owen, the gentlemen took on the task of being those judges who sampled every single chili to the very last entry.

Fire Rescue Chief Chris Byrne thanked the chefs, and Fire Rescue Foundation president Dianna Dohm pointed out the chili cook-off is their organization’s major fundraiser for the year and called the event a major success.