[CH] Blah!Blah! and Ohio Chile Pepper Festival Report
LAconnection (erthlite@bright.net)
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 22:22:16 -0400
The lurker came out of his hole in the ground where he lived. It wasn't
a nasty damp hole with the ends of worms and such.......Oops wrong
fantasy.......
The lurker followed the groundhawg tunnel to the sunshine and emerged in
CARPO'S GARDEN!?!? What exit is this anyway?????
Okay, Okay....the large flat rock gets flipped over and Larry and
Alexandra come out of 3+ years of lurking on the Digest!
We gotta tell you about the first (hopefully annual) Ohio Chile Pepper
Festival held in Glouster Ohio. The day was perfect for the two-wheeled
transports and we rolled the motorcycles out for an excellent early fall
ride through the hills of Southern Ohio. When we arrived we noticed it
was not much different looking than many small town festivals, small
carnival, regular looking food stands, cheerleaders selling raffle
tickets etc. It wasn't until we parked and approached the high school
practice field track that we realized that the red stuff circling the
track was the biggest rista either of us had ever seen, 1/4 of a mile of
chiles!!! The organizers are apparently going for the Guinness World
Record or somesuch, so while Alexandra got sucked into stringing chiles
I headed straight for the salsa sampling booths. I didn't get far
before A tracked me down with the news that she had found the good
stuff... a 55 gallon drum of pickled Jalapena peppers, a veritable
MOTHER LODE!!! We parked outselves at the edge of the barrell and made
a fine spectacle of ourselves, tears streaming, power breathing through
pursed lips, hooting like animals etc. etc. Someone came up and filled
us in that these were the peppers used in the pepper eating contest held
the day before and that maybe we wanted to come back next year and
participate in the contest, the winner had eaten 11 and it was beginning
to look like we were putting a dent in the barrel.
It was at this time that I looked around me and said to A, "My dear,
were not in Wisconsin anymore!". Not a beer wagon or stand in
sight!!! Sometimes I flat forget that we live on the edge of the Bible
Belt and that things taken for granted in more northern states don't
exist here. Had to slake the thirst with a lemon shakeup, not the worst
but definitely not first choice. We got to meet a fine bunch of CHs,
some purveyors of great pepper products, bought some great Chile
t-shirts, stocked up on a few new salsas and sauces and had a wonderful
time.
The organizers are promising bigger and better next year (frothy yellow
oat soda too!) so look for announcements next fall. Glouster is just
north of Athens in southern Ohio.
We'll see some of you next weekend in James (the Elder) chile fields.
LAConnection