It takes a lot of key ingredients to make up any good recipe.

It takes a lot of key ingredients to make up any good recipe.

The Boardman Optimist Club cooked up its third annual Great Political Chili Challenge on Wednesday night. It was the third year for the event in which 15 or so area politicians put aside their red-hot rhetoric and, instead, pour their energy into spicy chili.

The challenge pulls in a few thousand dollars for various children’s programs.

And it was a success despite missing one key ingredient:

Pete Gabriel.

Pete is the spice and beans of the chili event.

While a couple of hundred of us sweated away over chili and chat at Avion on the Water in Canfield, Pete was in the hospital recuperating from a medical crisis that had him wondering if this was his last chili event.

“They cut off my favorite Ohio State shirt,” said Pete of the hospital staff. “I’ve seen enough episodes of ‘ER’ to know that if they’re cutting off clothes, that’s not good.”

Pete has had heart problems for a while, and a slight touch of pneumonia last Sunday night set off a series of medical events that listed longer than a good chili recipe.

Some light-headedness after dinner that night prompted a 911 call. Then came a blackout. He has vague recall of a firefighter standing over him. And that’s the last memory until waking up in the hospital.

“I thought ‘I may not get out of here,’” he said of his first realization of his condition in the hospital. “In fact, no one [in the hospital] was acting like it was good.”

The chili event is all Pete.

He heard about it from another Optimist group and started it here.

He persuaded elected officials to take part and figured out a way for media-folks such as me to join in.

He chips away at it year round.

And the night of the event, his dominant presence is the only thing stronger than the chili. When his back problems flared up last year, he canvassed the event in his scooter.

Fellow Optimist member John D’Onofrio said simply: Without Pete’s drive, the event would not exist.

And there Pete was Wednesday on the disabled list as his event simmered on.

“I tried to talk them into letting me out for the chili event,” he said Friday.

“But I resigned myself to it being stupid to go there.”

But he kept up with the event anyway via a cell phone.

From his hospital bed, Pete called all evening long, getting updates from the folks hard at work filling his shoes.

The event was another success, raising approximately $4,000, as it always has (final numbers weren’t available Friday).

County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni won the political categories. I was able to three-peat in the media category.

(Full and honest disclosure: my wife cooked the chili, thank you. Unique ingredient: Honey).

Though I can’t speak for my co-winners, I know that a key reason for my win, besides my wife’s good cooking, was ample use of the rule that allows and encourages vote-buying and ballot-stuffing.

When several Youngstown Phantoms hockey players showed up for the event, I made sure they were well-funded for the voting process.

In talking to Pete on Friday — who was at home and feeling fine — he said that with 2009 chili work still to be tidied up, the 2010 event is already on the books at Avion.

“I already have the logo started,” he said.

One thing he needs though, is his Ohio State shirt.

“I do miss that shirt.”