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It smelled real good at the chili cook-off
By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK
NORTH LIMA
The spicy aroma of cooking chili filled the Common Ground Church Community building here.
It came from the efforts of nine area cooks who were vying for first place in the chili cook-off to benefit Goodness Grows.
“This is the first [time] many of them have done a competitive chili event,” said Greg Bowman, Goodness Grows executive director. “And they all came with a bit of trepidation, but they’re all happy to be here.”
Goodness Grows is an outreach ministry of Common Grounds Church. Funds raised at Saturday’s event will help with agricultural training, opportunities for new farmers in the area and ensuring that locally grown food reaches a market.
Kathryn Hatch, who operates the Zaney Pearl organic farm in Leetonia, made a meatless chili for the event, using food from her farm.
It’s a challenge competing against the meat chilis, she said.
“I like to top it with avocado and lime zest because once you get all those flavors together, you forget that you’re supposed to be eating meat,” she said. “At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”
The cook-off is a great idea, she added.
“They’re obviously trying to support local businesses, so this is a way that we can support them and they can support us,” Hatch said. “And it’s just fun.”
A panel of four judges sampled all nine of the chili recipes and chose winners for first, second and third place. Visitors were able to cast a vote in a people’s-choice category.
Lashale Pugh, a Goodness Grows board member, brought a friend and her granddaughter to the event.
“The chili’s good,” Pugh, of Campbell, said. “We’ve got lots of people; there’s a good-sized crowd. And everybody seems to be enjoying themselves.”
The nine chilis are very different from one another, Pugh noted.
“Some of them seem to have ingredients that most of us think of when we think of chili, and then you have some that are totally different, not tomato based,” she said.
Her favorites were made by Larry and Becky Wehr of Midway Mennonite Church, Columbiana, and Matt Baird of the Smokehouse Restaurant, Greenford.
Others agreed with her: Baird’s chili won the people’s-choice award.
Pugh’s friend, Charesse Alexander of Girard, said her favorite was the vegan chili prepared by Hatch.
“It didn’t have any meat in it. It had avocado in it. I thought that was really different,” she said.
She met a lot of people at the event.
“I guess you can’t beat good chili and new people,” Alexander said.
Pugh’s granddaughter, Jaleah Harris, 5, was thinking like a judge: Her favorite won first place.
It was made by Larry Deidrick of the Columbiana Diner.
Jaleah said it tasted good, adding that chili is one of her favorite foods.
Second place went to Terry Hauser of the Greenford Cupboard. The Wehrs took third place.