On Veteran’s Day, I ate at the VFW hall in Norfolk with a happy crowd that ladles their dinner into cupcake tins and spends a whole lot of time jacked up on capsaicin, the stuff that makes hot peppers hot.

 

The occasion: the local Pepper Lovers Club’s annual chili cook-off. I was lucky enough to be asked to be a judge. I arrived at the VFW hall (where a table-for-one is eternally set in the foyer for the soldier who is missing in action) just before 7 p.m. Inside the VFW, 27 (count ‘em, 27) varieties of chili awaited us judges, who included Steve Giuffre, owner of Buffalo Beach in Virginia Beach, Chef Willie Moats of Byrd & Baldwin Bros. Steakhouse in Norfolk, and the winners of the Fleet Week chili cook-off.

 

For an hour, we sampled spoonfuls of chili – chili with beans, without beans and non-traditional chili with venison, chicken and other meats. We nibbled corn chips intermittently and had a darn hard time deciding on the winners.

 

Flavors ranged from licorice to curry to traditional cumin flavored chili. Not a single one was deemed less than really, really good.

 

In the end, Ron and Marion Malone took first prize in the “no beans” division with their Chesapeake Chili. A club member known to all as Turbo took first in the “with beans” division with T’s Venison Chili. And Dale Hendren took first in the “non-traditional” category with his Black Bean Chili.

 

Club member Terry Ward (that's him in the picture) handed winners trophies more than twice as tall as a slow cooker, and everyone got to try all the chili, thus the cupcake tin dinner plates.

 

Thanks for inviting me, y’all. Can’t wait till next year!