An Old Friend and a Chili Cookoff

Brian's "otha brotha," Tugi, came from Virginia to visit and do some serious snowboarding. He was only staying in Layton one night, so the Park clan threw a nice little gathering for dinner. A good time and amazing food was had by all. Terri (mama Park) put together a fabulous fiesta! Chicken fajitas and tacos with all the fixins: Mexican rice, re fried beans, guacamole...the works. They let me bring an appetizer/dessert this time (sometimes I wonder if they doubt my mad kitchen skills.) I made a delicious Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Sugar chips. It was so yummy! Click for the >>Recipe<< I love Pinterest.

Kim w/ Claire, Becky, Caleb w/ Carson, and John

Brian, Tugi, Terri and I

The following day, Go Travel had a Chili cookoff to kick off Superbowl weekend. (Any excuse to work as little as possible.) The contenders: Stacy, Joe, Pam, Chris and myself were to face off in an epic battle of the beans.

When a reminder was sent throughout the office the day before judgement day, it was brought to our attention that there had been a minimal (nonexistent) amount of trash talk leading up to the event. So of course the office explodes with emails boasting their superior recipes from generations past, with supposed "Mayaztincan" (Mayan, Aztec and Incan) origin, and another from the far away land of Detroit. Mine? I probably got it off of the internet, but I've changed the recipe so much that I think I can officially call it my own; with exotic flavors of canned whats-its and prepackaged turkey. But...it is really good chili. One problem...I don't know how to trash talk! One of the many unfortunate misgivings of being an only child. So I did what I always do in times of uncertainty...I Googled it. WikiHow took me through the 5 step program of "How to Trash Talk:"

• Step #1 - insult your opponents mothers
• Step #2 - LIE. false trash talk is most effective
• Step #3 - repeat the previous steps as necessary
• Step #4 - if you lose, discontinue trash talk and hide immediately
• Step #5 - challenge opponents to another match

I don't know who violated Pam's flyer (aca-Stacy)

Pam had already posted fliers in the kitchen and around the office promoting her "Chili con Gringo" (I don't think she actually put whitey IN the chili though, don't worry.) I, being the not-so-confrontational type, whipped up my own trash talking flyer. 

*Not for wussies

It got ugly and lasted until minutes before the contest. We eventually let the chili do the talking with a blind taste test for our Judge panel: Amber, Tom, and Jonathan. Brave souls that they are, they rated us very highly and it was very close! Joe got first place (I'm sure he bribed someone on the panel - Joe wins everything, and is therefore banned from future work contests.) Actually it was very good. I don't remember where everyone else placed but I got 3rd (out of 5). A comfortable middle - I've decided that I'm okay with that. I was told later that I shouldn't have played it so safe with the heat: I toned it down a little where I should have kicked it up! Next time there will be no question.

Anyhow, who can beat a work day like that? Chili and trash talk really brought us all together.

I love my job.