NEWS

“The members of the Pod of the Pass would like to invite everyone to a pot luck dinner at the American Legion on Shell Drive following Patsy Elliott's memorial. It will be served at 4:00 p.m.” (Bud Barrick)

“ATTENTION!!!! To ALL who will be attending TICC this year you may think this is to early to be asking but it is not we need gate volunteers!!!!!!!! So if you are interested in helping again this year or have never done it and want to help please email me at Winksintexas@aol.com I will also be at the GPM we will need all shifts covered again this year......we can never have too many people helping.................Thanks in advance!” Dianne Stimson

Reminder: There will be a meeting of the Pod On The Pedernales this evening at the Silver K Café. Social hour will be at 6:00 and the business meeting will begin at 7:00.

COOKOFF STORIES

Let’s get our focus back on the full half of the glass. I’d like to focus on the little stories and experiences that make cookoffs memorable. These create the special quality that keeps us going to cookoffs. I invite you all to send tales of something funny or special that happened recently or from long ago. Here’s a little kickoff story from me:

My philosophy is that most cooks turn in very good chili so that has little to do with placing at cookoffs. I figure it’s just your day or it isn’t. Our recent trip to Chicago was a fine example.

On Thursday evening, joking around with Bill Pierson, I said, ‘I fear our Texas recipe will singe the palates of your Midwestern judges.’ On a lark, we decided to cook each other’s chili on Sunday.

At Saturday’s cookoff, only a couple of the visiting cooks made it through to Finals. We all got eliminated during the preliminary judging. I figured my assessment to be correct and looked forward to cooking Bill’s meat and spices on Sunday.

Sunday, there were fewer cooks and we all made it to Finals. As I helped clean up after judging, several of the Finals judges commented about how the chili was better on Sunday. As it turned out, all of the traveling cooks placed except the one who cooked Chicago meat and spices – me! Oh, Bill placed. He was cooking the Texas blend.

POTPOURRI

Happy Birthday to Dick DeiTos.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.” - Miss Piggy

News items and pictures for the CHN can be emailed to pepperdean@ctesc.net