Today is National Chili Day throughout the United States. The purpose of this holiday is to celebrate the food as an American staple. We’re going to do a bit of celebrating of our own with a county-fair style chili party.
INVITATION TYPE
- On-line – use an on-line service to send out rules and suggestions for the event.
DECORATIONS
- Decorations should be colorful and patriotic; much like you would see at a grand opening event and of course, your local county fair. Red, white and blue banners, colorful string pennants, balloons, and red and white checkered tablecloths are a must!
- Provide your guests with markers and index cards for labeling. More on this below.
- Have out any and all slow cookers you may own. If possible, have guests bring as well. Make sure to have plenty of power strips, surge protectors, extension cords and maybe rent a generator. You’ll need them.
- Make sure you have tons of bowls and spoons for tasting.
FOOD AND DRINK MENU
The main food of the day of course, is chili, and as you’ll see below in the Games section, there should be a wide variety of chili to choose from. So…provide your guests with accompaniments, condiments, and some dessert.
- Accompaniments: Corn bread, Fritos, tortilla chips, biscuits, flour tortillas.
- Condiments: Shredded cheese, hot sauce, sour cream, onions.
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Dessert: Cookies, Brownies, Pies
You don’t have to go nuts providing all three types of desserts. However, we suggest these treats because they are no hassle – put them out, leave them at room temperature, and forget about them. Guests can pick at their leisure.
- Drinks: Beer, Ice Tea, Lemonade
ENTERTAINMENT
- Some down home country music will add the perfect ambience to this event.
- Country line dancing – the dancing will help you burn off some of that chili!
GAMES
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Chili Cook Off – this is the main event!
- Have each guest prepare an average sized crock pot’s worth (about one gallon) of their best chili recipe.
- To ensure fairness, make sure each batch of chili is kept warm in a slow cooker. Make sure they label their batches with the index cards and markers.
- Hold a blind ballot to determine the winner. You can also have winners in different categories, such as “Most Original,” “Spiciest,” “Best Vegetarian,” etc. Use this award generator to come up with fun “blue ribbon” prizes for the winners.
- Pie Eating Contest
- Bobbing for Apples
ATTIRE
- Casual attire is fine for this affair. If you’re going to participate in a cook-off, you may want to bring an apron along. Also, with all the food going around, you may want to consider outfits with some extra breathing room. No one wants to see you unbuttoning your jeans after a huge meal.
LAST MINUTE TIPS
Have each guest submit their recipe to you ahead of time, but ensure you will keep it a secret until the cook-off. Print out the recipes to create mini keepsake cookbooks for everyone as parting gifts. Another thing you can do is create a website or blog for the event and post the recipes to the site (and of course, images) to share with your friends. Some good services include Blogger, MSN Spaces, and MySpace. Plus keep in mind, if you want to make this an annual affair, National Chili Day is held on the fourth Thursday of every February.
And as always, remember to bring your camera!
