While there is no shortage of fun activities at the Ocean Beach Street Fair, the day\u2019s signature event is easily the chili cook-off feature, which takes place at Veterans\u2019 Plaza at the foot of Newport Avenue. If you like chili, there will be no better place to sample variations on the delicacy than at this year\u2019s street fair.
\nTasting begins at 11 a.m., though the line starts forming at 10 a.m. Tickets for tasting and judging the various entries run $1 for two servings, or you can get a People\u2019s Choice ticket for $20, allowing you to sample all of the team\u2019s chili offerings. This year, there will be almost two dozen competitors in two categories \u2014 restaurant and amateur \u2014 with judging based on consistency, smell, color and taste. Both meat and vegetarian chili will be available. But, you\u2019re advised to get there early. Even with almost 60 gallons of chili from such local restaurants as Shades Oceanfront Bistro and Craves Cafe, alongside 10 gallons each from the contestants, it\u2019s all gone by 2 p.m. \u2014 if not before.
\nThe event was founded in 1984 by current OBMA board of directors member Mike Akey, who comes from a long line of chili enthusiasts, including his father, Angie Scaramuzzo. He is the event\u2019s chief judge. According to Akey, it\u2019s pretty easy to tell who has the best chili on competion day. “If you watch the lines, you can tell which one is most popular,” he said. “The longer the line, the more people that think it\u2019s good.” He said the teams of chilimakers go all out in order to win. And that doesn\u2019t always just apply to the recipes. “Some people dress up for this and they\u2019ll have a theme for their booth,” Akey said. “They get the people there involved. It\u2019s like a big show the whole time. The people are voting for their chili, so you want to get their attention. They go all-out for that,” he said. As for those secret chili recipes, he points out that exotic ingredients still pop up in some dishes, but not as often, “Pretty much those days are over,” he said. “You hear about someone using rattlesnake and so on. People now use more common sense and shoot for winning.”
\nWinners also get prize money and a framed plaque. After three decades of work with the chili cook-off, does Akey still like the stuff? “Yes,” he laughed. “But not all year.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While there is no shortage of fun activities at the Ocean Beach Street Fair, the day\u2019s signature event is easily the chili cook-off feature, which takes place at Veterans\u2019 Plaza at the foot of Newport Avenue. If you like chili, there will be no better place to sample variations on the delicacy than at this […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":281266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Spice of life: chili cook-off will put zing in your zang","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}