Week #18 Church Chili Cook-Off

Turns out that Sunday morning soccer does slightly limit the church going choices.  Today’s game was at 9:00am so that blocked off any church options from about 7:00am until noon.  Why so long, well there is really no writing project in the world that is worth being up with pants on before 7:00am on a Sunday, and even Jesus prefers followers who shower.  That left us with Friday or Saturday temple or any church that did a Sunday evening service, I know, I know, we’re already off to some pretty crappy planning for this project.  I guess it can only get better, but basing our church choice on the only p.m. service in our zip code pretty much kicked ass this week. 

Week #18, the Sunday we to an evening church service err I mean to a chili cook-off! 

In all fairness, this was not completely by design.  The church’s website did say there was a chili cook-off, but I assumed it was after the evening service.  But you know what happens when you assume…you skip boring church and just eat chili.  One misconception readers may have about this project is that we are mostly attending large churches where parishioners come and go, and new comers can just blend into the crowd.  To be honest, I shared this misconception after visiting World of Grace Christian Center’s website.  Perhaps it was the word “world” in the churches name, or the picture of the large building on the website, but I too was geared up for a relaxing hour of blending in followed by a nice bowl of chili in a crowded church hall.  But alas, an evening of minimal awkwardness was not in God’s master plan for the Sutos.  Half of the time, I get Brian to attend by assuring him we are headed for an awkwardness free event, and typically by the time we park he knows he’s been bamboozled.  There are a few telltale signs: are there less than 10 cars in the parking lot, is everyone Korean, are there Mitt Romney or worse “W” bumper stickers…  This time there was not a high volume of cars.  Not alarmingly low, but not particularly high. 

Once inside, the lobby was pretty empty. There was a balcony overlooking the lobby and a tall white guy standing at the top.  When we clearly did not know where we were going, he informed us that the chili was upstairs, but “we’re here for the service” I explained.  The acoustics were not great, so again he informed us that the chili was upstairs, and again, I said “we’re here for church.”  “Church is the chili cook-off tonight” he explained.  At this point leaving would have been way more rude than crashing a church chili cook-off, I think.  Regardless, we went upstairs and crashed a church chili cook-off. 

These folks didn’t mess around.  There was a chili king with a crown and cape and chili rating score cards.  The room had maybe ten or twelve six top tables with chips and salsa and even sombreros for centerpieces.  We sat with a lovely couple, probably my parent’s age, and began chili tasting.  All of the churches regulars thought it was hilarious that we happened to be visiting the church for the first time and it just happened to be the evening of their 21^st annual chili cookoff (little did they know).  I am not comfortable telling people directly that I’m collecting church experiences for a writing project, so I just explained that we committed to attending church each week, and my soccer game made us miss any a.m. service.  That was true enough, but I didn’t want them to think we were disappointed that we missed church, which we were not.  Plus they threw in some bible and chili trivia throughout the evening.  I got one question correct, and it was not the one about Mathew 7:10.  It was which city has more chili restaurants than McDonalds’.  I think I can list maybe 7 books in the bible-unless all of the apostle have their own book, then maybe 10.  Yes, I know there were 12 apostles.  What I’m saying is I can confidently name 8 of them plus Genesis and Exodus and I’m sure two more.  The point is, I did know that Cincinnati has more chili huts than golden arches, and I’m calling that a win.  

Oh and the best part, they played a game after dinner called “would you want it in your chili” or something to that effect.  Basically, they blindfolded 4 volunteers and made them stick their hands into containers with random items and determine whether or not the item would go in chili.  They had the cooked spaghetti noodles and other usual suspects, but the game organizer had balls.  There was also a container of live crickets and live goldfish.  Evidently, it is not that easy to identify living creatures from a bowl of wet grapes; one lady straight squished some crickets in her fingers.  It was pretty awesome. I’m sure their church services are great too, but we plan to wait until next year’s cook-off and pretend it was an accident again.