A bowl of chili to beat the chill

BY PATRICK MCCORMACK

Cold and tired from visiting all the fun WinterFest activities? Warm back up by grabbing a bowl of chili, and benefit a local nonprofit in the process!

The 2023 Rotary Chili Challenge, sponsored by The Spice and Tea Exchange, will return indoors this year at Winterfest. The last few years the competition was either located outdoors or in various separate locations due to social distancing measures during the worst parts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s competition will be held on Jan. 28 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Meadowbrook Inn inside the Four Seasons ballroom. Tickets are $8 per person and can be purchased with cash or beforehand online.

“At The Spice and Tea Exchange,” said owner Andy Barth, “we’re all about food and helping everyone find their inner chef. As such, we are once again proud to sponsor the Rotary Chilly Chili Challenge for the 2023 WinterFest and help support the worthy causes of the Rotary Club. To help keep things spicy, we will be offering participants a free package of our Matanzas Chili Spice Blend for you to make a gallon of your own delicious chili!”

During the Chili Challenge competition, each participating restaurant will be paired with a local charitable organization who will receive all money donated to them or their associated restaurant by attendees at the event. This year’s participating restaurants and the charitable cause they are supporting include:

• Bistro Roca — Watauga Humane Society

• Gideon Ridge — Mountain

Alliance For Teens

• Hellbender Bed & Beverage — Middle Fork Greenway Conservancy

• Blowing Rock Ale House — High Country Care Givers

• Speckled Trout — Western Youth Network

• Meadowbrook Inn — Hunger and Health Coalition

• Twigs — High Country Breast Cancer Foundation

• Cafe Violtte — Blowing Rock Women of Agriculture

• Vidalia — Community Care Clinic

• Woodlands — Oasis Domestic Violence Shelter

• Timberlakes Restaurant — Not known as of publication

• Inn at Crestwood — Habitat for Humanity

• The Beacon — Blowing Rock Parkway Foundation

The 13 restaurants will showcase different chilies, and all proceeds from the event will be donated to those charities. The 2022 Blowing Rock WinterFest Chili Challenge winners were Hellbenders Bed & Beverages on Sunset Drive.

There will be two awards given out at the end of the contest — the People’s Choice award and the Golden Ladle award.

The People’s Choice award will be decided by whichever restaurant/ nonprofit pairing collects the most money. Attendees might select where to put their donations based on the quality of the chili, or to give support to their favorite local charity.

The Golden Ladle award will be selected by three secret judges, who will taste the chilies from all 13 restaurants. The judges will sample and score each restaurant’s offering for color, aroma, consistency and taste. The restaurant deemed to have the highest scoring chili will be crowned the 2023 Chili Challenge champion.

Of course, the true winners are the various associated nonprofit organizations, as well as the community members and tourists who get to chow down on some delicious chili. Make sure to stay up-to-date on the most recent information at blowingrockwinterfest.com/ schedule-of-events/.