When mom and dad gave birth to me November
4th, 1970, little did they know that they were giving birth to a chili cook kid.
In a few years, they would be raising me in an environment like no other. On
today's standards, I'm surprised the state didn't remove us. We were exposed
to a lot at a young age... drinking, cussing & nudity in some cases, but it was all in good clean fun. Some people look
at me today and question my humors and perspective in life, but all I say is look at the source.... I was raised as a "Chili Cook Kid". I had no choice but become
who I am today.
Mom and dad went to their first chili cook
off at Traders Village in April of 1976. Yes, that made me 5 1/2 years of age.
My younger sister Kristi was 9 months old in a stroller and my older sister Lisa was 9 years old. Mom and dad were
at Traders Village to look for fake fur to line the inside of our brown Chevy van. They came across some people too
wild to be believed, got involved in the pickled quail egg eating contest, and were immediately hooked. Like they say, the rest is history.
They named the "team" Bottom of the Barrel
Gang and Other Rotten Apples. They found that showmanship was more their niche
than chili and the Best Show Team ever evolved. At the time, the only members of the team were mom, dad, my uncle Perry
and some friends at my dads work, and of course us kids. Maybe because Lisa and
I were older, we were more involved with show. My younger sister Kristi would
be tied with one end of a rope around her waist and the other end tied to the table.
I guess that's how mom and dad kept up with us kids while they played. Soon
mom and dad met Karen & Tom Wayne and Beth & Jimmy Moon, Doug Beich, Pablo and Sandra. They all struck up a friendship.
By 1980, Doris Coats, Mike Sweet, and Ray & Judy King joined the team. (With
this group you can see why I'm screwed up) Each weekend we would travel Texas
together trying to win at show and chili. We always won in show, but it would take mom and dad almost a year just
to place in the top ten in chili.
In the beginning we would travel
EACH weekend to some little town in Texas for cook-offs. Every Wednesday, mom would unload the van from the weekend
before, and every Thursday, mom would reload the van for the coming weekend. (A tradition that still stands today) We would
travel in a van that my dad and grandfather had rigged. They welded a bed in the back for me and my two other sisters to sleep
on, while mom and dad slept on the middle chairs that folded into a bed. (I laugh
at the people on survivor. Try surviving a cook-off in a van with three kids every weekend) Behind the van was a trailer that
held the chili stand. The trailer was brown with yellow lettering that read Bottom
of the Barrel Gang on the sides and back. On the way to the cook-offs,
dad would stop at every historical marker he could find. (Now as an adult I appreciate the opportunities for these stops because
now I would love to do the same with my child.) Our weekends were filled with traveling from this point on doing show.
By the late 70's it became a
family affair each weekend. Besides the unusual friends that had joined the team,
my grandparents, Pat and Nita Winters would travel with us. I guess they tagged
along to help baby-sit us or maybe it was the cold beer and good times. Our chili stand consisted of a tattoo parlor, the
saloon, and a kissing booth. My grandfather Pat, or Dr. John known in the
chili world, would sit in the front of the stand giving free breast exams and cooking his world famous dead armadillo chili.
It consisted of a pigs tail, pigs ears, pigs feet in water, and chili powder to give it that chili color. Everyone believed
it was really armadillo. Nobody ate it of course; it was just for show.
And then there was dad, who walked around mooning his bright yellow underwear. On
his underwear was an armadillo hanging onto the sun. He would go thru the crowd
giving shotgun weddings in front of our stand. And then there was mom, Miss Glad
Ass Knight and her pits. She would wear a golden outfit. The pits would wear brown tuxedos, yellow afro wigs, and face painted
black. Along with them were the Booze Brothers in bright pink tuxedos. All of
them would sing chili songs. And who could forget Karen Wayne giving out kisses
in the kissing booth. Karen was more involved in walking around and freaking people out so I would sit in the window of the
kissing booth eventually dethroning Karen as Miss Cotton Candy. At age of 9,
I walked around in my bright pink outfit with balloons in my shirt for breast thinking I was hot shit because I was making
money by giving kisses to old men. (Like I said, I'm surprised the state didn't step in)
Mom would later become Miss Prairie Dog Hot Stuff with her Glad Ass Knight gig in 1979.
I jokingly tell everyone now that is why my sisters and I are always on show, we don't know any other way. It was the way we were raised.
By the mid 1980's the team was
tired of loading and unloading the chili stand. We gave up on the chili stand and went for another concept. Armadillo racing! Now mom and dad have built cages in our back yard that holds our armadillos. All with names like Bo dilla, Willie, Sherman, etc. Each day they would go out and clean the
armadillos and their cages. Each weekend we would now set up a race track at
the cook-offs for spectators to watch armadillo racing. (You know you're a redneck when..) This race gig went on for a couple
of years and eventually we would go thru what I call the corporate phase. We
found sponsors like Dodge. We no longer did show, instead showing cars for Dodge. Dad by this time is now driving a motor
home instead of a van. We were cooking under a canopy with a table and stove. I
miss those show days. I haven't seen show yet that compares to the old days. We were the original era of true show.
Growing up I was known as the Chili and Armadillo
girl in school, the one whose parents did chili on the weekends. My friends either hung out with me to go to the cook-offs,
others hung out with me because they knew mom and dad would be out of town for the weekend, either way it meant party time.
None the less, I was still the chili cook-off girl. When I got into my
teenage years, I got involved with the JRs division. I won a few and lost a few.
It taught me early on to have fun in life and not really worry about winning. Of
course, I always wanted to win, but by my late teens, I could have cared less about the chili world. Once you've been to one
cook-off, you've been to them all as far as I was concerned. After traveling
with mom and dad every weekend for 12 years, I was burnt out. I preferred to stay home with friends and not go anymore. I graduated and moved out of the house and only went to a handful of cook-offs each
year. In 1991 I moved to Miami, Florida, where there are NO cook-offs,
and stopped completely. Mom and dad still kept up the pace every weekend, traveling
somewhere to a cook-off and calling me letting me know if they won or not. Still
chasing points for Terlinqua.
Oh,Terlingua.....All our lives mom and dad
would leave for a week the first week of November. The excuse that we couldn't go was because it was for "adults
only". So November of 2000 I was turning 30 and I called mom and dad and said "hey, as far as I'm concerned I'm an adult now.".
"This year I'm going to Terlinqua!" I
wanted to see what all this cooking thru the year and missing my birthday each year was all about. My birthday just happens
to fall on that week (November 4th) EVERY YEAR so I never saw my parents for my birthday, (since the age
of 5.) It was pretty confusing as a child to celebrate my birthday the week before
the actual day. As a teen, this didn't matter much because it just meant that
I had the house to myself and all my rowdy friends for a whole week. (But don't
tell my parents that. I want them
to think I was a deprived birthday girl) (Oh the parties I had at the house while
they were gone). I went for the first time to Terlingua in 2000 and swore
I'd never miss another year. What a way to spend your birthday. I finally got
a birthday with my parents and all my new found friends. I came back to Miami
with a new perspective in life. I'm going to get back into the scene of the chili
world. That is what is missing from my life.
It's a part of my past and for my life to be truly fulfilled, it's got to be a part of my future.
I started going to a few cook-offs in the
northern part of Florida. Once again I have won some and I have lost some. But this time around, it is different than when
I was a teen cooking in the Jrs division. I'm traveling to Texas, Tennessee, and Florida cooking with the big boys. When I was a teen, I wanted to win. Now its not so much about
winning. Its about charity and making all the friends along the chili trail.
It's about going to Terlingua and seeing the changes the chili world has made at the end of the year. Winning is just a plus if your lucky that day. I could
cook for the rest of my life and not win anything in chili. I'd be just fine
with that, because I consider myself a winner in life anyway. I was raised with
great parents, great chili folks around me, and I learned that there is more to life than winning. I'm a chili cook kid and
damn proud of it. I don't care who questions my perspective in life and sense
of humors anymore. If they only knew the way I was raised, they'd understand. I have had a life like nobody else.
Thanks Mom & Dad!
Looking forward to many more years in chili.
Candi
The Chili Cook Kid
"Candi Kisses Chili"
I wrote the above in 2000. It
is now November of 2005 and alot has happened since then. I have been to Terlingua 6 years in a row. Done show
with South Side taking 3rd each year at TICC .... South Side has been around just as long as us "Knights".
I am now the treasurer of The Sunshine State Pod here in Florida and also a regional referee. My life is consumed
with Chili. I have an office in my house "in Florida" that is nothing but Texas, Chili and CASI stuff. I
am now raising my daughter Abbigail in the same environment as I was (without the 70's exposures I was was exposed to)
(anyone from back then knows what I'm talking about). She cooks my "public" chili all by herself. She has
her own little recipe and cooks it and serves it to the public. She loves to go on stage if I'm called at
the end of the day. We are our own little team. I think she is more into it than I am sometimes.
There are some days she does some outrageous thing and I say to myself "oh my gawd", I'm raising another chili
cook kid.... always on show. So here I am 5 years from writing the above story
raising another "chili cook kid" 3rd generation. Hopefully in 30 years she will
be raising the 4th generation of chili cook kids and she will be writing something similiar to this and thanking me for giving
her such a wonderful and exciting life....... just as my parents have gave me.
UPDATE: OCTOBER 1, 2007. I'm now
the Great Pepper of the Sunshine State Pod. I've established annual chili cookoffs here in Florida that I am very proud
of accomplishing. I've worked my butt off in getting things going in the past year here in Florida. I never thought
30 years after my parents went to their first cco, I'd be running chili cookoffs and I'd be a Great Pepper of a Pod.
Funny how life comes full circle. My hopes as Great Pepper is to make CASI grow here in Florida and get
new cooks involved. Make sure that there is a future that CASI and chili will go on when I'm ready to retire
from doing it all. One day I'll be able to show up at a cookoff and just cook (LOL) I know its going to be hard
work, but last year I decided I was going to give it my all to make it happen. I know I've got a
long road ahead of me. But I've already got a great support of chili cooks here in Florida that motivate
me to work this hard. Everything I do is to make sure that they have a future in chili and CASI has a future in Florida.
