Chiliheads, unite! World cook-off comes to WVa

Frog jumping and armadillo racing were among the activities Doug Wilkey and some college buddies stoked their competitive fires with over the years.

Chili cook-offs outlasted them all.

Wilkey won his first chili competition nearly three decades ago and is still going strong. Success is the driving force, and Wilkey has the approval of judges' taste buds to prove it, including the International Chili Society's world championship for his version of traditional red chili.

"Anytime you pick something to do besides your profession, you like to excel at it," Wilkey said. "To win the world championship is proof of that. It's a pretty big deal."

The Shoreline, Wash., dentist will be among nearly 400 competitors who plan to travel to Charleston for the ICS world championship Oct. 9-11.

This year marks the first time in its 43-year history that the competition will be held east of the Mississippi River. Typically the cook-off has been in California or Nevada.

Wilkey has competed all over the map, a nod to his youth when he rode show horses and was a member of the University of Washington's crew team in the late 1960s.

Several years after earning his dental degree in 1972, Wilkey and other former athletes started looking for fun things to do.

They raced armadillos in Idaho. In 1981, they had eight frogs flown in from Louisiana, each as big as a size-12 shoe, to compete in the famed Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog Jubilee at Angels Camp, Calif. Their best finish was ninth.

Wilkey started chili cook-offs in 1980, defeating about 80 other competitors for the Washington state championship. The next year, he won Canada's national chili cook-off.

"When I found chili, I didn't have to play softball anymore," he said.

He met his wife, Cathy, at a cook-off in 1994. She had won the ICS world title for red chili the year before. Doug Wilkey earned his world title in 2005.

The world championships involve red and green chili categories, along with salsa. Competitors must first win a regional title from among dozens held around the United States, Canada and even the Cayman Islands.

A "last-chance" cook-off will enable 10 previous nonqualifiers in the red chili category to get into the finals. Defending champions get a free pass into the finals.

Reigning red chili champ Georgia Weller of Rockton, Ill., started in chili cook-offs in 1989, winning her first regional competition in 1990 in Louisiana.

Initially, Weller teamed with her husband, Jim. Eventually the couple started competing individually and both won world titles: Georgia in 1996, and Jim in 2000. The couple has traveled as far as Hawaii and Alaska to compete.

"At first we weren't concerned about winning," said Georgia Weller, who works in accounting. "Once you became a little successful, that made you want to do it a little more as well."

The ICS has its roots in a competition that started in Texas in 1967. Eventually the group that ran the contest splintered and a new group, the ICS, was formed in California. The Chili Appreciation Society International Inc. is holding its 43rd annual world championships in November in Terlingua, Texas.

Carol Hancock, owner and CEO of the San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based nonprofit ICS, awarded the world championships to Charleston after a city group came up with a host venue and several sponsors.

Mother Nature is the sole reason the championships haven't come east before, she said.

"It's just not really a good idea for us to take a chance that we're going to get blown away on the East Coast when the West Coast has perfect weather in October," Hancock said. "I'm taking a huge chance and the reason I'm going east is they have the money."

Because of the recession, Hancock anticipated a drop in interest at chili competitions and she even scaled back the minimum number of cooks required at regional qualifiers. It turned out that wasn't necessary.

This year a record 167 cooks are expected to be entered in red chili. According to ICS rules, red chili is made with meat, spices and red chili peppers. Beans and pasta are prohibited.

Some $40,000 in prizes will be handed out at Charleston's Appalachian Power Park, including a $25,000 first-place check to the red chili winner.

Chili cooks have a three-hour time limit to stir their pots. And because no beans are allowed, the final product usually bears little resemblance to a version they whip up at home. The judges look for the proper blend of spices, meat and peppers; color; and consistency.

Doug Wilkey said it's all about bringing the right flavors together at the right time for the judges.

"I believe it is a three-hour chemical reaction," he said.

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If You Go ...

Charleston is within a six-hour drive of major population centers, including Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, Washington, D.C., Charlotte, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and Indianapolis.

Trees will be near peak in fall splendor in much of the state, although a week or two later in the Charleston area.

About 1.5 hours to the south near Fayetteville there's the New River Gorge Bridge, which carries four-lane U.S. 19 some 876 feet above the New River. A nearby visitors center provides a great view. Better yet, a prearranged whitewater rafting trip on the New or Gauley rivers could be just the ticket for a memorable trip if a chili championship trophy is out of reach.

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On the Net:

International Chili Society, http://www.chilicookoff.com

West Virginia Division of Tourism, http://www.wvtourism.com