Spillimacheen’s annual Spilli Chilli Cookoff

Every year on a Saturday in early June, come rain or shine, 700 or so chilli lovers from far and wide find their way to Spillimacheen for the annual Spilli Chilli Cookoff, as contestants vie to have their special chilli recipes declared the best in the valley.

It’s an all-you-can-eat feast with close to twenty cooks serving up their finest chilli with homemade buns and some tortilla chips, musicians playing, arts and crafts for sale, hot dogs, ice cream and friends visiting after a long winter in the deep-freeze.

For the price of a dollar, you get a spoon and tickets for door prizes and you can visit each of the booths to sample the different chilli entries. Some are blazing hot, some a little more mellow, but we guarantee you will be in chilli-lovers heaven – and you get to vote on your own personal favorite!

Chilli connoisseurs, Scott and Stacey Neumann, say the event was like being in chilli lovers’ heaven. “Being avid chilli fans ourselves, we had definite criteria in mind when we sampled the entries,” they say. “A hint of heat but not too hot. Not too thick or too thin. Good texture. The freshest of ingredients.”

The judges always have a difficult time choosing the winners in five categories – Best Show Booth, Best Commercial Chilli, The People’s Choice, Blind-judged and Best Showmanship, but they come through with flying colors and it’s all in good fun.

The Spilli Chilli Cookoff had its beginning in 1995 when Dennis and Nola Alt, a local couple with roots in Texas, where chilli is practically a staple, were longing for an end to the long winter and agreed that a chilli cookoff would be a fun thing to try in the Columbia Valley. Of course, almost no one here had heard of a chilli cookoff but being great sports, lots of enthusiastic people got on board to help out, talented local musicians came to play some down-home music and 200 people showed up to eat chilli. The rest is history and the annual event has become a must-go-to event each year for more and more valley residents and visitors.

So make a date in June to come to Spillimacheen for a real taste of Columbia Valley hospitality with a generous helping of the best chilli ever. You will have hardly tasted your last scrumptious spoonful before you will be looking forward to next year’s cookoff! See you there!

You can find out more about the annual Spilli Chilli Cookoff by visiting http://www.spillichilli.com/index.htm .