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25th Annual Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship
November 29 @ 9:46 pm
America's Longest-Running Vegetarian Chili Cook-Off!
Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship
4301 West William Cannon at MoPac, Austin Texas
The Green Space at Whole Foods
(Across the parking lot from Whole Foods)
Sunday November 10th, 2013, 12pm to 5pm
Enter your chili team now!
Every year nearly 1000 people come to the Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship to taste chilis prepared by twenty to thirty different teams from the state of Texas—and this year we’re reaching out beyond the Lone Star State. All the chilis are completely vegan, no animal products used in their preparation whatsoever. In addition to the competing chili teams, there are many informational and educational booths, products and services offered by local vendors, door prizes, giveaways and guest speakers, and live music and entertainment.
These chili teams will amaze you with their delicious, heart-healthy, meatless chilis as they compete for prizes in two divisions!
People will move from team to team, tasting and judging the chilis for themselves to determine the People’s Choice award of $200, while a group of judges, many of them Austin and Texas celebrities and personalities, judge the four winners of Best Chili in two divisions. The “All Veg” division will be for chilis made with only vegetables, while the “Traditional” division will be for chilis that contain a meat analog or substitute like seitan or tempeh. Second place in each division gets $150, and first prize in each division gets $250!
The Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship began as an annual event in 1989, when four vegetarian societies from across the state of Texas joined to form the Lone Star Vegetarian Network. In the years since, the cook-off has been held in multiple locations all across the state, including West Columbia, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, South Padre Island, Fort Worth, and for a run of several years in Austin.
The goals of the Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship are first, to have fun and entertain everyone, and second to show everybody by example that “regular” foods can be just as tasty when they’re prepared vegetarian. Vegetarian food can come in very familiar and very delicious forms, and the classic Tex-Mex tradition of chili is a perfect example.
If you’re interested in competing as a chili cook-off team, or if you’re a vendor or organization interested in setting up a booth, please email the organizer, Brendan Good, at info@veggiechilicookoff.com.
The Lone Star Veggie Chili Championship has been messin’ with this Texas tradition for 24 years now, keeping chili weird, but also vegan and delicious. Mark your calendar and plan to catch the fun.
“Chili is Texas food, something that will attract people of all kinds, where we can show them that vegetarianism isn’t strange… it can be something as comfortable and familiar as a bowl of red.” – Shirley Wilkes-Johnson, founder
