For the first time in over six months, the IFOCE rankings have been updated. Congratulations to all the newly ranked eaters.

Tomorrow morning, Joe LaRue will look to better his record of 30 pancakes in 15 minutes at the pancake contest at the Central New York Maple Festival in Marathon, NY.

Jason Fagone has set up a web site at http://jasonfagone.com/ offering information about his upcoming book, Horsemen of the Esophagus. Fagone will have two book signings in Philadelphia in April and another in New York City in May. He intends to place information on his website that did not make the final revision of the book.

Two hot dog eating contests will be held this extended weekend. A hot dog eating contest will be held at Green’s Lunch in Charlotte on Saturday at 1 pm in honor of that establisment’s 80th birthday. On Monday, a hot dog eating contest will take place at Mother’s Grille in Baltimore at the conclusion of the Oriole’s season opener. Call the restaurants for contest details.

There are several upcoming movies about competitive eating in addition to the two books that will be released next month. Two documentaries were filmed at Wing Bowl 13 and a fictional movie about the Wing Bowl is in production. The new poll question ask which of these books/movies are you most eagerly anticipating.

Staying on the topic of competitive eating books, Brian Seiken announces that Ryan Nerz will be holding two book signings in New York City. There will also be a release party for “Eat This Book” at a currently undetermined location and time.

The New York Times has an article about Saturday’s Edible Book Festival in which Ryan Nerz’s upcoming book gets a brief mention.

Crazy Legs Conti will compete in a mini-hot dog contest against Dick D. Zigun, founder of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, during a gala benefit to support Coney Island arts. The event will take place on April 7 at the Crobar. Tickets are $100 and $250. George Shea will announce and officiate the contest. Donors can sponsor either eater by pledging an amount to contribute per hot dog eaten.

Despite the fall in popularity of Japanese competitive eating, it still apparently commands a prime time audience on broadcast television. In her myspace blog, Jen describes a currently running Japanese television series starring female competitive eaters. An eating contest is held in a different town each week and the food changes with each episode. This week’s contest involved seaweed in Okinawa. The show is like American Idol in that the worst performing competitor gets booted off the show. It would be interesting to see how the winning total in next week’s sausage contest compares to Sonya’s 35 bratwurst in 10 minutes.

Larry McNeil has a gallery of pictures from the goldenpalace.net Key Lime Pie eating contest from Panama City Beach in Florida on the buffet message board. The contest was right on the beach.

Eric Broe, the 3rd place finisher at that contest (and winner of the amateur event) played football at Florida State University. It is not clear if Broe has retired due to injuries or if he is still a member of the team. Broe is a computer science major.

Thanks Jon Bertoletti. Pat Bertoletti appears in a commercial on the USA television network website. The ad is part of the network’s “Show us your character” campaign.

Several podcasts of the Paunch Stevenson show have some competitive eating content in general and Sonya Thomas in particular.

Liz of Urban Honking received a copy of “Horsemen of the Esophagus” several weeks before its official release date after meeting with author Jason Fagone. She has posted a review of the book on her blog. The main figures in the book are Coondog O’Karma and Bill “El Wingador” Simmons. IFOCE eaters were discouraged from being interviewed by their organization. IFOCE also commissioned the publication of Ryan Nerz’s book “Eat This Book” so that is why two competitive eating books are being released next month.

Correction 3/28 4:21 PM: Liz met with the editor of the book and not the author.

(from supersizedmeals.com) No reason is provided why Chris wore a women’s one piece bathing suit when he attempted the Seabrook Tavern’s (in Topeka, KS) 3 pound Speck burger challenge, but if it was to give him Sonya Thomas’ or Kate Stelnick’s eating ability, his hopes were not realized.

(from Laura’s livejournal) While there has been a lot of attempts the Rockford Corner Bar chili dog challenge, there is another hot dog challenge in the northeast with a more modest all time record. All Spike’s Junkyard Dogs have a hot dog Wall of Fame Eating 6 hot dogs is required to get your picture on the wall and a T Shirt. The highest total on a Wall of Fame is 17 at the Thayer Street location in Providence. Eating 18 hot dogs or more will result in the restaurant picking up the tab according to this metafilter comment.

Dave Shoffner has started a new blog at http://megamunch.blogspot.com/ Like SuperSizedMeals.com, the main focus of the blog is the preparation and attempted consumption of abnormally large meals, but there is also some competitive eating content. The blog’s initial entry describes Ashley’s consumption of a one pound burger from Fuddruckers

If Tim “Eater X” Janus believes he has conquered all the eating challenges in the midwest, there are some southwest eating challenges he can try. The El Paso Times has an article about local eating challenges. A burrito eating contest was cancelled at one of the restaurants because it was giving away too many free burritos.

In the last four months, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day themed eating contests have been held. The new poll question asks what the next holiday themed eating contest should be. (For non-US residents, April 15 is the day income taxes from the previous year are due)

AICE has dropped numeric rankings and has implemented a new system similar to movie and restaurant rankings (4 stars = top class.) There are listed criteria that an eater needs to achieve to obtain a particular ranking level. According to the AICE news page for March 23, one of the goals of the new ranking system is to take into account an “eater’s value as an entertainer” and not just his/her contest results. There are four levels in the rankings, 4 stars, 3 stars, 2 stars and honorable mention. Kobayashi is the only non-AICE eater in the 4 star classification.

(Comments are turned off for this post and comments about the AICE ranking system will not be allowed on other posts.)

In this forum thread, powerlifters describe their personal eating records and offer their thoughts on competitive eating. One powerlifter was impressed with the physiques of the eaters on the MTV True Life documentary about competitive eating.

At the request of Kevin Carr, I will not list any results from the Rockford Corner Bar unless I receive an email from an eater asking me to report his result (or he could just state his result in a comment.) I was originally going to list those results tonight unless someone emailed me today to not post his total. Thanks to Kevin Carr again for an excellent submission.

The Rockford Corner Bar has an online Hall of Fame, but no there are no links to it from the restaurant’s home page. All results are from 2003 and 2004 so it is apparently not being updated. No ranked IFOCE or AICE members are present in the online Hall of Fame. The highest amount is 20 chili dogs, reached by Kurt, Brian Johns, Nate McManus and Erin VanDeffelen

Thanks very much Kevin Carr. Kevin made a trip north to Michigan yesterday to attempt the Chili Dog Challenge at the Rockford Corner Bar and try to learn the identies of the eaters who have recently attempted the record.

Kevin learned of four other IFOCE members other than Tim Janus who have recently attempted the challenge. All four eaters reached the 20 chili dog mark (at which point the meal is free) with two breaking the 30 dog level, but at least one eater vomited. I have omitted the identies of those eaters from Kevin’s report. I will list their identities tomorrow at 10 pm eastern unless they email ojrifkin@yahoo.com and request that his (they are all male) result not be posted.

In his report, Kevin mentioned that he is on standby for a Nathan’s qualifier spot. Spaces must be extremely tight if a ranked eater who competed in last year’s US Open is not guaranteed a spot.

Kevin emailed me this report:

REPORT FROM THE ROCKFORD CORNER BAR

After hearing the news of Tim “Eater X” Janus’s recent victory at the Rockford Corner Bar, I was naturally curious about the challenge. It was only a 5 hour drive from my home, so I thought I’d run up there and take the challenge myself. I’m on stand-by for a Nathan’s qualifier, and I’ve never eaten hot dogs in a contest, so I wanted to test my mettle so to speak.

Also, there have been conflicting reports in the press and the eating community about what’s been going on up there. Call it the writer in me, but I wanted to go to the source to get the full story.

Read the rest of this entry »

Don “Moses” Lerman has apparently worked out the glitches with mosesnews.com and in a recent post he says he intends to enter as many as six Nathan’s qualifiers. The registration page on Nathan’s website clearly states that the maximum number of qualifiers a competitor can enter is three. Is there an exemption to that limit for long time Nathan’s competitors? The three qualifier limit was enforced for Carlene LeFevre last year.

In other mosesnews news, Don Lerman says he intends to sell some of his competitive eating embroidered jackets on ebay.

(Thanks Brian Subich & beautifulbrian.com - Happy 46th birthday Brian) CBS News has an article about Mama Lena’s Pizza’s quest for a Guinness world record for the largest commercially available pizza. The McKees Rocks (outside Pittsburgh) pizzeria has created a pizza called the “Big One” that sells for $99.99. 20 pounds of dough and 15 pounds of cheese are required to construct the 150 slice pie. Pittsburgh Live also has an article about the pizzeria and its gargantuan creation. No eating challenge is apparently available for the pizza.

The pizzeria’s desire for recognition in Guinness was inspired by the publicity that Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub received for having the world’s largest cheeseburger. Click “Read the rest of this entry” to see Kate Stelnick with Denny’s plaque from Guinness (The plaque lists the weight of the 96er as 9 pounds and not the advertised value of 11 pounds)

Read the rest of this entry »

The March issue (print only not available online) of Spin Magazine has a near full page article (on page 40) about Eric “Badlands” Booker’s rap CDs. The article is not in the reviews section, so there is not an in depth analysis of the tracks, but the author does claim that Booker is a worthy student of the school of East Coast Rap. Booker says that the topic of competitive eating is not a gimmick; he is rapping about his everyday life when he busts rhymes about eating contests. Charles Hardy’s anti-AICE guest appearance is mentioned as one of the tracks. The April issue of Spin will be out soon so your time to check that article out is limited.

If you would like to see the start of the original version of the Boston Herald article that inaccurately reported that Sonya Thomas competed in the March 16 corned beef and cabbage contest, it can be found on the GoldenPalace website. No attribution is provided for that page and its second paragraph matches the second paragraph of the current version of the Herald’s article. Two videos of the contest are also available.