• Juliet Lee has an Ash Creek rib contest report
• Clam eating contest in Seattle Saturday, first prize is $100
• Ryan Nerz podcast interview in Conversations on the Road
• Furious Pete is doing marketing research on a Furious Pete hat
• A Washington Post article on the rise of college Food Studies programs reports that “Horsemen of the Esophagus” is required reading one course.
• The Wall Street Journal reports that Japanese convenience store chain Lawson announced an annual increase in same store sales of 13%. Gal Sone endorsed a line of meals for Lawson in May.

Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with news from her trip to the Nathan’s finals where she received the 2008 IFOCE Rookie of the Year award. She also announced that she finished recording a documentary being produced by the Food Network.

The pictures above are from valjean615’s flickr gallery from the Nathan’s finals, which includes pictures of all competitors entrances (Arturo Rios also removed his shirt like Juris Shibayama) along with the Rookie of the Year ceremony. Patrick Vandam and Juris Shibayama were apparently the other finalists for that award.

• Sadie of Hungry Sisters got married last weekend and had a “wedding reception” at Krystal
• Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with a report from the Pittsburgh Nathan’s qualifier
• Beautiful Brian has a “bigger bit” about his second cousin Abe Vigoda
• Wing eating contest in Marietta, Georgia on Saturday
• Video of Gal Sone competing against Torii Miyuki in a Wednesday morning eating contest. Torii Miyuki is a comedienne who act consists of acting crazy while wearing pajamas.

The website for the British tabloid, The Mirror, has an article about Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier near Pittsburgh which asserts there are issues about Juliet Lee’s eligibility to enter that contest.

Results from anonymous comment & IFOCE.com report :

1. Juliet Lee 29
2. Jim Reeves 19 3/4
3. Micah Collins 19
4T. Steakbellie 17
4T. Brian Subich 17
Mike Landrich ?
Mike Iskoe ?

update The Pittsburgh Channel has a short article about the contest

update #2 Pittsburgh Live has a short article with three pictures

update #3 Some videos (missing a part 3) have been uploaded to youtube and Steakbellie has written a blog entry about the contest

(Thanks Super Paul Barlow) Dateline Carolina, the student newspaper for the University of South Carolina, has a mini-documentary about last Saturday’s eating contest at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach. The documentary includes footage of Beautiful Brian and Badlands Booker performing.

• Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with information about her last two contests
• Hall Hunt says the press release for the sweet corn eating contest announces that Sonya Thomas, Crazy Legs Conti and Joe LaRue will compete
• Wing Tut wants the next UEPa meeting to take place in the Pittsburgh Pirates AYCE section
• Steakbellie has thoughts about the new rankings, the MLE video game and Nathan’s
• Wing Kong also has thoughts on Nathan’s
• Charlotte Nascar track to offer AYCE seats (from the Hangman)
• Dan Rubenstein, who is traveling around the country producing videos for Sports Illustrated, competes in the qualifier for the Collegiate Nationals

Todays results from the contest at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach, SC from a “Wild” Bill Myers comment:

1.) Juliet Lee - finished all food items in approximately six minutes. (first title in an open contest)
2.) Badlands Bookers - finished all food items in eight minute, contest was stopped at this point. (first contest since March 2007)
3.) Nathan Biller - finished nachos, wings, hot dogs, and six of the twelve slices of pizza.
3.) Dave Goldstein - finished nachos, wings, hot dogs, and six of the twelve slices of pizza.
3.) Arturo Rios - finished nachos, wings, hot dogs, and six of the twelve slices of pizza.
6.) Joe Tursi - finished nachos, wings, hot dogs, and five of the twelve slices of pizza.
7.) William Myers - finished nachos, wings, hot dogs, and two of the twelve slices of pizza.
7.) Brian Seiken - finished nachos, wings, hot dogs, and two of the twelve slices of pizza.
9.) Shane Baker - finished nachos, wings, and 2.5 hot dogs.
10.) Pierre Abry - finished nachos, wings, and two hot dogs.
10.) Paul Barlow - finished nachos, wings, and two hot dogs.
10.) Rich Foley - finished nachos, wings, and two hot dogs.
13.) Bruce Pobanz - finished nachos, wings, and one hot dog.

update wpde.com has an article about the contest

update #2 MyrtleBeachOnline.com has a gallery and hotelsbycity has two pictures.

update #3 BeautifulBrian.com has contest video which includes the performance of “Bonebreaker Barlow” by Brian and Badlands Booker

The Baltimore Sun has an article about Juliet Lee. Juliet says she would not have entered competitive eating if not for Sonya Thomas and hopes to compete in a lobster contest one day. The article reports that the five foods at tomorrow’s Broadway at the Beach contest will be hot dogs, shrimp, chicken wings, pizza and Italian water ice.

Rich “Big Rig” Brooking attempts 32 inch pizza challenge in Charlotte
“Super Burger” constructed after reading about “Super Burger” kit on eatfeats via the New York Times Freakonomics blog.
Contest report and tips from Krispy Kreme Challenge participant
Juliet Lee updates her WriteNow page
Jill Stoler is down
Article about Jillian McCleaf, winner of top Wingette (no pictures)

(from Joey Lee) Clips from the turkey eating contest between Tim “Eater X” Janus and Juliet Lee from “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet” can be viewed online.

The full Turkey Bowl program can be viewed on the MLE page at http://www.ifilm.com/show/23406 There is also a video clip of Juliet Lee’s cranberry sauce victory.

The appearance of JulietLee.com has been updated and the new WriteNow page on julietlee.com describes how that site is produced. Juliet also responds to her critics.

Liz K has posted a video of “Humble” Bob Shoudt giving Juliet Lee a wing eating lessson at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oL1v1J8T0M

update Juliet Lee has posted a Krystals finals trip report in her WriteNow page.

The Naughty American has an article (contains spoilers) previewing the “Wedges & Wings” contest in which Joey Chestnut and Pat Bertoletti discuss female fans and cheating techniques.

Bertoletti claims that, while the competitions are closely monitored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) to prevent this sort of thing, there are ways to get around it.

“The dishonest people will push the rules a little bit. If it’s not stated in the rules, people will do it,” he said.

While the issue of cheating with drug use is a major problem with other sports, the IFOCE does not currently conduct drug testing on competitors.

“As far as drugs that would give me an edge, I haven’t found any yet,” Chestnut says. “But I’m trying.”

The Cleveland Free Times has a brief article about Chris “the Mad Greek” Abatsas’ participation in the wedges contest.

The Las Vegas Review Journal has pictures (captions contain spoilers) from the potato wedges contest.

Juliet Lee has a trip report.

Juliet Lee’s WriteNow page has a response to reports that she is considering retiring from competitive eating:

After the contest, Bruce “The Hangman” Pobanz apparently overhead me comment that it was time for me to retire from competitive eating. I did say that, but The Hangman (who is really a great guy) doesn’t really know me very well. If he did, he would probably have known that I was speaking out of frustration in the heat of the moment after having a bad day.

I’m not planning on retiring any time soon.

The gazette.net article about the Three Brothers pizza contest has been revised with more information about Juliet Lee and a picture of husband Joey competing in the amateur pizza eating contest.

Juliet Lee has added a WriteNow section to her website where contest notes and other news will be posted. The page currently has information about the Ash Creek Saloon ribs contest.

WBAL has a brief article about the 3 Brothers Pizza contest which claims that Sonya Thomas & Juliet Lee will compete.

(From Joe Callow) Juliet Lee has opened a website at julietlee.com.

Liz reports that Arturo Rios, Jr. was named the 2007 IFOCE rookie of the year. The new poll asks who you believe should have been awarded that honor. I am defining 2007 rookie as someone who first entered an IFOCE contest in 2006.

Gazette.net has an article about Juliet Lee in which Ryan Nerz appears to have forgotten about Carlene LeFevre:

She’s one of two women who have really made a mark on the sport, Nerz said.

Sonya ‘‘The Black Widow” Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., started on the competitive eaters circuit in 2003. She also eats one meal per day.

‘‘There’s good reasons why women might feel a little squeamish about doing such a graphic looking sport,” Nerz said. ‘‘It’s interesting that the two women who have broken in are tiny, dainty, very feminine women.”

Juliet says her performance was hurt by a root canal on July 2.

Juliet Lee in the Baltimore Sun
Pat Philbin in NorthJersey.com
Hall Hunt in Jacksonville.com
Steakbellie has miniprofiles of all the finalists

Juliet Lee’s victory at the Norfolk Nathan’s qualifier has been ranked #8 on ESPN Sportcenter’s plays of the day.

The Washington Times has an article about Juliet Lee which compares her to Sonya Thomas.

The AP article about the Norfolk qualifier has been picked up by a lot of outlets.

updateWUSA also has an article and video clip (from beautifulbrian.com & Joe Callow)
ABC news has a video clip on Yahoo (from the Sicilian)