A blog entry on the Calgary Herald’s website says that the San Jose Stealth of the National Lacrosse League will have Joey Chestnut compete in a macaroni & cheese eating contest. The Stealth’s schedule page has details about that event which will take place on February 21:

Major League Eating Contest. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut to compete against fans to see who eats the most Mac & Cheese.

Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, the top competitive eater in the world, and local hero to compete against fans to see who eats the most Mac & Cheese.

The first 3000 fans will receive a Joey Chestnut bobblehead. No registration information is listed.

The Stealth’s opponent on February 21 will be the Colorado Mammoth, which hosted the KBPI Wing Bowl yesterday. If anyone has results from that contest, please list them in the comments.

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The San Jose Mercury reports that Bear Silber purchased Pizza Party (formerly Pizza and Pipes) restaurant. Silber finished the restaurant’s Belly Buster Pizza challenge in December 2006 with a time of 38 minutes. (Joey Chestnut completed the pizza four days later with a time of 15 minutes.

In other San Jose news, one of the Man vs. Food sites was SmokeEaters (former University Chicken) and Adam Richman tried the Hellfire Challenge there.

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Pat Bertoletti commented that he ate the 5 pound Burritozilla at Iguana’s Taqueria in San Jose in 1 minute and 41 seconds, breaking Joey Chestnut’s record. (Joey Chestnut may have since regained the record). Pat’s Burritozilla mark is included on the list of eating challenge results on deepdisheats.com which includes feats such as the 40 inch pizza (with a partner) at the Pizza Machine and the Tex-ass doughnut from Voodoo doughnuts in Portland, OR in 23 seconds which have not received much media attention.

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• BeautifulBrian.com has a commentary about Brad Sciullo
• Video of Famous Famiglia pizza eating contest
• Joey Chestnut mentioned during San Jose city council meeting
• Picture of Badlands Booker and Erik Denmark at the Nashville Krystal qualifier
• Boston area hot dog contest Oct 25 says it will offer $200 in cash prizes
• Report on Antioch, IL hot dog contest

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• Hall Hunt article in U of Florida student paper. Hall had a bad knee while he ran a marathon last Saturday. An article about Erin Andrews appears in the same issue.
• Crazy Legs Conti and Tim Janus appear in music video by Low Water (myspace)
• Wing Tut previews the contests he will MC this weekend. Samatha Brown of the Travel Channel might compete in the Italian sausage contest.
• MissBusyLady contemplates a Burritozilla attempt
• News items after May 8 removed from IFOCE home page
• Article about Randy Harrison, participant in the US Open of Competitive Eating
• WLOCE registration is open (from Crawfish comment)
• MTV’s video game blog has footage of the first two minutes of the MLE game
• Blog entry about Pauliesaurus challenge. The current prize is $250.

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In 2004, Iguana’s Taqueria in San Jose held a contest in which $500 was awarded to the fastest finisher of a 5.25 pound “Burritozilla” burrito. Joey Chestnut would win that contest with a time of 4 minutes and 26 seconds, which would launch his competitive eating career. A yelp thread about the restaurant reports that Joey continues to train on Burritozillas. A picture of the burrito with a ruler shows it is about a foot and a half long.

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The San Jose Mercury blog reports that Joey Chestnut judged a hot dog eating contest at half time of the basketball game between San Jose State and Santa Clara. The blog entry is about the author getting an autograph from Joey.

I told him a friend of mine was a fan (again: not totally sure about this now), and I asked for his autograph.

I also told him I work at the Merc (at least until my editors read this) and was covering the game (full disclosure is always best).

For good measure, I asked if he is currently enrolled at SJSU.

“Yeah, but I’m only taking two classes,” he said. Then he paused and kinda half-grinned. “I do other things.”

66 dogs in 12 minutes — I’d say that qualifies as “other things.”

J.C. was really, really nice, and very polite, and he happily signed the autograph (FYI: he’s lefthanded).

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The San Jose Mercury has a new article about 99 year old Bozo Miller, listed by Guinness at the “world’s greatest trencherman” when that book had an eating records section.

No one could eat or drink like Bozo, and he took on all comers. He once ate 27 two-pound chickens in a row. He drank two quarts of liquor in an hour, chug-a-lugging each quart separately. Both feats landed him in Guinness.

Such drinking could kill a man. But everyone Bozo knew at his age, even those who observed sensible diets and drank moderately, is dead.

Bozo – no one calls him Eddie or Miller – is the last of Oakland’s true characters. When he managed to push back from the table, he was a bookie, a gambler, a fight manager and a restaurateur.

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The Spartan, the newspaper of San Jose State University, has a long article about Joey Chestnut, who will be in Myrtle Beach this weekend:

Even when he’s not participating in an eating contest, Chestnut’s plate is always full.

For 38-to-40 hours a week, Chestnut works as a project engineer for Gonsalves & Stronck Construction, a San Carlos-based company.

His class load, though only six units this semester, includes a construction law and a fluid dynamics course.

Yesterday, he competed in a barbecue ribs competition in Reno, and Saturday he will fly to Myrtle Beach, S.C. to see how many pulled pork sandwiches he can fit down his gullet.

“It’s tough,” Chestnut says. “School’s taken a little bit of a hit – more than I’ve wanted it to. I’m a part-time student almost since the start. I pay for everything myself.”

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MercuryNews.com has both an article and an editorial about Joey Chestnut’s quest to dethrone Kobayashi. The editorial makes the following proposal:

The city of Chestnut’s girth should do something to honor a famous resident. Since there is no big eating contest on the West Coast, there’s opportunity for San Jose. The city has spent millions of dollars bringing the Grand Prix auto race to town; it could get cheaper mileage by sponsoring Chestnut at an eat-off with burritos or Vietnamese spring rolls.

Tens of thousands would flood downtown restaurants. And those fans would surely know how to eat.

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MetroActive.com has an article about a circus peanut (a type of candy, not a nut) eating contest. While the winner is probably not a threat to Joey Chestnut as the best local eater, what the evening lacked in dominant eating performances, it made up for in bizarreness:

The entire spectacle was intertwined with a few films of Pink and Partridge’s exploits back in the Mile High City, and completing this theater of the absurd was the house band, Beachkrieg, San Jose’s only surf band. They don German World War I uniforms, smoke cigars and insult the French all night while the frontman shreds on a Farfisa organ. Scrunched down in my chair in the audience, I let it all sink in: the Circus Peanuts, the vomit, the lounge outfits, the martinis, the Farfisa and the Pepto-Bismol. With my shoulders shrugged and my hands in the air, palms facing upward, I uttered a statement disguised as a question: “And people think there’s more to life than this?”

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MercuryNews.com has an interview with Joey Chestnut conducted at Iguanas Taqueria, where Joey began his competitive eating career. Joey says that the first place prize for the St. Pat’s Day Chowdown will be $15,000 and the corned beef contest will be 10 minutes. Joey also says he received that amount after declining the car he won for winning Wing Bowl 15.

Chestnut developed his throat and stomach muscles. They’re fast and powerful. He’s perfected his eating rhythm. He practices mind over matter, whether the matter is boiled, broiled, barbecued or deep fried.

And he’s been on the big stage before. Chestnut says he chewed through 25 contests last year and won about $60,000. When he won a chicken-wing contest in February, they offered him a car. “No thanks,” he said. “I just ate.”

Kidding. He took $15,000 cash instead.

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Bear Silber has posted a video of the construction & consumption of the 5 pound Belly Buster Pizza at Pizza & Pipes in Santa Clara to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbmt9ZdSqSU and has listed it as a video response to the Gal Sone 40000 calories video

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In a comment to a supersizedmeals.com post about Bear Silber finishing a 20 inch 5+ lb. pound pizza in 37 minutes at Pizza and Pipes in Santa Clara, Bear Silber mentions that Joey Chestnut completed the challenge on Wednesday in 15 minutes.

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The Wave Magazine of Silicon Valley has an interview with Joey Chestnut. Joey declares himself the greatest American eater and is quoted as describing pre-Kobayashi competitive eating “pretty much a joke.” Eaters who debuted before 2001 would probably disagree with that statement.

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There is an article about Joey Chestnut in his college paper, the San Jose State Spartan Daily.

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(from ahamburgertoday.com) At The Counter in Palo Alto, CA, there are 54 possible toppings for a burger. imeem.com has an account of an attempt to eat a burger with every available topping in under 30 minutes. The extra ingredients brought the weight of the sandwich from one pound to about 5 pounds.

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The San Jose Mercury has an article about Joey Chestnut’s record breaking performance at the goldenpalace.net grilled cheese contest Saturday which ends with a message to Takeru Kobayashi:

“I hope he knows I’m working hard, and if I do beat him, he’ll know I was coming to get him.”

(Does anyone know what the prize money for the grilled cheese contest was? Joey won $2,500, but I have been unable to find what the other prize amounts were.)

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Dan Reed of the San Jose Mercury News has an article about San Jose State student Joey Chestnut. Reed takes Joey to the Wendy’s on Monterey Highway in San Jose (where an extortionist claimed she found a fingertip in her chili) and he tries to consume eight containers of chili in 2 minutes. Chestnut will be competing in the Stockton Asparagus Festival, the site of his first victory last year.

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