The AICE website’s news page mentions that the Clinton Station Diner in western New Jersey has developed the world’s largest hamburger, the Mount Olympus, weighing 50 pounds total. No local news articles are avaiable and the sandwich is not currently mentioned on the restaurant’s website. The only details about the burger that I have been able to find come from a Mini Cooper forum page:

25 lbs. of beef
5 tomatoes
4 onions
5 cups of pickles
17 lbs. of bread

5 people are allowed 3 hours to eat it.

It appears that the diner will not have to give out many free 50 pound burgers. The challenge requires each team member to eat 10 pounds, so the average member of a succesful team needs to have the gastronomic capacity of Kate Stelnick. Kobayashi, Sonya Thomas, Joey Chestnut, Rich LeFevre and Kate Stelnick could probably finish it, but some members of that group require more significant remuneration than a free meal.

PermalinkComments

September 17 GoldenPalace.com grilled cheese qualifier, Oklahoma State Fair, Oklahoma City

From newsok.com: (video available and registration required)

1. Crazy Legs Conti, NYC, 17.5 sandwiches
2. Ryan Delano, Oklahoma City,17 sandwiches
3. Levi Oliver, Austin, TX 14 sandwiches

September 18 Krystal Square Off, Gwinnett County Fair, North Atlanta, GA

From ajc.com:

1. Tim “Eater X” Janus, NYC, 39 Krystals
2. Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough, 27 Krystals
3. Shaun Kessler, 26 Krystals

September 18 GoldenPalace.com grilled cheese qualifier, Salt Lake City, UT
(updated 9/19 10:51 pm) (from ifoce.com and bigbrian.org) Ron Koch wins with 18.5 sandwiches. (No other finishers are listed) “Big” Brian Subich misses the contest due to a missed connecting flight in Phoenix.

I have been unable to find an article about the contest in the Salt Lake City papers, but I have found a polygamy news section

PermalinkComments (7)

(from beautifulbrian.com)

Cookie Jarvis wins the cannoli eating contest Friday in Little Italy, NYC sponsored by the Festival of San Genarro. This is Jarvis’ third win in less than a month. Full results:

1. 26 Ed “Cookie” Jarvis
2. 22 Tim “Eater X” Janus
3. 21 “Crazy Legs” Conti
4. 18 Big Brian Subich
5. 11-12 Tim Holden

Eric “Badlands” Booker was present but did not defend his title. There is a rumor that George Shea tried to discourage Jarvis from competing due to his weight. If this is true, it contradicts the assertion by AICE that IFOCE is unconcerned about the health of its heavier eaters.

PermalinkComments (7)

“Cheap Seats” is a show on ESPN classic which aims to be the sports equivalent of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The program stars two comedians who watch old footage of minor sports and make comments they consider humerous. The third season of “Cheap Seats” opens Monday at 10 pm eastern and will feature Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating contest. It is not stated what year’s contest will be used, but it will be either 2004 or 2005 since those are the only two years that ESPN has broadcast the event. The show is 30 minutes so probably only the actual contest will be rerun with none of the accompanying profiles. If the “Cheap Seats” comedians are having writers block thinking of witty insults about IFOCE members, AICE would probably be happy to contribute some.

PermalinkComments (1)

(From beautifulbrian.com) In a very generous gesture, Pat Philbin has placed the trophy he won at the Philadelphia Nathan’s qualifier along with his competitor’s pass for the Coney Island contest on ebay with 100% of the proceeds going to the Red Cross for Katrina relief. The current bid is $108.51 which is a doubling of the bid from two days ago. Bidding ends September 22.

PermalinkComments (2)

The Grilled Cheese Page on goldenpalace.com has been updated with writeups of all the August qualifiers. The only pictures available are from the first two contests. Some pictures of Rich LeFevre at the Taste of Colorado contest can be found at the Canon digital photography forum.

That page also has a link to a profile of Donovan Busta from the Boulder Dirt written before the Colorado qualifier.

PermalinkComments

(From beautifulbrian.com bits & pieces) Chrissy, a Sonya Thomas fan from northern Virginia, has made a photo gallery of the Midway Slots Crabcake contest. Sonya is in several of the photographs, but there are also pictures of the top IFOCE eaters who participated in the contest. There are also a lot of generally positive comments about the pictures.

PermalinkComments

The UTC student paper has an article about a 2 minute preliminary Krystal contest open to UTC students only. Crystal Morris, the only female in the contest, managed 6 burgers. The best 10 eaters in Krystal preliminaries will advance to a second round contest whose winner will compete in the main Krystal contest.

PermalinkComments

Sonya Thomas broke her 2 event losing streak Monday at the Chattanooga Krystal burger qualifer, defeating Joey Chestnut in her fourth epic battle with the rookie in the past month. Her total of 57 hamburgers beat Joey Chestnut by one burger and bested her mark last year by 11 burgers. Surprisingly, Sonya does not mention the contest results on her website.

PermalinkComments (4)

The Atlanta Journal Constitution home page has a link to a video from the Waffle House contest with an interview with Joey Chestnut. (No direct link, if the video is no longer available on the main page try the video page.) Surprisingly, no text article containing contest results is available on the site (or if it is present I have not been able to find it.)

Thanks Larry McNeil for the link

PermalinkComments (11)

Joey Chestnut wins the Waffle House contest in suburban Atlanta with 18.5 waffles beating Sonya Thomas by half a waffle. This is the first victory for Joey Chestnut over Sonya Thomas after several close defeats. Joey Chestnut gave half his $5,000 first place prize to hurricane Katrina relief. Patrick Bertoletti finished 3rd with 11 waffles. Sonya Thomas will have the chance to obtain one victory this extended holiday weekend when she competes in the Krystal burger qualifier in Chattanooga on Labor Day.

In other contests this weekend, Cookie Jarvis won the Buffalo Wing Festival “Buffet Bowl” contest and Rich LeFevre won the Colorado Grilled Cheese qualifier with 21 sandwiches. Ron Koch finished second with 19 sandwiches.

PermalinkComments (8)

In a shocking upset, Eric “Badlands” Booker won the Buffalo Wing contest at the Buffalo Wing Festival Saturday. His total of 137 wings beat Sonya Thomas’ total by ten wings. This is Sonya Thomas first loss to an eater besides Kobayashi since the Philadelphia Wing Bowl in early February, a period of about seven months. There is apparently no controversy about the Buffalo result which could not be claimed for the Wing Bowl. The upset is especially suprising given that Sonya almost ate twice as many lobsters as Booker in the Maine lobster contest in August. Sonya will have the chance to resume her non-Kobayashi winning streak when she competes in the Atlanta Waffle House contest on Sunday and the Chattanooga Krystal qualifier on Labor Day. Cookie Jarvis was 3rd and Bob Shoudt placed 4th.

PermalinkComments (3)

The Buffalo News promotes this weekend’s Wing Festival. No new information is provided about the eating contests.

PermalinkComments (1)

The University of Chattanooga student paper describes “eat-in” contests to be held over the weekend to select 10 Chattanooga residents to compete in Monday’s qualifier contest against Sonya Thomas and other top IFOCE eaters.

PermalinkComments

The Atlanta Journal Constitution has a short preview of Sunday’s Waffle House World Waffle Eating Championship. The contest will be 10 minutes long. Sonya Thomas is the only listed expected entrant.

With $5,000 for first place, it might make financial sense for Kobayashi to put the “world” in World Waffle Eating Championship, as that prize could pay for a transpacific flight and have a considerable amount left over.

PermalinkComments (11)

The Des Moines Regsister has a very nice profile of Rich and Carlene LeFevre focusing on their appearance at the August 21 Smoked Pork Championships in Council Bluffs.

PermalinkComments

The Buffalo Wing Festival has the expected entrants list for Saturday’s Buffalo wing contest. Most of the top IFOCE members from the northeast will attend, but Joe LaRue is the only competitor listed from outside that region. I am not sure if that is the final list or if other eaters might show up. No information is available about Sunday’s buffet contest, but I assume that some gurgitators will hang around for that event. Brian Subich is back from a two week hiatus with additional information about the wing contest.

Sonya Thomas appears to have a quite stern challenge preserving her almost seven-month non-Kobayashi winning streak this holiday weekend when she competes in three contests in three different cities. First she will match up with Tim Janus coming off a record smashing performance in grilled cheese along with a resurgent Cookie Jarvis in Buffalo and then face a rested Joey Chestnut in waffles in Atlanta Sunday. On labor day in Chattanooga she will face off with Joey Chestnut again in the Krystal burger qualifier.

(Thanks Sonya for the website compliment on sonyatheblackwidow.com)

PermalinkComments

I hope that everyone in the southern half of the central time zone came through Katrina as well as possible. It is hard to believe that damage was less than originally expected when seeing the all images of devastation.

Updated Aug 31 12:39 am If the first day was slightly better than expected, the second and subsequent days appear to be much much worse. My prayers go out to everyone affected by this catastrophe.

Here is a much happier instance of another force of nature visiting Louisiana from earlier this year.

PermalinkComments (1)

The Lincoln Journal Star has a full article on the grilled cheese contest at the Nebraska State Fair. It mentions that Tim Janus often ate two sandwiches at a time after soaking them in Key Lime flavored carbonated water.

Omahans Alicia Garcia and Nikki Sanders consumed 10 and 9 sandwiches respectively, totals close to the winning Sturgis result of 11.75 sandwiches. Hopefully their feeling sick after the contest will not prevent them from entering future competitions.

PermalinkComments (2)

At the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln, Tim “Eater X” Janus wins with a record smashing performance of 31 sandwiches. This destroys Sonya Thomas’ record of 25 set earlier this year and is the best mark so far on the Grilled Cheese circuit by almost 10. Sonya has already changed her number of records on sonyatheblackwidow.com to 25 from 26, a very classy move. Sonya might regret advising Tim Janus at the US Open that he needed to improve his stomach capacity.

From omaha.com (registration required so I will just quote the relevant part)

STATE FAIR PARK – How do you eat 31 grilled-cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes?

Dip them in water and wash them down with soda, which dissolves the bread, according to Tim “Eater X” Janus, a New York City stock broker and the No. 7-ranked speed eater in the world.

Janus, 26, established what is apparently a world record for downing grilled cheese at the fair Saturday. He qualified for the national championship in October.

About 250 people witnessed the spectacle.

Eater X, who donned face paint to psych out a dozen local rivals, said another trick is to eat big meals to stretch out your stomach.

Mike Nafziger, a chef from Fremont, placed a distant second with 14 sandwiches. Jason Smith of Bellevue finished third with 131/2 sandwiches.

PermalinkComments (7)

The Fremont Tribune has a preview of Saturday’s Grilled Cheese contest at the Nebraska State Fair, focusing on Mike Nafziger, who finished 5th at last Sunday’s smoked pork contest. It does not mention if any top ranked IFOCE members are expected. It also says that the grilled cheese finals will be held in Los Angeles.

PermalinkComments

Three days after the cancelled Nathan’s qualifier, the Saratoga Race Cource holds a (non IFOCE/AICE) ice cream contest. It seems like it would have made sense to hold the Nathan’s qualifer in conjunction with the ice cream contest on Wednesday and avoid the conflicts with all the August 21 contests.

PermalinkComments (1)

Phillyburbs.com has an article about the NJ Pizza contest. As usual for many newspaper articles, it focuses on a local who finishes out of the top spots.

Thanks Bob Shoudt for the link.

PermalinkComments

The Golden Palace website has a page on the grilled cheese qualifiers with pictures and results from the San Diego and Sturgis events and a video from Detroit (but nothing from Springfield)

Thanks Patrick Bertoletti for the link

PermalinkComments

The Detroit Free Press has put out another article four days after a contest focusing on locals finishing out of the top spots about the Grilled Cheese qualifier at the Michigan state fair. The article mentions that there will be a grilled cheese finals in Phoenix in October. (I was not sure if there would be a final contest or if the bonus money would be alloted to the best finishers in the qualifiers)

Thanks Patrick Bertoletti for the link

PermalinkComments (1)