A new show on the Travel Channel called “Food Paradise” has started production by recording trips to the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas and the 17th Street Bar & Grill in O’Fallon, Illinois. I am not sure if this is the same show that is currently seeking a host.

In other television news, AICE news reports that a film crew from the History Channel will be present at the burger contest at the Clinton Station Diner on Saturday.

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ESPN Radio 1250 has put up a page with pictures and some brief biographical information about the qualifiers for Friday’s Wing Championship Series finals.

A gallery (with minimal captions) of the Dallas Wing Championship Series is also available.

Brian Subich’s qualfication video is now available on philly.com’s Wing Bowl page

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(From an anonymous comment) An announcement for the La Costeña Jalapeño Eating Contest in Laredo, TX appears on the IFOCE website. The contest will be held on February 23 at the Jalapeño Festival. The total purse will be $5000. Registration opens Jan 22 at noon.

If no earlier IFOCE contests are held, there will be almost 4 months between full-fledged IFOCE competitions (not counting the Wing Bowl as a 100% IFOCE event). The announcement alludes to this hiatus:

The nations greatest athletes have been resting their gullets in the off-season and are ready to make a serious mark on 2008.

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1033espn.com has a page about the Dallas Wing Championship Series, which will have its first round on Sunday. Details about the first round follow:

* Sunday January 13 – Boston’s Pizza in Grapevine
* Begins with pre-game show before kick off of Divisional Game 1
* Contest begins in between the conclusion of Divisional game 1 and kick off of Divisional game 2
* Each team has 2 rounds of 3 players (6 participants total per team) competing against their own “teammates” in order to represent TEAM GAC or TEAM NATE in the finals
* 3 minute per round
* Winners from each round move to the semi final round to compete against 1 other person. The winner of the semi final round goes to the Finals on Sunday, February 2nd.

Nate of Team Nate is presumably Nate Newton, who weighed over 300 pounds as a member of the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s and was caught smuggling over 200 pounds of marijuana after his football career ended.

The first four qualifiers of the Pittsburgh Wing Championship Series finals are listed on espnradio1250.com’s WCS page: Mr. Good Time (30 wings), Obi Wing Kenobi (28), Broken Wing (65) and The Red Hot Wing Nut (54).

update Derek “Wing Tut” Payne has a blog entry about his participation in the Thursday qualifier.

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The organizer of the Lewisville, Texas tamale contest sent the following email:

Would it be possible to ask eaters on your site to rank the following five factors in order of their importance in deciding whether or not to attend a specific event?,

Location of the event (i.e. host city)
Date/Time of the event
Type of food being consumed
Prize money being offered
How I am treated at the event

If not, I certainly understand, but as an event sponsor and host we would really like to know what steps we could look at to make our event better for the participants. Thanks for your consideration.

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From IFOCE.com

Waffle House Waffle Eating Championship, Texas State Fair, Dallas, TX
1. Pat Bertoletti 29 waffles
2. Joey Chestnut 28.5 waffles
3. Tim “Eater X” Janus 21.25
4. Brad “Old School” Sciullo 17.5

Pat now has a two contest winning streak against Joey.

update CBS11.com has a video of the contest.

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From AICE news Black & White Cookie Eating Championship

1. Ian “The Invader” Hickman 11.0 cookies
1. Dale Boone 11.0 banned from AICE contest following event
3. Chris “the American” Schlesinger 9.66
4. Mike “The Real Skinny” Hoffman 7.50
5. Joel “The Cannon” Podelsky 7.00
6. “Sweet” Jill Stoler 3.00

Joe Menchetti was present, but was prevented from competing by Boone’s objections.

There was also a tie in the Texas State Fair corny dog eating contest with Brent Ricord and Mike Wilkes with 12 corny dogs in 10 minutes. DallasNews has an article about the contest. Both first place finishers received the original prize amount.

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The Fifth Annual World Corny Dog Eating Championship will take place at the Texas State Fair in Dallas on Sunday. The first prize is $500 and 2 roundtrip tickets on Southwest Airlines.

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The Kingpin of Cowtown received a press release about the Waffle House contest to be held October 7 at the Texas State Fair. The expected competitors listed in that document are:

The ten-minute all-you-can-eat waffle-eating contest will feature not merely an all-star cast of competitive eaters, but a virtual cornucopia of interesting characters to boot. Nipping at the heels of Chestnut and Bertoletti will be 26th-ranked Brad “Old School” Sciullo, a chef from Uniontown, PA, who can down a gallon of milk in 26 seconds. Sciullo recently upset a legion of higher-ranked gurgitators at the World Buffalo Wing Eating Championships. Also competing will be Brickhouse Braunstein from Bethesda, Dave “U.S. Male” Goldstein, and Walker “Texas Ranger” Duke, a waffle-specialist from Dallas, who has been boasting to everyone in earshot that he plans to upset Joey Chestnut in what he’s billing as, “the nosh heard around the world.”

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Hall Hunt has some pictures from the Kolache contest in Houston on his blog.

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TimeRecordNews has a report on the beanie burger eating contest at the Texas-Oklahoma Fair. Maurel Merette took advantage of 3 time champion Nathan Biller’s absence to win by eating 4 beanie burgers in 7 minutes.

I have not located any media coverage about the Houston Kolache contest. Friday night in Texas during football season is probably not the best time and place to maximize coverage.

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Kolache results from Sonya:

1. Joey Chestnut, 56 kolaches
2. Pat Bertoletti, 54
3. Bob Shoudt, 36
4. Sonya Thomas, 34
5. Hall Hunt, 27

Sonya will also compete in the Chicago jalapeno contest, where she expects to compete against Pat Bertoletti, Rich LeFevre and Erik Denmark.

Chron.com did a preview of the contest yesterday containing an interview with George Shea, who estimates the value of the publicity produced by Nathan’s contest at $100 million.

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Chron.com has a column mentioning the Kolache contest which says that Joey is expected to compete in it. Sonya, Pat & Tim are also listed as possible entrants.

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(From The Sicilian) This year’s Waffle House waffle eating contest will be held at the Texas State Fair in Dallas on October 7. Registration opens September 4.

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From a Rhonda Evans comment

At 1:00 P.M (C.S.T). on Saturday will be the World Tamale Eating Championship. The total purse is $3,000. “Eater X” will defend his title. Other entrants will include Rich LeFevre (may the tooth be in him), Marco Marquez, Pat Bruss, and Wild Bill Myers.

At 2:00 P.M. on Saturday will be the BBQ Sandwich Eating Championship. The total purse is $5,000. Expected to participate are Joey Chestnutt, Pat Bertoletti, Hall Hunt, Juliet Lee and Arturo Rios.

At 6:00 P.M. on Saturday will be the annual Buffalo Wing Championship from Dunn Tire Park, Buffalo, NY. I’m certain that Chip Simpson, the defending champ from last year will be there, and I would imagine that Sonya Thomas will be there also, since she has been present every year. I would also expect “Humble” Bob to attend if he doesn’t do BBQ Sandwiches. That should be a really good matchup between Chip and Sonya. Both have two or more wins apiece in chicken wings. (Sonya won the event in 2004.) The total purse is $2,550.

The assumption that Chip and Sonya will be in Buffalo is correct according to this press release

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The Star Telegram has an article about an eating contest between 10 people in the all you can eat section of the Texas Rangers ballpark.

Megamunch has a report about his and Carey Poehlmann’s attempt to do the “9 inning challenge” by eating an amount of hot dogs corresponding to the current inning number.

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The Kolache Factory World Kolache Eating Championship will be held in Houston after an Astros game on September 14. The purse will be $10,000 and registration is now open. The cannoli eating contest at the Feast of San Gennaro will also be held that day. Registraton for the cannoli contest opens August 24.

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The website for the Big Texan steakhouse now has a webcam pointed at the table reserved for diners who attempt the restaurant’s 72 ounce steak.

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Indiana James competed in the 2 person team vegetarian hot dog eating contest held in Austin, TX Saturday and wrote a blog entry about her experience. She ate 10.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes, a half hot dog more than her male teammate “Honeybun”. Their total of 20.5 hot dogs was good for second place. Fans of picnic style rules will be glad to know that apparently no teams took advantage of the blender.

“In second place, with 20 and a half, we have Honeybun and Indiana!” We smiled, happy that our prides were still in tact. The girl to my left was like, “OMG! I could only eat three!”

What’s cool is that for the rest of the day, I felt like a local celebrity. Everyone kept high fiving me, and asking me how many dogs I choked down. Even after we left, I was recognized. We made a stop over at End of an Ear to pick up the Voxtrot CD for Honeybun, and the clerk was all like “You were that girl from the hot dog contest!”

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VeggieDogContest.com has information about a vegetarian hot dog eating contest to be held in Austin, TX tomorrow. There will be both individual and doubles categories and additional prizes will be awarded for style and good sportsmanship.

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(Thanks Patrick Bertoletti) The Texas Observer blog has an entry about last Saturday’s BerryHill tamale eating contest won by Joey Chestnut with several pictures.

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BerryHill Grill Tamale Eating Contest results from erikdenmark.blogspot.com
Joey Chestnut – 53.5
Pat Bertoletti- 51
Humble Bob Shoudt – 45
Chip Simpson – 39
Erik the Red Denmark – 27
Nathan Biller – 21

For the second time in a week, Joey breaks a record by about 20%

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Chron.com has an article about Houston Cinco de Mayo festivities with a paragraph about the tamale contest:

A professional tamale-eating contest will debut at the Cinco de Mayo festival this year and will be covered by ESPN. Berryhill Baja Grill coordinated the contest with the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Seven of the top 10 competitive eaters will compete to see who can eat the most tamales in 12 minutes, Lopez said. Last year the winner ate 57 tamales in 12 minutes, he said.

No tamale eating contest appears on the ESPN or ESPN2 schedule for this weekend

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(Thanks Chip Simpson) WoodlandsOnline.com has a preview of next weekend’s Berryhill Tamale Eating contest The expected entrants in that article:

Among those already signed to challenge world-champion Chip Simpson of Harrisville, Pa., are Sonya Thomas, the 105-pound, 39-year-old Alexandria, Va., woman who is ranked Number 4 among all world competitive eaters. Returning this year will be Number 3 ranked Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago who consumed a record-shattering 48 3.5-ounce beef tamales in 2006 when he met with a tragic reversal of fortune. His loss made Simpson a winner with his 41 tamales eaten. Number 7 ranked Tim Janus is also returning.

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(From Nathan Biller) A Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese contest will be held at a College Station, TX McDonald’s on Saturday. The ad for the contest can be viewed after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

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