Chili Cook-Off leaves some green with envy

The UHCL Chili Cook-Off is the oldest tradition here at UHCL. Every year, the campus and local community come together to celebrate Hunter the Hawk’s birthday, eat delicious chili and make long-lasting memories while having a great time!

This year, I was one of two captains for the Hawk Leadership Institute’s Chili Cook-Off team. Before I volunteered for this role I thought I would just have to help gather a team together, think of a theme and make chili. I was sadly mistaken. The rules and regulations for the Chili Cook-Off are extensive to ensure that the event is as safe as it is fun. For example, I had to get fire extinguisher certified before my team could even submit an application.

Last year, the Hawk Leadership Institute (HLI) won the Spirit Award and third place chili. I didn’t want to be responsible for us not winning any awards this year, so my Co-Captain Natalia Marfil and I got to work planning immediately. I already knew that we worked well together, so when we sat down to think about themes we instantly came up with an Area 51 theme.

We decided to have a huge banner with “area” crossed out and “HLI” spray painted in its place. We bought caution tape, alien balloons and various other Area 51 themed items to really make our booth stand out.

Our chili was just as unique as our theme! We decided to go with a white chicken chili and dye it green after we were done to make it stand out. In hindsight, this wasn’t a good idea because once the green food coloring was mixed with the chili, it looked more like vomit than green chili. This was probably why our chili wasn’t the biggest hit.

The day of the Chili cook off was really exciting! There were moon bounces, a rock wall, volleyball games and even a real life fire truck that one of the Chili Cook-Off teams brought to go along with their theme! Not to be cocky or anything, but once we set up our booth I automatically knew that we were going to win AT LEAST one award. Our theme was easily the most creative and elaborate. We even had one of our team members dress up in an alien morph suit and run around the Chili Cook-Off grounds every few minutes. After hearing people rave about our theme for hours, we were excited about the awards ceremony. Understandably, we didn’t win any of the awards that had to do with chili, but we won the spirit and most popular booth award!

I can definitely see why the Chili Cook-Off is UHCL’s oldest tradition. Everybody seemed to have a lot of fun expressing their creativity through their booth themes, and the chili was delicious! As a team captain, I’m glad that I could keep HLI’s award legacy alive, and I look forward to attending the Chili Cook-Off next year!

Facebook Live coverage of the Chili Cook-Off. Video by The Signal reporter, Izuh Ikpeama.

Facebook Live coverage of the Chili Cook-Off award ceremony. Video by The Signal reporter, Izuh Ikpeama.

Also published on Medium.