A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 
Walking mad cow blues

Ithaca knows how to throw a party. Yippie yi yeh, or something approximate, as Roy would say. Roy Rogers, that is.

If you were down on the Commons Saturday for the 7th Annual Chili Cook off, you saw Ithacans of all stripes and persuasions having fun. Giving the finger to the old bogeyman, Winter, turning up their collars against the vicissitudes of climate, shrugging off months of melatonin deprivation, turning the heat up a couple of btu by consuming gallons of fiery Ithaca style chili , hot enough to burn the whiskers off of a prarie dog.

Not.

Ez ran into a dude from New Mexico Saturday who complained that the lines in front of the concessions were too long.

"Having lived in the Southwest, I don't think I'd be impressed by the chili in Ithaca."

He opted for the Tofu stir fry at the Wok Hut or some similarly named establishment in Center Ithaca. You know, authentic Chinese cuisine. Served up in styrofoam containers by a girl from Tibet.

Why would an ice-locked town in upstate New York, a thousand miles away from the nearest poblano patch, famed more for its consumption of tofu than any particular love of heat seeking peppers, have a chili fesival? Does Potsdam have a lo mein festival? Does Syracuse have a taco bake-off? Have you ever heard of Albequerue celebrating Baked Potato Day? So, the idea of having a chili fest with a mechanical bull that looks like it was assembled from rusted Volvo parts , in the middle of February with snow still covering the benches on the Commons, seems like a bit of a disconnect, doesn't it?

And what about Mad Cow Disease?

From what Ez could tell, most of the folks on the Commons Saturday , migrating happily from concession to concession , were not particularily interested in checking out the ingredients of what was being slopped into their styrofoam cups. Hey, it's 30 degrees out here, every ten minutes it starts hailing, and there's beef in some of that chili, folks. You know, beef shipped in from parts unknown, like - Washington State; beef that might have been stored in some deep hoary freezer from before the FDA started clamping down. Do you know where your beef has been?

Oops. But look on the bright side, Ithacans. At least, we don't have a Chicken Barbeque Festival. So, no one's going to be coming down with bird flu anytime soon.

Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:40 AM