Kiera Valente ’13 | Staff Writer

As a part of the Foods for Fitness class schedule, students participated in the annual chili cook-off on Thursday, April 11. .

Students from the third and fifth hour classes competed against teams in their own hour and then the winner of each hour competed against each other, Foods for Fitness teacher Marianne Vukas said.

“There were twelve teams per class,” said Vukas. “Everyone just worked in their lab groups.”

Students spent a day in the computer lab before the competition researching recipes, Vukas said. Some groups ended up finding a recipe online that they liked while others brought in recipes from home.

“Adam (Van Osdol ’16) found our recipe online when we spent the day in the lab,” said Natalie Crow ’16, a member of the winning team.

The winning team, “Hella Hot Mess” was made up of all freshman, Crow said. Along with Crow and Van Osdol on the team were Kori Webb, Avery Tucker and Sarah Giammaria.

“We found out we won from the announcements,” said Crow. “It was really exciting.”

Along with “Hella Hot Mess” which was the third hour winner and the all-around semester winner, second place went to “My Mom’s Chili Recipe”, a group from fifth period.

Once students had picked out their recipes they made up a shopping list, which they gave to Vukas, she said. She then spent her Tuesday night getting the ingredients for students. This included 14 pounds of ground beef.

“Each recipe was different,” said Vukas. “I ended up with so many different kinds of ingredients it was interesting to see what each group picked out.”

The next day students prepared their chili, Vukas said.

“They (students) did all the prep work for the chili and left it on the stove to cook and then throughout the day I checked on it,” said Vukas. “Then I put it in the refrigerator and then the next day we just heated it back up and then students presented their chilies to the judges.”

Each hour had different judges, Vukas said, with around five judges for each hour.

“I judged for third hour,” said English teacher Ericka Henk. “We were supposed to judge based on taste, presentation and consistency.”

Vukas also mentioned in the future being interested in having a chili cook-off against North, which is something that was done in the past.