Feast Your Eyes on This Cooking Challenge: The Contestants

There is an old saying, about eating with your eyes. That is what we are about to do through this cooking contest, and we are just a week away from kicking off what we believe to be the first online video spicy cooking challenge. If not, then it is quite different than you will ever see anywhere else. Let me explain what Feast Your Eyes on This Cooking Challenge is going to be about. We have 8 contestants that will battle there way through several rounds of competition. Each round our spicy food contestants will get a challenge. Within the rules of that round’s challenge they might get certain ingredients to work with, a certain cooking method to use or perhaps a theme to follow. No matter what challenge we give, there will always be a choice the contestants will have to make. It could be that choice that makes or breaks them. The contestants will then have to create a video showing their cooking chops and demonstrate that the rules of that round’s challenge is being met. They will have several days to send the video to us, so we can share the videos with you.

The next step will be down by our judges. Our judges will be made up of sponsors, a renown hot sauce maker, and some ILIS staff. We might have a guest judge as well from time to time. Since there will be a lot of watching involved- 5 minute videos each in the beginning- the judges will also have a few days to send their favorite and least favorite video results to me. The judges will base their votes on 3 criteria- creativity, visually pleasing and following the challenge. Once I can tabulate all the votes, I will announce a winner and a loser for that round. The winner will get an advantage going into the next round, and the loser will be eliminated from the competition.

We will continue round by round until there is an overall winner. The winner of the Feast Your Eyes on This Cooking Challenge will get a free vendor’s booth at the Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire Show in Fairfield, Ohio on October 1-2, 2011. They will be highlighted at the show for their cooking achievements as well. The winner will also get $200 off a vendor’s booth at the NOLA Hot Sauce & Gourmet Food Show in New Orleans on July 16-17, 2011. They will also get 3 free submissions into the Fleur de Lis Awards and have an on stage product demo for the NOLA Show. Along with being crowned the Feast Your Eyes on This Cooking Challenge Champ, (what a mouthful), they will also get a trophy from us at ILoveItSpicy.com.

We will kickoff the challenge off as soon as the Super Bowl is over. I will post a video announcing the first challenge and we will then follow the schedule below. In the meantime, I give you our 8 contestants. They were told to make a video 3 minutes or less telling you all a little about themselves, their company and why they wanted to be a part of this. They all did their own thing, and as you will see some of them have video editing skills and some do not. Unfortunately this is not about video editing, it is about cooking. Please do not hold that against them. Let us meet our 8 combatants.

Jay Calvert from Jake Albert’s Specialty Foods

Sam McCanless of Zane & Zack’s World Famous Honey Co.

Johnny McLaughlin of Heartbreaking Dawns

Clement Bourg of Cajun Heat

Bill Lawrence of Buddha Bill’s

Butch Taylor of Zydeco Hot Sauce

Rick Villafrede of Dragonfire Hot Sauce

Scott Walter of MN Specialty Foods & Judo Joel’s

Schedule:

Feb 6- Round 1 Challenge
Feb 12- Videos will need to be submitted by midnight
Feb 20- Round 1 Winner & Loser Announced, Round 2 Challenge
Feb 26- Round 2 submissions
March 4-6 Fiery Food Show
March 7th- Winner & Loser Round 2, Round 3 Challenge
March 13th- Round 3 submissions
March 20th- Winner & Loser Round 3, Round 4 Challenge
March 26th- Round 4 submissions
April 3rd- Winner & Loser Round 4, Round 5 Challenge
April 9th- Round 5 submissions
April 17th- Final 3 announced, Round 6 Challenge
April 23rd- Round 6 submissions
May 1st- Final 2 announced with Final Challenge (Round 7)
May 7th- Final Round Submissions
May 15th- Winner Announced

24 thoughts on “Feast Your Eyes on This Cooking Challenge: The Contestants

  • January 30, 2011 at 10:45 pm
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    February 6th cannot come soon enough…I am ready to bring the MUTHA FRIKKIN’ NOISE!!!!!!
    :_dancingdevil: :_greenpepper: :_redpepper: :racecar: :skateboard: :splode:

  • January 30, 2011 at 11:14 pm
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    Whuuut??? These guy’s I’m cookin against look like Pro’s! WTH was I thinking?( Oh now I remember, “Beer” talked me into it!) I’ll give it my best shot, so to the other competitors I wish great cooking, good luck, and don’t smash me too bad!!! lol

  • January 31, 2011 at 1:48 am
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    Looks like a great competition for sure. :_redpepper:

  • January 31, 2011 at 6:57 am
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    Great videos! I especially liked Johnny’s montage, and Clement made me laugh out loud, and Annabelle loved Butch’s LSU gear…good luck everybody!! Also, if you all took one or two of Sam’s shots before filming each video, that could make for some good TV….

  • January 31, 2011 at 8:42 am
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    Everything is better with a “montage,” I learned that from watching the Rocky movies.

  • January 31, 2011 at 8:47 am
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    I’m glad I have something to look forward to on the 6th… I’m certainly not excited about this years Super Bowl!

  • January 31, 2011 at 9:02 am
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    And so the competition line has been drawn. Watch out! Looks like some quality competition. Cant wait. :_toastbeer: :toilet: 😈 😈 😈

  • January 31, 2011 at 9:05 am
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    Clement, you’re one to watch out for on this one….I know those cajun stylin’s are going to tantalize the judges! That’s why I’m about to get strong by listening to jazz music and wrestlin’ gator…..of course the gator is already skinned, gutted and in a 1 lb bag…but never the less I’m wrestlin’ it!!

  • January 31, 2011 at 10:02 am
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    Buddah, are we allowed to know who all the judges are or not??

  • January 31, 2011 at 10:27 am
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    Representing Weekend of Fire, Debby Hartinger.
    Representing NOLA, Tracey Carter of JACS Tailgaters.
    Celebrity Judge & Mega-Golden Chile Winner, CaJohn Hard
    Representing ILIS, Fireside Thomas & Buddah.

    Although I won’t be judging all the time when we have guest judges, but I will break any ties. :chef:

  • January 31, 2011 at 10:34 am
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    Good luck everyone. This should be outstanding.

  • January 31, 2011 at 11:12 am
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    Awesome vids guys, this is going to be a lot of fun.

    -Jay

  • January 31, 2011 at 11:17 am
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    Fireside….lol

  • January 31, 2011 at 12:42 pm
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    It’s the kinder, gentler me….

  • January 31, 2011 at 5:33 pm
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    Feast your echoes on this! You guys need some external microphones! JUST KIDDING! Kinda. Anyway, good luck to all the participants.

  • January 31, 2011 at 9:27 pm
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    Ahhh… a real master of culinary delights! Hey Tony, how you be?

  • January 31, 2011 at 10:29 pm
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    Yeh tell me about it! I just don’t have a connection for one on the camera I received for Christmas, maybe I could use the tin can and string trick?? Oops, don’t want to give away any strategy!

  • February 3, 2011 at 4:43 pm
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    You sure that wasn’t Scott Roberts you were wrestling? Everyone assumed it was Nicole that was responding to him, but now I’m wondering…lol

    As a kid, I did get to see a guy wrestle a gator into the back of his pickup. It was on River Road in Norco, LA. It was a baby, about 4 feet long. It just happened to be crossing the road as this guy was driving by and thought, hey…there goes dinner!

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