Competitive Eating: March 2008 Archives
By Krista
Someone blue and furry once said, "Sometimes me think what is love, and then me think love is what last cookie is for. Me give up the last cookie for you."
Truer words have never been spoken...unless you are in the midst of an eating competition, in which case you can't give up your last cookie...because then it would be cheating.
It had been a long time since Liz and I had covered and eating competition together. A really long time, but boy did it bring back memories. Awesome memories of meatballs and Atlantic City, grilled cheese in Time Square, and corned beef and cabbage in Boston. This weekend found us in yet another location: Denver, Colorado among mountains...of cookies. Chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies to be exact. And there were even more differences. This contest wasn't being photographed by the Associated Press and Badlands Booker and Crazy Legs were nowhere to be found. In their place was a trio of Asian brothers, aged 7 - 15, and the only cameras snapping photos were those attached to family and friends of the contestants.
The contest took place at Olde Tyme Drafts and Dawgs and anyone could enter as long as they donated $5 to charity - in this case the charity benefitted was Operation Smile. Liz had been to one of their eating contests before, so thought it would be great if we all went this time and perhaps even got one of our friends to enter. So who to ask, who to ask....well there was really only one choice and that choice was Micah.
Micah, who I happen to think is the bees knees, can eat mad quantities of food. He usually finishes all of my meals, meaning once he eats his, he then proceeds to clean my plate as well. I think he may have been a seal in a past life...a seal who couldn't swim...or something like that. Anyway, he wakes up hungry and he goes to bed hungry. This man seems to never feel full. I would think he had Prader-Willi syndrome, but he's never eaten so much he has made his stomach explode, so he does seem to have a handle on it somewhere.
So Liz and I somehow talked Micah into entering the contest. I think it had something to do with the words chocolate, chip, and cookie. However, I don't think he expected us to take it as seriously as we did. As soon as Micah agreed, Liz proceeded to contact tons of professional eaters for advice for him. Micah got a little scared, but I assured him on the drive over, we would love him unconditionally if he lost, which funny enough was Tim "Eater X" Janus' advice.
I also told him that Liz and I don't do things half-assed. If we are gonna do something, we are gonna DO something. Besides, who would turn down advice from someone at the top of the field? Crazy people that's who! Who wouldn't want to know that Pat Bertoletti, ranked 2nd in the world, thinks you should try to fold the cookie in half like a slice of pizza and suggested bringing warm beverages to dunk the cookies in. Which we totally did. Before we left Liz's place we made two containers of mint tea. Eric "Steakbellie" Livingston also offered advice in the way of "don't over stuff your mouth" and "dunk". Wise words.
While we were gearing Micah up for the competition we never thought the competition would include Marco "Mongo" Marquez, currently ranked 20 in the world or Andrew "Skinnyboy" Lane, ranked 35. Eeek. But in they walked. It was terrific to finally meet them, but bad news for Micah. However, we still had faith that our little eater had the guts to give them a run for their money. Other contestants included the three brothers mentioned above, one unnamed man who disappeared quickly after the contest, and a big-boned woman of a certain age, who seemed to enter the contest just to sit quietly at the corner of the
table and slowly eat and dunk a few choice cookies.
After the tables were set up with one glass of water, one glass of whole milk, and 2 plates containing 20 cookies each, the contest began. Micah came out swinging and nearly ate 10 cookies in no time flat. In fact, he seemed to be keeping pace with Mongo, the front runner. Could this be happening? He was doing everything we told him to: dunking, drinking, not overstuffing his mouth, not rushing too fast at the beginning. Before you knew it, he hit 15!
And then we saw it. The pause, the hand to the stomach, and the look of pure agony. It reminded me of the look Joey Chestnut gets late into every contest. The look that seems to say, I can go no further, yet that's what makes Joey a champion. He hits that wall and just charges through, Micah on the other hand, knew it was the end. He wasn't going to push through. It called an end to his brief flirtation with competitive eating. He's not willing or able to push past that internal wall that screams, No Mas!
In the end Mongo won with 26.5 cookies, Skinnyboy came in second with 22. Micah came in an impressive 3rd with 15.
Micah recovered pretty quickly after a night of laying on his side and watching TV with vows that it would be a long time before he ate another cookie. However, the next day while going into the fridge and grabbing one for me I asked him if he wanted a cookie. His reply: "Yeah, sure." Spoken like a true champion.
See Liz's Westword blog post about the competition!