Conquering The Belly Bruiser

Brad Sciullo of Uniontown

Someone finally did it.  A Pennsylvania man spent nearly 5 hours digging into Denny’s Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser, the 15 pound burger (before condiments) I talked about during my Food Competition week.

It took Brad Sciullo 4 hours and 39 minutes to finish a marathon. A meat marathon, that is. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound western Pennsylvania chef is the first person to eat a monstrosity called the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser: a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds.

Sciullo said Monday he was surprised he finished the sandwich. “About three hours into it, things got tough,” he said.

Sciullo failed to mention, “By tough, I’m pretty sure my arteries stopped working for at least 30 seconds making it impossible for me to lift my arms.”

America’s Next Cooking Celebrity

America's Next Cooking Celebrity

Well, budding stars and starlets, here’s your chance for some interweb fame.  Better Homes and Garden is having a contest!

From the comment left on my blog:

You might want to let your readers know that Better Homes and Gardens magazine’s BetterRecipes.com
(http://www.betterrecipes.com) today launched America’s Next Cooking Celebrity online video contest.

To enter, upload your online cooking videos to BetterRecipes’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/betterrecipes). All videos should be one to three minutes in length, and submitted to the contest page by October 6, 2008. You must be 21 years of age to enter the contest, and you should cook your own original and unpublished recipe. For full official rules, visit http://www.betterrecipes.com/rules.

Two finalists from America’s Next Cooking Celebrity video contest will be flown to Des Moines, Iowa, for a Cook-Off in the Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchen. The grand prize in America’s Next Cooking Celebrity YouTube contest is 10 copies of a cookbook created by the winner on Tastebook.com (http://www.tastebook.com), a Sony Camcorder, and a trip package to Des Moines, Iowa. The runner-up will win a trip package to Des Moines, Iowa and a Sony Camcorder. Ten honorable mention winners will receive a Sony Digital Camera.

Let your readers know that creativity and originality will get you noticed!

Katie, of course, thinks I should go for it, but here’s a little secret:  I’m not that interesting to watch cook.  I don’t necessarily know what I would do to change that.  I’m at my funniest when: a) Katie’s around and I’m keeping her entertained, and b) I’m usually dressed in just my boxers.

No one needs to see that.  Even if it would net me some prizes.

But what’s stopping our more photogenic readers out there from winning for their very own.  Just send me a signed copy of your finished cookbook.

Eat It! Celebrating Eating Challenges – Day 5

Denny's Beer Barrelled Belly Buster

Wow.  A post a day.  I honestly didn’t think that would happen.  This idea started out of a need to force myself into posting more regularly and it seems to have worked.  Apparently while I may hate school I actually need the order and deadlines that it forces me to follow.

Day 5 ends this little experiment with a bang.  The Denny’s Beer Barrelled Belly Buster is a FIFTEEN POUND burger brought to your table, where you are given three hours to try and eat the entire sandwich.  Is sandwich the right word?  Maybe The Grim Reaper of Hamburgers is more appropriate.

Until they stopped letting official competitors tour the world and “train” at these various competitions, “many of America’s top ranked capacity eaters made the pilgrimage to Clearfield Pa. falling woefully short of completing the big burger in the three hour time limit. On January 12th, 2005, a day that will go down in competitive eating history, a 19 year old 115 lb. college freshman named Kate Stelnick walks in and completes the burger in 2 hours and 54 minutes.” (Association of Independent Competitive Eaters)

And just to give you meaty, carniverous nightmares, Denny’s created the FIFTY pound burger.  You can order that for a mere $180.  While not part of their challenge series, it does give you something to warn your children about.

“If you don’t finish your vegetables, we’re going to make you Denny’s Beer Barrelled Belly Bruiser by YOURSELF!  And if you don’t finish it ALL, they use YOU to make the next burger.”

Sentences like that definitely explain why I’m not a father.

Wanna make your own ridiculously large burger?  Just follow the simple steps on this You Tube video:

Eat It! Celebrating Eating Challenges – Day 3

St Elmo's "make-you-cry" Shrimp Cocktail

Day Three’s eating challenge was brought up in conversation last week when I was first discussing the idea of this eating competition hullabaloo.  My good friend Chris was telling us a tale of years gone by where he attended a friend’s bachelor party in Indianapolis when they went to “some steak house” that promised “the hottest cocktail sauce” they’ve ever had.  The waiter promised that if it didn’t make them cry, it would be free.

After some digging around on the ol’ intertubes it turns out that place was St. Elmo Steak House, and the cocktail sauce lives on.  In fact, the restaurant itself has been in the same place for over 100 years.  Now that’s an institution.

I haven’t seen any mention of the cocktail being free if you don’t cry, but I have found reviews telling of the “make-you-cry” cocktail sauce.

It’s a common tale, and one that is the main reason for why I’m celebrating eating challenges over the course of the week.  People who think they’re tougher than the challenge presented to them.  In this case, a table of grown men convinced that the horseradish wasn’t nearly as spicy as promised…until they started uncontrollably crying a few minutes later.  Chris shared that he didn’t even realize he WAS crying until he felt his wet face.

That, my friends is hot.

Wings To Go

There is a place that does still offer up some free swag (at least the NV location) if you can survive their hot sauce.  Wings to Go dares you to try their homicide wings.  Do you hear me?!  They fucking DARE YOU.  It says so right on their menu.

“Eat 20 original Homicide Wings in 10 minutes (no drink…no dressing…no celery). If you survive, you will get a Picture on the Wall Of Fame and a I Survived A Homicide T-Shirt & Hat. Oh, not to mention, we will pay for the beer and/or soda if you SURVIVE.”

There’s a story on the Brown Daily Herald that gives a firsthand account of people attempting to handle these wings.  A small excerpt:

After the Super Bowl, I found the three incapicitated in their rooms. The wings had hurt, bad, and the consensus was, to paraphrase, that the wings hurt even more going out than in. One housemate, Ike, said he kept on waking up in a sweat after he went to sleep that night. Another Hundred Winger, Jin, asked me for a bottle of Tums. When he returned it two weeks later, it was nearly empty. He had had an upset stomach the entire time, and had fallen victim to hot flashes.

We, and by we I mean most boys who occasionally lose the faculty to think, have all had this experience.  I bit into a pepper at Big Bowl after being warned against doing it.  The result?  I couldn’t feel my lower jaw for 2 hours, making it impossible to finish my meal with full tastebuds intact.  My friend who joined in with me?  Couldn’t eat his meal at all.  He just cried for a bit.  Good times.

I had another friend who decided he could handle the spiciest of spices at BD’s Mongolian Barbecue.  He didn’t care what went on there, as long as there was a warning attached to it.  The end result was a bowl of stirfry so nuclear that from 3 seats down *I* was crying the heat was so strong.  Needless to say, he didn’t finish more than a bite.

Because, as I said, we boys are occasionally quite dumb and stubborn.  Don’t tell us we can’t do something, because we’ll try and prove you wrong.  Even if it comes at great personal pain to us.

Eat It! Celebrating Eating Challenges: Day 2

Big Texan

72 ounces.  4 1/2 pounds.  That’s how much steak they’re challenging people to put away at The Big Texan Steak Ranch.  Isn’t that the average size of a small child’s head?  Whatever the case, that’s A LOT of steak.  And that’s not even including the sides that you ALSO have to finish.  No, to win this fete, you have to slough through, “a specially cut 72-oz. top sirloin steak, a baked potato, salad, dinner roll and shrimp cocktail.”

You know what that baked potato comes covered in?  Butter, and the failure of those who have fallen before you.  There may also be bacon bits.  I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of bacon bits.

Oh, and also?  You get an hour to do all of this.

And at $72.00, you better do all you can to finish that meal.  They actually make people put a down payment on the meal before you’re allowed to dig into your steak.  But, this hasn’t stopped over 80,000 people from driving down to Amarillo, Texas to try and tackle the “Legend of Beef.”

The Houston Chronicle has a great article from 2 years ago about the Big Texan.  Apparently the steak isn’t the only reason to visit.  “…You can’t miss it from the highway, given the presence of an enormous cow called Big Moo that’s almost as tall as the building itself…Before you can enter the dining room, guarded by a stuffed bear.”

Giant cows?  Stuffed bears?!  Souvenir Drinking Boots?! And, of course, the prerequisite gift shop!  Not that I’ll ever find myself in Amarillo, or even Texas for that matter (I think they shoot vegetarians down there), but I would NEED to go check this place out if it sounds as crazy as the descriptions on the web page.

Survivors of the challenge earn themselves a free meal, a T-shirt and enough bragging rights to shame your other meat-eating friends.  The record, according to the website, is held by Frank Pastore who finished off the entire meal in 9 minutes and 31 seconds.

A little trivia.  9 minutes and 31 seconds was also how long it took the paramedics to restart Frank Pastore’s heart after finishing the meal.

Eat It! Celebrating Eating Challenges: Day 1

Colonial's Kitchen Sink

I wasn’t lying when I said I loved the entire idea behind a small-town place offering up some ridiculously sized meal free if you met their challenge guidelines.  More than anything, they’re like the car wrecks of the eating world.  Some people go to hockey games to see the fights.  Some people go to Nascar to see cars go boom.  I can’t turn my eyes away from the idea that someone, somewhere is trying to eat an 11 pound burger with all the fixin’s.  It’s disgusting and beautiful all at the same time.

For Day 1, I thought I’d start relatively small (compared to other challenges I’d discovered) and talk about a place relatively local to me: The Colonial Cafe & Ice Cream Parlor in Naperville, IL.  Anyone who lives in the area knows about the Colonial and their eating challenge.  If you finish an ice cream sundae the size of a kitchen sink, you’ll earn yourself a bumper sticker.  No, the sundae isn’t free, but you’ll proudly be able to advertise how for one day, you experienced one of the world’s seven deadly sins: gluttony.

And it’s a good feeling.  Back in the mid-90s or so, I was actually a proud owner of the bumper sticker.  My friend Dave and I decided that we would tackle it together.  We knew it needed to be done.  Dave and I were not the smartest people.  We also challenged each other to finish off an extra-large boston shake from Sonny’s Delite in Joliet one year.  Their extra-large is so big that I’ve never seen more than a dozen cups behind the counter, because no smart person EVER ORDERS ONE.

I’m still not sure how I’m neither diabetic or dead.  But the Kitchen Sink.  That’s what we we’re talking about.

Two whole bananas, six scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, three toppings, covered with whipped cream, chopped nuts and a cherry.

Oh yeah.  It’s two banana splits put into one sink-shaped bowl.  In comparison to even the hot dog from last week it seems almost TOO easy.  But, I don’t see how anyone could easily finish this by themselves without wanting to vomit, or at least curl into a fetal position by the time the last spoonful hits your lips.

But as I said, finish all that, and you earned yourself a free red and white bumper sticker declaring:

Colonial Bumper Sticker

It’s okay to be jealous.  You know you want one.

The Hot Dog From Hell

HillBilly's Homewrecker

Do you value your life?  No?  Well then head down to West Virginia where you can get “The Homewrecker” hot dog at HillBilly Hot Dogs.  I’m just going to quote Al Dente as far as the ingredients go:

“The Homewrecker is a 3.5-lb. weapon of cardiovascular mass destruction. They start with a deep-fried 15″, 1-pound dog and top it with peppers, onions, nacho cheese, chili sauce, jalapenos, mustard, ketchup, coleslaw, tomatoes, lettuce, and shredded cheese.”

Now, “The Homewrecker” can be yours for free if you can eat it in under 4 minutes.  Under 12 minutes, it’ll still cost you $14.99 but you’ll get a free t-shirt out of the deal.  Attempt to eat this at all, however, and you’ll most likely die.

I do love all the various, “Eat this and you’ll dine for free!” marketing gimmicks though.  It’s a win-win for restaurants.  People with blustery bravado will always try and eat it, and in most cases fail; but they’ll have a story to tell and you’ll have 20 bucks in the cash register.

We even have one down in Morris, Illinois at “R” Place, a truck stop slash creepiest damn restaurant I’ve ever been to ever.  Littered with old toys and marionettes (which occasionally, randomly spring to life!!!), you can try and eat their Premium Ethyl burger.

Although, the Ethyl has nothing on The Homewrecker.  At a measely two-pounds of fresh ground hamburger covered with toppings and served on a homemade bun, it’ll only set you back $17.95.  Ethyl is is served with a timer, though.  If you finish in under an hour you get it for free, along with your name on a plaque that hangs on the wall.

If you lose?  Your soul gets trapped in the aquarium of marionettes that dances for a nickel at the entrance to the restaurant.

Premium Ethyl at R-Place

Doritos: The Quest – New Mystery Flavor

I walked into 7-11 yesterday and did my normal stroll around the candy and chip aisle when I discovered something so terrifying that I knew that I had to buy them.

Doritos is at it again. Another mystery bag. Another mystery flavor. The catch? This time, the flavor is just the beginning. So, unlike last time when the flavor felt like one last cruel joke that life was playing on you before your personal end, they’re practically telling you what the flavor is if you go to the website on the front of the bag (www.snackstrongproductions.com).

No, the big deal this time is not become a flavor taster for the company. This time you have a chance to win $100,000. They’ve set up a Myst-like puzzle game at the website. Currently, only the first chapter is unlocked for play. It looks like the next chapter will be unlocked at midnight on Memorial Day. The cool thing about the contest is you actually can see how many people have made it as far as you have. When my good friend Chris and I finished the end of chapter one, it told us we were the 1700 or so person to make it this far. At the beginning, we were just one in a Dorito army over 4K strong.

The quest appears much harder than they are. Or, more likely, I tend to over think things. By the time the last puzzle came up, a drawing full of squares, triangles, and numbers, I was trying to figure out the values of missing angles and line lengths. Over a decade in honors and advanced placement classes will do that to a brain. I’ve been trained to look for the deepest answer possible. I tend to forgot Dr. House’s number one rule: Occam’s Razor. Wait. That’s his number two rule. His number one rule is everybody lies.

Occam’s Razor basically says, the simplest answer is usually the correct one. And I’m sure he’d be glad to know that his theory holds true, even against such modern technology as a Doritos flash based web site. A life’s work to solve a game about corn chips. That’s exactly what he was hoping for, I’m sure.

The games are basically variances of Simon, Mastermind, and code breaking. There’s no math involved. Keep it simple!

But more important than $100,000 is, “How did the chips taste? What’s the magical flavor? Did they make a nice Potato Salad Dorito to go along with their ass-tastic Cheeseburger debacle X-13D?”

Well, yes and no. The flavor definitely isn’t as out there as those X-13D chips I wrote about oh so long ago. But, in the scheme of things, it does make a nice companion piece to those Cheeseburger chips. Upon opening the bag, the initial smell taste revealed little. They smelled like Cool Ranch Doritos. But once you taste them, it’s like someone threw an entire lime at your face. There was no denying the citrus on these corn chips.

We originally decided that they were obviously margarita Doritos, or Margaritos as we coined them. But, we were quite wrong. Heading over to the Quest website, we were told to enter our guess into the cryptex on the screen. We tried margarita to no avail. Lemon lime? Nope. But then we noticed the hint at the top of the screen was spelling out the flavor for us.

The answer? Moutain Dew.

Yes. That’s right. Soak it in. Somewhere deep within the earth’s crust are scientists who are no creating hybrid snack foods. Chips are being bred with soda. Nature is crying. Up next? Chili Cheese Frito Sierra Mist.

YUM.

But, here’s the thing. They’re not that bad. They taste NOTHING like Mountain Dew. I don’t remember Mountain Dew carrying an over-the-top lime flavor. This tasted more like the margarita cupcakes I made a few weeks ago. But they’re not bad. They’re definitely better than the corn chips that come with just a hint of lime. But, the flavor also wears off quickly. By the time you take your last bite of a chip, there’s no flavor left. On the upside, if you’ve ever wanted to taste a naked Dorito, now is your chance. It turns out they taste like bland corn chips!

In this case, the flavor is just the beginning. It led to a fairly fun time waster for when you’re waiting for work to come in. What are the chances that you’ll win the $100K? Not good. They mention something about the first THREE people to get to the end will be given the golden idol to continue.

Maybe the rest of us will become flavor taster scientists so we can tell them to stop creating sins against nature.

**NOTE – Burger King is filling your hamburger chip void!**

Bacon Salt. It Exists. And It Is Good.

My office smells like bacon. Not just a little, but as if we were hosting a bacon buffet in our tiny little encoding room. And it’s been lingering for a couple hours now. I did this. And there was no burnt pig involved.

Bacon Salt. How could salt infused with the taste of bacon possibly be good? Or vegetarian? Or kosher? The product’s website promises all three.

My friend Jen had sent me a link to the Bacon Salt website a few weeks ago, declaring that we MUST find this on the shelves somewhere. I checked out the Illinois stores that offered it up, but they were all in suburbs that even I’m not anywhere near. Next stop? Amazon. They have everything, so why not try. Plus, I get free shipping thanks to their handy Prime deal. Sure enough, Amazon was listing a 3-pack for 12 bucks. But, honestly, I don’t mind tossing 99 cents towards a bag of crazy flavored chips, but I wasn’t giving 12 dollars to a wholly untested product.

Luckily, Jen found a link that said they would be happy to send out samples to people interested in trying or selling their product. I shot out an e-mail, and within the hour, I had heard from their sales department. They would have it out in the mail the next day.

And then we dined on United States Postal Service-fueled anticipation for the week until the box finally arrived last Thursday.

I just wanted to get all that out there, because I don’t want you to think I’m pandering to people who offered me up some free stuff. If their product tasted like powdered hell, I’d be the first to tell you. Hell. I’m still getting attacked for reviews I wrote almost a year ago. I’m not afraid of you internets.

I was really, really, *really* prepared to be disgusted by this. I was all set to come onto this page and declare that I found the most disgusting thing since Dorito’s “secret flavor” X-13D chips.

But holy hot damn, was I proven wrong. Be afraid Mrs. Dash, Bacon Salt is gunning for your position in the spice rack.

And I warn Mrs. Dash because ultimately, while there is salt in the Bacon Salt, there’s also plenty of other herbs and seasonings, making it more of a seasoning mix than traditional salt. On the plus side, a 1/4 teaspoon serving is only 6% of your daily sodium intake.

Created in 2007, and financed after one of the creators’ son won $5,000 on America’s Funniest Home Videos, Bacon Salt hit the market in 3 flavors: Original, Hickory and Peppered.

(I’ll let you in on a little secret before I continue. The Original was actually the least favorite out of everyone who tried it the day I brought it into the office. It turns out that there wasn’t ENOUGH bacon flavor for everyone. The winner? Keep reading.)

NOTE – Katie withheld herself from the taste test because she thought the idea of Bacon Salt was truly disgusting, and was only more turned off by the smell.

• The Smell Test

  The group of us trying these out, 6 of us in total, treated this like a very scientific wine tasting. We opened each canister and let the aroma hit us. The Original flavor was subtle, but present. The Hickory, however, blew everyone away. The smell filled the room (and stayed there) with the smell of freshly cooked bacon on a weekend morning. The Peppered is exactly what it claims- a slightly punched up, peppery version of the original. Winner of the smell test…Hickory.

• The Standalone Taste Test

  Next up was the standalone taste test. We licked the back of our hands and sprinkled a little of each on to the wet skin. I don’t necessarily recommend doing this unless you’re either a professional, or someone who REALLY likes to smell like bacon. That stuff lingered, even after a couple washings. Hickory, by itself was a little TOO strong for the tongue, and Original was again to subtle. Winner of the standalone taste test…Peppered.

• The Fry Test

  For the final bit of taste testing we went for the closest fast food we could find that would benefit from tasting more like bacon…McDonald’s French Fries. Again, I don’t recommend everyone doing this, because even three small French fries (and a Shamrock shake) ended up being my entire meal for the day. Apparently 3 IS the magic number if the magic number is the answer to the question “How many small bags of McDonald’s fries does it take to make you nauseas and pray for death?”

We laid out some paper towels, and dumped each bag into its own pile, generously sprinkling the Bacon Salt onto each pile. Behind the piles were placed the respective flavors so we couldn’t get them confused.

Not surprisingly, the natural fry flavor overpowered the Original, and the Peppered just added a nice little kick to the fries. But again, Hickory smoked (HAR!) the competition. Winner of the Fry Test…Hickory

For those of you playing at home the final tally was: Hickory – 2, Peppered – 1, Original – 0. In the case that Hickory cannot fulfill its duties as the best tasting the Bacon Salts, the duty will then pass onto Peppered.

Other things I can guarantee Hickory Bacon Salt tastes good on:

Cheese Pizza!
Vegan Chicken Soup!

Things that Jen swears it also tastes good on:

Celery!
Grapes!

I cannot vouch for these things, only because I refuse to try bacon grapes. I will try many a thing, but not bacon grapes. NOT BACON GRAPES!

In summation, and in conclusion, Hickory Bacon Salt. It’s effin’ awesome.

As an added bonus to my dozens and dozens of readers, I will be giving away the Bacon Salt drink cozy to a lucky winner this Friday. You have until Friday to answer this ridiculously easy question: What is the name of the Bacon Salt Facebook group?

Just send the correct answer to twobitesinsuburbia at gmail dot com by Thursday at midnight (central). I’ll announce the winner on Friday and contact them for their mailing information.