Hot Dogs & Cupcakes

I did two eating contests on July 4th.

First up at 2pm was a hot dog eating contest at the Highlands Ranch Independence Day Celebration sponsored by Bernie's Hot Dogs.


The hot dog contest was held in the middle of the square and it drew a pretty good sized crowd. Highlands Ranch is the kind of place where it seems each household has the mom, the dad, 2.5 kids, and a dog. And usually the mom is pregnant. Be that as it may, the competitors (9 guys and 1 woman) took the stage and lined up behind the long table. Each of us got one aluminum pan with 10 hot dogs in it. You could dunk, separate, or do whatever to get the dog & bun down. And do not chipmunk at the end.

It started. The dogs were good, maybe skinless. The buns were soft, pillowy, and delicious. I went with the normal eat-dog-first-while-dunking-bun-then-eat-bun method. I tried two dogs at once but that didn't go so well. To me, eating is three parts: getting it to the mouth, getting it down, and putting it somewhere. I handle parts one and three really well. It's part two that is my challenge. And two dogs at once does nothing since getting it down is not helped. My cheeks are pretty much stuffed the whole time. Not optimal, but I keep on going. At the end, I jam the last half of the bun I was working on.


10 down. Oh yeah, no chipmunking. So very fairly Bernie deducts 1 from my 10 for chipmunking and there is some bun debris. Not nearly Juliet-level but the guy next to me also ate 10, but very very cleanly so only deducting 1 for debris and a stuffed mouth is OK with me. Final tally:

1st - Sean Sullivan - 10
2nd - Andrew Lane - 9
3rd - John Soho - 8

One guy booted after 1. The girl ate 3. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd got trophies. Ho hum, just a trophy.

So T-bonz and I head out. Next up: cupcakes.

At 8pm it's The Shoppe 1st Annual Cupcake Eating Contest. Big ups to Mommye, Guaps, 3M, and Maryanne (without the professor). Teams of two. One eater and one "assistant" who disrobes the cupcakes. The eater can only use one hand. Before starting there is some indecision about the format because there are 9 teams but only 225 cupcakes. Are there enough for 5 minutes? Should it be 3 minutes? Or first to 20? There are 9 teams, so 25 cupcakes each. It's first to 25, or time of 5 minutes.

The cupcakes. Pretty much evenly divided between chocolate cakes and vanilla cakes. Frosting on them is, fittingly, either red, white, or blue. And not knifed-on frosting like you or I might do on our made-at-home cupcakes. The frosting here is like on the cupcakes they sell - butter cream, thick, and it's piped on circularly a good inch or inch and a half high. Did I mention sweets really are not my thing?

We take to the table. Eaters on one side, assistants on the other. The crowd fills in around us. We're allowed to pick our own cupcakes, and thankfully the tray near us has vanilla cakes and red icing. 21 vanilla/red and only 4 chocolate/white.

We begin. I don't remember much of the 5 minutes, but I do know that my strategy going in was essentially forgotten. I know I stuffed my face too much, made a big mess, and just held on. T-bonz did a super job disrobing the cakes and egging me on. Jimmy was directly to my left, and he used his dunk tank to sort of soak each cake, then mash it on the table, and lift up handfuls of this cupcakey mush to his mouth. I didn't see what Big Sexy was doing (he was on my right, two down) but he was MUCH cleaner than me.


In the end, Jimmy finished the 25 separate cakes but he was knocked 1 for the mush pile left on the table. So 24. Sexy 23. Me 21. And down from there.

The two contests in one day was no big thing. Six hours between them is plenty of time for some gastric emptying. What sucked was that at each contest I dropped the eating strategy that I had going in. But Dave, I got the hardware - byotch!


The full gallery of pictures is here. Thanks to T-bonz and 3M for taking some great shots!

Next up - July 11th qualifier for Steve's.