Annual Chili Cookoff has Down Under flair

By Mo Cranker on July 21, 2018.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

Medicine Hat chili lovers will be getting a taste of Australia today.

Christine Bridgman has lived in Australia for the past 13 years and is in town this weekend with two of her sisters for a camping trip. In the name of fun, the trio decided to enter the Chili Cookoff.

“Every year we do a camping trip — this year it’s in Medicine Hat,” said Bridgman. “We always do something like this every year, but this year I was looking for some things to do in the city and stumbled across the Chili Cookoff.

“I called up my sisters and did a little convincing and they agreed to do this as a team.”

Bridgman and her sisters Liz Hollema and Cathy Geisler will be named ‘The Twisted Sisters’ and will be serving a traditional chili with some Australian influences.

“The chili we’re doing is based on our collective ideas,” said Bridgman. “I asked them for their recipes and what they like to make and I’ve combined it with what I like to make for chili.

“It’s fairly traditional as far as chili goes, and we’re adding Australian bush spices — that’s going to add a great outback flavour to it. We’re trying to blend a few different ideas together, and most importantly have some fun.”

Bridgman bought the beef locally at Deerview Meats and describes the chili as “savory” and “very flavourful” and says today is going to be a blast.

“I really love to feed people, so and event like this is perfect,” she said. “Out in Australia we don’t have as many people, so coming back to Canada and feeding a bunch of people is always really fun for me.

“We’re all really looking forward to tomorrow (Saturday) and we look forward to meeting a lot of people from Medicine Hat.”

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