Live from Peoria, it’s Saturday Afternoon and then Saturday Night with your hosts, Trefzger’s Bakery and The Sherman Avenue Block Party/Chili Cook Off with all kinds of special guest stars that you’ll meet as this post unfolds, it’s too many to get into now so let’s just introduce the first host and get this thing moving! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the first host of the afternoon, Trefzger’s Bakery!
The Last Day At Trefzger’s On Prospect!
Today is a special day in Peoria history and I had to come and document it before we begin our Saturday Night adventure. It’s the last day that Trefzger’s Bakery is open in this location on Prospect Road. They’re closing today and then re-opening this Thursday on October 13th at 6:30AM in their new location and if I can get up that early, I’m hoping to be there, so stay tuned for that post next Friday. But now, let’s go and get one last order from Trefzger’s at this location while it’s still open.
As usual, there’s a line in here, but they’re all out of numbers in the ticket machine and as you can see, the inventory is a little scarce in here today! But I do spy a tray of thumbprint cookies, so I think I’ll get some of them to take to the Sherman Block Party after we leave here. The only problem is that since there were no numbers to mark our place in line, how will we know when it’s our time to be served in here?
Hey, check that out, talk about personal service! Very cool! Okay, let’s go place our order...
But first here’s Kayla sneaking out from behind to say hi...Hi Kayla! Kayla told me her band, Thetah is playing at The Red Barn, Friday evening, November 4th and I plan on being there and so should you! Put it on your calendars and I’ll see you there! Now where’s our cookies?
Ask and ye shall receive, here’s Kaitlyn with our last Trefzger’s order from this location! Sad to see this place close, but I’m anxious to check out the new place right up the road, there’ll be photos of that this Friday, so stay tuned for that!
One last shot of Trefzger’s as we pull away to start our Saturday Night at...
The Second Annual Sherman Avenue Block Party Chili/Cook Off!
Alright, here we are on Sherman Avenue in West Peoria for the Second Annual Block Party and Chili Cook Off! The hosts for the block party are Tim and Cassie and there’s the Trefzger’s thumbprint cookies on the table. But cookies aren’t the main event here today...
Chili is! And here’s the people who have brought their homemade chili in crock pots for the block party chili cook off! From top here's this year's contestants and their chili: Derek, Cassie (who made beanless chili!), Stu, P.J., Dan and Walter and Sylvia! Okay, time to plug in the crock pots and let the chili simmer for a while...
As people arrive for the block party! There’s Dan looking freakishly tall next to Sara, Lisa, P.J. and John and many more have arrived that I didn’t get pictures of. Hey, I’m just one guy, give me a break over here!
Okay, the chili has been simmering and here’s Cassie putting numbers on the crock pots for the judges to identify them...wait a second..who are these judges and where are they?
Well, they’re right here! From left: Sara, Steve, John and Lisa.
These are the prizes, there’s spoons for different chili-winning categories and the most important prize of all, the prestigious, MBIP Beanless Chili Award for the only true chili that is beanless in this contest! More on that later!
Here’s Cassie going over the rules and score sheets with the judges and now the judging begins!
Okay, the judges gave Cassie their sheets and she’s tallying up the scores. The spoons are now brought out and the winners are called to accept their prizes...
Sylvia and Walter got the meatiest prize, Derek won for spiciest, P.J. took honors for most original (her chili was green and had potatoes in it!) and the grand prize winner for this year’s best in show was Stu with his football crockpot chili! Congratulations to all of these winners, but the real winner as far as I’m concerned is...
Cassie! Who once again was the only entry with a chili that didn’t have beans in it. And as we all should know, true chili has no beans and I could go on and on about that, but let’s just congratulate Cassie and keep moving along here!
After the party everyone dug in and had a great time sampling chili, drinking beer and hanging out on the block. One thing that disturbed me, along with all the beans in the chili was people putting their corn bread right into the chili. That also grosses me out and I really wish people wouldn’t do that, the only thing that should be added to chili is crackers and I hate to be an obsessive nutcase about this, but I can’t help it. And another thing, someone, who I’m not going to name, was putting dessert into their used chili bowl. That really about made me barf, it’s not like their weren’t clean bowls to be had...maybe I should just let stuff like that go, but I can’t. I mean dessert in a dirty chili bowl? Aaaahhhh!
After the chili everybody had a lot of fun hanging out on the block and thanks to Cassie and Tim for hosting this event! I had a lot of fun and it was great to see everyone again this year!
And now night falls on Sherman Avenue and it’s time to say: “Goodnight everybody and we’ll see you all tomorrow!”
Related Posts: Saturday Night @ Jalapeno’s, Seven On Prospect and Lucky’s Modern Dive.