The Tucson Homeskillet: How Heavy The Iron (Chef) Crown!

So about a week ago I posted a fun lil blurb about the Whiskey & Smoke event at Trident III. Well immediately after leaving that gathering, I hit the long, hot and slightly dull road to Casino Del Sol to take court with the next round of Tucson Iron Chef hopefuls.

Now, I didn't mind the drive, I just plugged in the phone, set Pandora to "Doom Metal" and let the heavy riff drone melt the outland urban sprawl into quasi bearable, but the minute I stepped foot in that hotel/gambling hall I immediately remembered how much I despise casinos. And I forgot that people can smoke in those things. Yuck. Even with million dollar ventilation, the high stakes drifters passing by sucking down a Kool Mild still reeks intense for a guy like me who has never smoked and never plans to. Not to mention the kling-klang-boing of betting machines just makes past Vegas excursions when my internal system was set on "totally fxxked up" come back like a bad bad penny slot sweat of a nightmare. So I grabbed an overpriced beer, calmed down and went out to the pool area where the event was taking place.

The dusty wind of that territory was blowing and the sun beat down on chefs, sous and patrons in a late spring calamity. Who thought a food event outside in the Tucson blaze was a good idea should rethink just stations equipped with umbrellas and go for a full tarp shade area with misters at the go and enough free water to cool the internal jets of those imbibing in loads of meat soaked nibbles.

Before entering, I did see a young lady with very fake, very round boobs and I thought to myself, "Goddam casinos!" Even in Tucson, size queens looking for a sucker that just struck it rich convene. Whatever. I had some eating to do.

Now, I am not going to say who was my favorite. As an impartial blogger and writer for a large weekly publication, I kept it to myself. I will say this: There were some obvious winners and a couple of sad sad losers. But I will not say which!

But congrats to those that made it this far and good good luck.

For now let's just take a photo journey through my day at Casino Del Sol and the Tucson Iron Chef showdown.

Ugh. Casinos.

Enjoy!