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Five-alarm fun! Local firefighters compete over hot stoves in chili cook-off

Five-alarm fun! Local firefighters compete over hot stoves in chili cook-off
Photo by Stefano Giovannini

This chili was on fire!

Some Brooklyn members of New York’s Bravest traded their protective suits for aprons on Friday to cook up spicy stews at a Cobble Hill fund-raiser for their peers across the city.

Amateur chefs from squads in Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, and Downtown faced off against competitors from outer-borough ladders in the inaugural Firehouse Chili Cook-off, serving their signature bowls of beans to raise awareness and cash for a group of do-gooders that offers support and mental-health services to firefighters and their families, a rep for the organizer said.

“We definitely showed the community who we are and what we do,” said Friends of Firefighters spokeswoman Sylvie Brown. “It was a festive, fun family night, and we were really happy with the turnout.”

First place in the friendly culinary competition went to a pair of Manhattan’s Bravest for their pulled-pork-stuffed stew served with a side of corn bread, but a local firefighter with Red Hook’s Ladder 101 came in a close second with his “Red Hook Raiders Roasted-Green Chili,” which Brown declared “amazing”.

“I kept going back for more,” she said of John Fuchs’s dish.

And all of the six participants’ recipes packed flavor in every bite, according to another firefighter in attendance.

“The competition was very good, there were different styles,” said Franklin Richardson III, who is stationed at a ladder on the distant isle.

Proceeds from each $25 ticket sold for the bash at event space The Invisible Dog, which also featured an auction and live music, will go towards Friends of Firefighters’s work in the five boroughs, according to Brown, who said the group is already salivating at the prospect of restaging the cook-off next year.

“We’re already planning,” she said.

Reach reporter Julianne Cuba at (718) 260–4577 or by e-mail at jcuba@cnglocal.com. Follow her on Twitter @julcuba.
Eat up!: Manhattan firefighters Franklin Richardson III and John Manning took home first place for their chili.
Photo by Stefano Giovannini