SLIDESHOW The 10th Annual Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York was the place for fun, food and a little football.
“This is the Super Bowl for the chicken-wing industry,” said Drew Cerza, self proclaimed “Wing King” and festival founder.
The idea for the festival came from a movie called Osmosis Jones. Bill Murray starred as a compulsive eater with a goal of attending the Super Bowl of junk food, The National Buffalo Wing Festival. Ironically, there wasn’t one.
That is when native Buffalonian Cerza, decided to make it happen back in 2002.
One of the featured “sporting events” was the United States Chicken Wing Eating Championship, which pitted Sonya Thomas a.k.a. “The Black Widow” against Joey Chestnut (currently ranked No. 1 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating) and a number of other competitors.
Thomas is the four time defending champion in chicken wing eating, while Chestnut is currently the Tom Brady of competitive eating – the five time defending champion of the annual Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. Chestnut hasn’t lost an event in the last year, but has been unable to break Thomas’ stranglehold on the chicken wing title.
Weighing in at a mere 100 lbs before the event, 106.4 pounds after, Thomas won the contest and set a new world record, 183 wings in 12 minutes! That’s 6.4 pounds of meat, and two more wings over her previous wing record of 181.
Chestnut came in second place with 174 wings. Thomas is called the “Black Widow” because she often beats her male competitors in eating contests.
Buffalo legend and football great Andre Reed joined in the Wing Fest activities greeting fans, signing autographs, helping kids and selling his Over The Middle sauce.
OTM is an all purpose sauce Reed created as one way to keep his promise to his dad Calvin, share his enjoyment of cooking and give back to the community.
“My father, who passed away fifteen years ago, told me, ‘Son, if you have a chance to make a difference, if you can have a voice, then you’ve got to take advantage of that and make a difference,’” said Reed. “My passion for giving back combined with my father’s vision inspired the creation of OTM.”
A portion of the proceeds ($0.25) from each bottle sold goes to The Andre Reed Foundation which supports the Kids Escaping Drugs Campaign in WNY and The Second Mile in PA. Both organizations provide services to the kids and teens in their communities.
“About 10,000 people visited my booth over the weekend where they sampled my sauce and helped us raise money for charity,” said Reed. Pulling everything together took a number of volunteers which even included Reed’s mom, Joyce Reed-Ebling.
Everyone that purchased a bottle of OTM had the opportunity to get a photo, autograph and a chance to win a Reed jersey.
Reed played 15 seasons with the Buffalo Bills (1985-1999) and one final year with the Washington Redskins (2000). During that time he was selected to play in seven consecutive Pro Bowls (1989-1995), had four Super Bowl appearances, rewrote the Bills’ record book and added several entries in the NFL’s record book.
While the sauce is great on the Buffalo favorite – chicken wings it is also good on just about everything including fish, steak and chicken. Reed’s OTM sauce is available online and in a variety of stores throughout New York and Pennsylvania. For details visit www.andrereedOTM.com.
The Buffalo Wing Festival this year drew 85,000 visitors from every state in the nation and over 39 different countries.
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