LifePath Hospice Benefits From Chili Chef’s Top Aliquity Entry

Julie Coggins grows her own peppers – jalapeno, cayenne, habanero and serrano – and she used them in the chili that won top prize at the 2012 Aliquity Chili Fest, at Bell Shoals Animal Hospital on Feb. 28.

There she served up a dish including "ground Italian and pork sausage and a little white wine and a little beer,” she said, “and I just keep tasting it as a I cook.”

When she won top prize, her natural inclination was to call her mother.

Only her mother died a month ago from cancer, at the Sun City Center Hospice House, following her husband nine years earlier, also from cancer, under hospice care at home.

“Hospice has taken care of both my parents in their final days,” Coggins said, which is she chose LifePath Hospice as her charity of choice should she win the Aliquity competition.

Proceeds of the annual event benefit the charity of choice of the winning chef, with the top three awards determined by the number of tickets each chef receives from attendees buying tasting cups for $3 (or two cups for $5).

“I just signed up Wednesday, I didn’t even know I was going to do this,” said Coggins, who with her sons earlier this year opened Junk's On Us, a business that specializes in household, office and general junk removal, including from such situations as tenant leave-behinds and foreclosure clean-outs.

“This is just so new, my getting out, with my mom being gone just one month," Coggins said. "But I’m glad I came, it was nice here. You’re having a good time, you’re meeting people, you're getting people to know your business and you’re not sitting home dwelling on the sadness.”

The community support, she said, was “like a little guardian angel watching over me today.”

In a sense, that is the founding mission of Aliquity, a not-for-profit networking group open to businesses that care to connect to their each other and their community through the support of local charities.

“It’s just nice to support people and hand over a check to charity,” said Dottie Dunn, a founding member of Aliquity. “It’s like, ‘We had fun doing it, here you go.’ This is not a business, we’re not keeping anything, we’re giving everything away. We’re doing it for businesses to raise awareness in the community.”

Placing second at the Feb. 28 chili fest was last year’s winner and this year’s site host, , whose cooks aimed to raise funds for Labrador Retriever Rescue of Florida.

“I figured we’d get a home field advantage,” said veterinarian John Ligroi, the hosptial’s owner.

This year’s recipe?

“There’s something a little different in there,” he said. “But I can’t tell you that I know what that is.”

And so it goes with chili, a recipe that many have referred to as, “anything goes.”

Doris Darga, owner of Camp Bow-Wow of Riverview, said her recipe she “got from a very dear friend back in Michigan.”

“It’s white-chicken chili,” she said. “It’s a little mild, not too hot, but definitely unique.”

Placing third was Heather and Bo Rice of Rice Graphics, whose chosen charity was Beth-El Mission in Wimauma."We've got six different meats, four different beans," Heather Rice said. "It's got pork, steak, ground sirloin, venison, hot sausage and a meatloaf mix." Also, she said, “love.”

______________

RELATED COVERAGE:

• Aliquity’s Chili Fest 2011 Awards Top Trophy to Bell Shoals Animal Hospital