FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FOR THE LOVE OF WINGS

The Buffalo News, August 31, 2003 Author: MARK SOMMER - News Staff Reporter
© The Buffalo News Inc.

The Buffalo Bisons aren't in the playoffs this year, but Dunn Tire Park was still hosting big-time competition Saturday.

As thousands milled about on the ballpark's outfield grass enjoying the second annual National Buffalo Wing Festival, contenders for today's wing-eating championship were getting themselves psyched up. Eric "Badlands" Booker, for one. He's the reigning matzo ball eating champion of the world, and the current titleholder for holding down massive quantities of corned beef hash and doughnuts.

Booker said he was prepared to add a plaque for eating chicken wings to his trophy room.

"I'm 6-feet-5, 400 pounds, pure eating machine," Booker said.

Booker boasted he recently ate 112 wings at a New York competition. "It was 3.8 pounds of meat in 12 minutes. I have very strong jaws, great strategies, and I'm very focused," the Copiague resident said.
Last year's winner, Ukraine native Oleg Zhornitiskiy, ate 74 wings.

Among Booker's competitors for the 5 p.m. face-off today will be Cookie Jarvis, the current hot dog, rib and ice cream eating champion; promising food stuffer Dale Boone; Joe "Jammin' Joe" LaRue, a 6-foot-8, 272-pound banquet chef from Hollywood, Fla.; and Sonia Thomas, a 105-pound Virginia woman who chowed down 134 wings at Saturday's semifinals to break Jarvis' world record of 116 wings.

LaRue, a two-time Central New York pancake eating champion, predicted the winner will need to put away at least 120 wings.

As for the contest, he's not winging it.

LaRue has been running four to five miles a day to get in shape -- and going to buffets.

"I do time trials with wings at home, or sometimes out in public -- which is not a pretty sight," LaRue said.

George Shea, chairman of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, ranked the second-year Buffalo festival already second among food-eating competitions to one staged by Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs in New York.

The humorous Shea emceed several sauce competitions, from hottest to most creative. The latter was won by Paul Sowinski of Akron, who admitted to using Forty Creek Canadian whiskey for added zing.
Among the sauces Sowinski bested was Getzville resident Jim Prezbyla's Honey Chile Dinosaur Wing Sauce.

Jack Myers, who moved a few years ago with his family from Buffalo to Houston, said he and his family returned partly to attend the festival after enjoying themselves last year.

Myers was on his third helping of smoked garlic wings, courtesy of Jake's Dixie Roadhouse from Waltham, Mass. It was one of dozens of companies, including many from out of state, that were represented.

Stan Friedman, executive vice president of Wings Zone, said the company flew employees from Florida and Georgia to help sell its "25 flavors of fresh jumbo wings."

"This is the place to be for wings. It's the one time of year when wings are being honored and celebrated," Friedman said.

The company's specialty wing sauce is called Nuclear. "Anyone who wonders where the weapons of mass destruction are need only to try our Nuclear to find out," Friedman said.

At The Buffalo News' booth, Buffalo Bills star Travis Henry was signing autographs for eager fans. The Frostproof, Fla., native said the wings are much better in his newly adopted city.

"We got some wings, but they aren't near as good as these wings up here in Buffalo. I like them a lot," Henry said.

Meanwhile, chef Andy DiVincenzo of Billy Ogden's was cooking up the restaurant's stuffed peppers while waiting for reinforcements of Cajun wings, which had sold out by midday.

"I haven't been able to look up too often, but it looks like we have a great crowd, the weather is cooperating, and we have people who are wearing big chicken wing hats," DiVincenzo said over the crackling sounds of cooking oil.

The orange wing-shaped hats are made of urethane foam, and were sold from a booth by Jim and Cheryl Epp to celebrate Buffalo's culinary reputation. "It was my light bulb moment," Cheryl said.

The wing festival resumes today from noon to 7 p.m.