Belly Up Cast yourself into the Inferno for a chili cook-off

The Inferno has always held a tight coterie of true friends among its core constituents. At its second annual Chili Cook-off on Feb. 26 (with doors opening at 4 p.m.), that gang will hang out much as it often does, but perhaps with a bit more joking around a battalion of slow cookers filled to their respective brims with hot, steaming chili. Contestants will bring their fully assembled soups to meet with a sampling session and judging at 6:30 p.m. It’s a $2 donation without a slow cooker, which is way cheap considering the ample spread: cornbread, buttermilk biscuits, and deviled eggs will considerably add to net fat gain, and the usual smorgasbord of chili toppings doubles down with Fritos, cheese, and sour cream. The proprietors will award victory to the finest spicy, vegetarian, “carnivorous,” unusual, and “all-around-best” chilis—plenty of opportunity to score a clean win. The voting mechanism is a popular vote “with the final decision between Kim the Queen of Chili & Nate the King of Crackers!”

FATSOMETER: 8. Even small servings topped with dairy are likely to stick to the ribs for quite a while.