Welcome to the Rifffffff Off!

I’ve never been obsessed with a movie before. I DO remember REALLY liking the Little Mermaid as a little girl, but who didn’t? I still love the occasional dingle-hopper reference as much as the next person.

But here we go, I’ll say it: Hi, I’m Julie Aseltine and I am a Pitch Perfect addict. Everyone altogether: Welcome, Julie. We all love romantic comedies here, especially ones that include singing.

Phil and I first saw Pitch Perfect at the Charter Cinema in Huntington Beach for 3$. The theater we affectionately call the 2$ theater even though the movies are actually 3$ (and don’t forget 1$ hotdogs). Pitch Perfect was so good we went back to see it a second time. So worth it. Since then, I have watched the movie a countless number of times, bought the soundtrack, looked up Youtube videos and yes, very much yes, acted it out, sang along and mimicked a myriad of lines from the film.

This blog post originally had nothing to do with Pitch Perfect. But when thinking of a title for the Mammoth Chili Cook-off, (what this post was GOING to be about), the a Pitch Perfect line came out, “Welcome to the rifffffffff offfffff!” Of course the line’s predecessor is “ What the HELL is a riff off?” One of Becca’s many annoyingly lovable lines. You will just have to watch the movie to find out but you can very well assume that it has to do with singing.

Riff-offs and Cook-off’s have nothing to do with each other, other then the fact that they both end with “off.”

The Mammoth Chili Cook-off, a three day event, featuring chili, ribs, chicken and crawdads, was quite a success for Rock Creek Lakes Resort and Miller & Son BBQ Brewing. We prepared for days. Steve put in a lot of work, brewing batch after batch of his BBQ sauce, prepping ribs, chicken and getting last minute details together.

I would say I didn’t work AS hard as Steve, but I put up a good fight. Here is a picture of me with all my cupcakes. I have decided “Cupcake Girl” is my superpower. I don’t know what she does exactly, but it’s sweet. Get it.

Tangent: In that question you hear at summer camp: what super power would you have if you could have one? My REAL answer to that would be, hands DOWN! I would have to ability to read ANYTHING at lightening speed (if I chose to) and retain every last detail. For example, imagine me holding the spine of a book with one hand, say the dictionary, and flipping the pages with the thumb of the other, smack, the covers closing on each other and I say, “Well, not the most entertaining read, but quite enlightening, so many new words to use in my day to day. Or should I say… ‘The preponderance of my lexicon has amassed quite a voluminous quota of locutions, how ever will I disseminate by ruminations with a layperson?” Ha. Oh, it would be so fun.

Back to the cook-off. We all had a great time. The R.C.L.R. and Miller & Son both got a lot of praise from their respective goods. Miller & Son sold quite a few bottle of BBQ sauce, and I was very happy at the number of cupcakes we sold.

It was a great night. My good friend Alyssa made an appearance. There was some underage drinking. I mixed margaritas, wine and beer for the first time and got to find out what the end result was. It was great, the next morning I apologized to Amy for what she had to walk in on, me washing my shoes in the laundry sink, still drunk and a little sad that it got on my shoes. Amy’s only response was “I don’t judge you.” What a good friend, I love that girl.

So if I had to choose between the riff-off and the cook-off, oooooh, I don’t know. I guess since the riff-off is just a scene in a movie and not real life, I’ll go with the cook-off, I puked on my shoes, BUT Alyssa was there, AND I got to eat ribs. BUT what would the dictionary reading, cupcake girl choose? She would say the riff-off, hands DOWN!