{"id":66438,"date":"2019-09-16T14:54:40","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T20:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-challenges-ignacio-to-chile-cook-off\/"},"modified":"2019-09-16T20:54:40","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T20:54:40","slug":"farmington-challenges-ignacio-to-chile-cook-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-challenges-ignacio-to-chile-cook-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington challenges Ignacio to chile cook-off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The town of Ignacio and the city of Farmington have agreed to a chile cook-off Saturday in Ignacio. Some tough words have been exchanged about who has the best green chiles, but officials say it\u2019s all in good fun.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The New Mexico-Colorado chile rivalry has come to Ignacio.<\/p>\n

Farmington challenged Ignacio to prove that Colorado has better chiles at the town\u2019s third annual Ignacio Green Chile Fest to be held Saturday at Shoshone Park.<\/p>\n

The chile debate is years old, but this summer, the states\u2019 governors added some heat, passing comebacks and challenges back and forth via social media. The rivalry sprang up between the two towns when old friends challenged each other (in a fun and friendly way, they said) to settle the debate. Now, it\u2019s up to Ignacio vendors to prove to Farmington judges that they have the better chile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so close to the state line, I thought we\u2019re a perfect place to say, \u2018Come on Colorado, try to prove you guys have the best chile,\u2019\u201d said Jamie Church, president\/CEO of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

The Ignacio Green Chile Fest, organized by the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce and Farmers Fresh Market, features a green chile cook-off and salsa contest, a cornhole tournament, kids games and more. It will also have live music and beer from Bottom Shelf Brewery.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreen chile is such an important part of the heritage for this area. \u2026 You eat it on everything,\u201d said Sharon Craig, co-organizer for the festival and an Ignacio Chamber of Commerce officer.<\/p>\n

With a chile war going on between the state governors, Church said she thought it would be fun to bring the rivalry to Ignacio and Farmington, so she reached out to Craig about the idea. She and Craig are longtime friends \u2013 Church even grew up with Craig\u2019s husband, Clark, in Durango, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just thought it would be so fun to get a little more interaction between the communities with these chile cook-offs,\u201d Church said, stoking the rivalry during a Facebook video with Durango Chamber of Commerce executive director, Jack Llewellyn.<\/p>\n

For the first time, Farmington will send representatives to act as judges, including San Juan County Commissioner GloJean Todacheene and Farmington City Councilor Janis Jakino. Craig and Church hope that Ignacio will either send a judge or its green chile champion to the Farmington Chile Fest on Oct. 5.<\/p>\n

The Colorado-New Mexico rivalry rose to new heights this summer after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called New Mexico chile \u201cinferior\u201d in a July Facebook post about Whole Foods Market opening sales of Pueblo chile<\/a> in four Rocky Mountain states.<\/p>\n

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham fired back and said, \u201cIf Pueblo chile were any good, surely it would have been on national shelves before now. But if Gov. Polis wants to go chile to chile I assure him New Mexico can bring the heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, they were off. Legislators from each state weighed in. A debate ignited on Twitter. New Mexico even released an ad in September that said New Mexico chile was the only true green chile and calling Colorado New Mexico\u2019s \u201cless fortunate neighbors in the north.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the chile fest, the Ignacio chamber aims to bring people to Ignacio in hopes that they will spend money at other businesses in town, Craig said. It\u2019s a family-friendly opportunity for community members who haven\u2019t seen each other to enjoy time together.<\/p>\n

The rivalry between Ignacio and Farmington is also about a larger community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to think regionally,\u201d Church said. \u201cWe all stop in these different places. We visit these different places. \u2026 What a fun thing to get the two communities involved together?\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Church and Craig, however, are sure that their chile is superior.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I think our green chile is the best,\u201d Craig said. The goal is to establish a bit of that rivalry \u201cbut in a good way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Although Church said she still loves her Durango community, she\u2019s pro-Farmington when it comes to chile. She\u2019s sure that Ignacio vendors aren\u2019t entering the Farmington festival because they know they\u2019re not going to win against New Mexico chile.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, Farmington would win. We\u2019re known for our chile,\u201d Church said. \u201cEven in downtown Denver, there are billboards with our Hatch green chile on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rivalry meant to support, promote communities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[799,1235,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-farmington","tag-ignacio","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66438"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}