Category: Sausagefest Reviews

After 19 years there were still new things to see and experience:

• The first time it rained on Sausagefest in 19 years; about 15 minutes of hard rain (not that anyone in the wine tent cared).

  

• Our granddaughter Addison attended her first Sausagefest! (See picture at right.)
• Fewer than four wine glasses broke – a new record.
• The largest number of lazy-RSVP’s to ever attend; we had 51 RSVPs but 82 people attended.
• For the first time ever, we had ten bottles of wine left over. That never happens, but it did this year.
• A spectacular array of desserts was gifted to the Fest – and we thank all the people with baking skills.
• The first time we had sausage from Taiwan.
• For the first time ever we have co-champions in both Home Made and Store Bought sausage categories.
• For the first time ever, sisters are champions in two different categories. Dawn and Donna congrats (the awards follow below).

Some Measures Worth Sharing:

• 30 bottles of wines were consumed; mostly red mostly older, mostly first tier wines. It’s what Sausagefest has turned into – a wine fest with sausage as the lead act, but wine as a main course.

• 34 sausages, well, 33 got on the grill Saturday night but the 34th sausage was grilled less than 24 hours later and that is a story worth telling.
• 82 people with 16 people who were new to the fest; good to see new faces and new friends.

  

• The beer count exceeded 200 cans/bottles and the variety pointed out that we live in the golden age of beer in America. Which leads to this axiom: “Beer choice increases in proportion to the scale of repulsiveness of domestic politics.” We will call this, “The alcohol to deviancy continuum”.

The Thank You list has these people in gold letters: Shawn and Will for their grill work; Kellen for mastering the sausage registration desk; Tom for his bartending skills in the wine tent; Kathleen for some beautifully inscribed Sausagefest 19 wine goblets; Kathy for being the Master Organizer as usual; Richie for the wonderful bottles of Turley and Chappelet; to all the attendees for ignoring the rain and partying on.

Paul and Joy Munson for the Romanian Mititei sausage
Dawn Tuttle for the Merguez, a North African lamb sausage.

Both sausages were delicious and it was too hard to choose which one was better. I can tell you that both sausages were terrific with a glass of Turley Zin.

Steve Zimmerman who brought Louisiana Hot sausage from the Butcher on the Block (Lake in the Hills, Ill.).
Donna Kastning who brought Atomic Sausages from Johnny’s G (Bloomingdale, Ill)

This is Steve’s second win in a row for this category. Last year was his first fest and he obviously knows how to scout for sausage. Donna brought Atomic sausages from Johnny G’s a couple years ago but this vintage was stunningly sadomasochistic with its hotness.

Fresh over retirement rituals, it was good to see Casey Wasilewski get out of rehab in time to assemble the ambrosia of his Polish Sausage and Sauerkraut casserole. Casey is to Polish Sausage Casserole as John Wooden was to college basketball. Every year it’s the same old winning team. The piranhas were circling his large bowl as he set it down on the buffet table. It’s hard to count nanoseconds, but the bowl was licked clean very quickly. I can’t believe there weren’t serious knife and fork injuries for the all the silverware that were thrust into such a small area.

Susan G year after year sees her baked beans disappear as quickly as they are set out. The piranha thing again. This year I never got a whiff of them.

The next day we had one sausage that did not get cooked. We think this was a happy mistake. The sausages were from Taiwanese Lap Ceung sausages. We are grateful to rookie fest goer, David Nealis for bringing these delicious gems to the event. We will have to find more of them quickly. They were made of smoked meat and seasoned with the spices you associate with Chinese cuisine. I won’t attempt to guess at all the seasoning. But, when warmed up on the grill it was like eating bacon candy – with some soy overtones. Pretty amazing stuff.
David, when you comeback from China to Fest #20, bring a lot more.

Kudos to Joyce for bringing terrific Key Lime pie – the real stuff. Nice counter part to the sausage entrees.

It was a very cool and windy Sausagefest 13 but there was no bad luck blowing into the festivities this year.

We were lucky enough to have four hours of acoustic guitar and song from Irv Pavlik. Irv has perfected his Neil Young songbook and the nicest compliment I heard was that “Irv’s better than Neil Young right now.” It was nice seeing an old colleague doing his avocation and people appreciating it. Irv plays in a number
(Check him out on YouTube)

We had some outstanding sausages this year – both home made and store bought. Maybe it was the year 13 thing or a full moon but the voting for all the categories was either very close or tied. Maybe the lesson was that there were no losers here. For as many judges as we had the voting was in apparent patterns, with many close races.

Here are the winners:

Best Home Made Sausage: Tie;

Umbrian Sausage – Norah & Chip Colson
Venison Bourbon Sausage – Richard Tuttle

Honorable Mention: Chicken Green Chili Sausage – Richard Tuttle

Best Use of Sausage in a Recipe: Tie;

Sausage Torte – Jack McClure
Peppers Stuffed with Sausage – Lou & Rose Canonaco

Best Store Bought Sausage: Tie:

Blueberry & Sage Sausage – Judy & Mark Shriner
Disaster Sausage – Larry Fuld

Best Two Desserts:

Maple Bacon Apple Crisp – Tim & Ronna
Chocolate Éclair Cake – Kate Kleiva

Best Presentation of Sausage:

Sausage Torte – Jack McClure

In a year of many divided ballots and close voting the clear winner in any one category was Jack McClure’s Sausage Torte. What is there about a puffy piecrust beautifully golden filled with sausage cheese and some veggies that was hard to like? Apparently nothing.

There were other sausages and dishes that deserve mention just because they were so notable.
Salmon Sausage with Shrimp and Scallops from The Daily Grind in Lake Bluff, Ill. Thanks to Jeff and Lisa Spector. Hard to believe the combination of fresh seafood can be combined into a sausage and all the flavors work together. On evening of cool fall weather and big red wines, this sausage was made for a great French white burgundy on a warmer evening.
The Mild Garlic Boudin Blanc per Chuck Rizzo. A classic white sausage understated and flavorful. Maybe New Orleans does this well but Chuck’s was right there too.
The team of Alan Rohrbach and Rich Klott seem to have a yearlong quest to find small sausage makers and bring them Sausagefest. There was high praise from the judges for Polski’s Jalapeño Brats. They were so good some of the judges voted them as Best Home Made Sausage.
Lalich Deli’s Ćevapčići – they disappeared so fast I think the judges never got to taste them. They are annually a star sausage taken for granted.

With the weather so cool we were expecting some major red wine drinking and this was another outstanding example of largesse by our Sausagefest friends. Handling the wine bar for the umpteenth year, Dr. Tom had these insights for 2010:
So many good bottles Sausagefest 13 looked like there was no recession hitting this party.
The red wines of note were a Sequoia Grove from ’92 (Mr. Rizzo – awesome stuff); Turley Zinfandel (Rich Klott – a great wine from America’s leading female wine maker); a Gingondas and some terrific Malbecs from Argentina.
A conservative wine bottle count of 32 bottles consumed; plus about 40 beers.
For the first time in the wine tent and the history of SausageFest we didn’t break a single wine class. (What’s the matter with you people?)
We had The Grapes of Wrath theme for this year’s event reflecting the sober economic times and so many of our friends being out of work. But, the grapes we poured this year were outstanding. Thank god that even the wine industry has adjusted their pricing.

Many Thanks Department For grillwork beyond the call of duty, many Thanks to Edward Spengler, Alan Rohrbach, and Steve Chastain.

For the Wine Bar duty – Dr. Tommy G. – the fast screw pull east of Napa Valley or at least west of East Lansing.

To Kate Kleiva for re-engineering the sausage registration system and making it simple to understand. We officially registered 23 contesting sausages – and her organizational system was a huge help. Kudos for the Chocolate Éclair cake too. (The renegade sausage cooking wasn’t too bad this year. It’s a men and grill thing.)

It’s very worth noting that the cigars being passed around were also first class. But what would expect when we have first class attendees. Not that I was noticing but we had Ghurkas, Macanudos, some Monte Cristos (thanks Fidel), Gloria and El Rey del Mundo (be still my heart).

Generally, we say cigar smoke keeps the bugs away but that pretext as gone with the cool weather. But, we smoked anyway. Cigars, wine, beer and sausage – it’s a perfect superfecta.

Thanks to Jeff Spector for a sublime smoke way above my pay grade. (When I reach Jeff, I’ll report back what he gifted me with.)

For operational assistance during the event, Thanks to Mike Vargas and Jocelyn Kuksa.

Finally, many Thanks for infinite patience and support for Kathy, the straw that stirs the drink.

(Stay tuned. We owe you all the names and locations of the commercial sausage artists who participated.)

September 2, 2006

The main question facing this years event is can Dr. Tuttle and his fertile sausage imagination be stopped? Is he the DaVinci of sausage making? He has a two year streak going and this is far more consistent than his golf game. He might have found his true calling; orthopedics is getting old and boring (“You seen one broken bone you’ve seen them all.”)

Maybe there’s something about the grinding up of meat tissues that gets the physician drooling, who knows? He’s a generally soft spoken Texan but we all know anybody from Texas is a bit twisted. But then it’s a fine line between insanity and creativity and who can bitch about the outstanding smoked chorizo with chipotle he whipped up last year?

In a not too long ago talk with the Doctor of Sausage he was starting to intimate that he had a few new ideas fermenting and would step up to the plate again. As sure as he can pull hook a Titleist out-of-bounds, we know he’s the champ until someone unseats him in 2006.

New Kids on the Block

We had some outstanding new contributors last year, Lou Cananoco, Ernie Pabon established their bona fides, plus the veterans Grabowksi, Wasilewski, Zider also had some very tasty contributions – and their sausages weren’t bad either.

I’m hoping for this year’s event two things:

1. Is there a new sausage artist out there that will compete with Doc Tuttle?

2. I’m waiting for one of our veteran attendees (many of whom are well traveled) to bring some exquisite new sausage from some new sausage-maker.

Will the new the meat artist come from Bucktown? Cicero? Glenview (is that even possible)? Melrose Park? Missouri? Or will we get some wayward cheesehead contribution from Wisconsin where one of our regular attendees in their usual stupor stumbled across a Packer Fan/Sausage-maker who understood grinding and casing meat.

Those are the two goal posts I want Sausagefest 2006 to drive through. It may mean that we have the day after stomach pain of a bullet train speeding through our colon, but there is no gain without some pain.

After nine years of Sausagefests you might think that sameness might creep into the celebration. Sausagefest 9 had enough unexpected twists to make this year’s theme (The DaVinci Sausage) fit like a glove.

We had more than seventy people attend the event; we finished off thirty-nine bottles of some incredible wines, and many after dinner cigars. The attendees were again as diverse as the sausages – doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs (that’s French for small time thief), a guy who came from Alaska (with sausages and smoked salmon), plus a lot people who work at jobs they’re not crazy about but are making do, and still love sausages.

In terms of first time occurrences there were these:
First reindeer sausages from Alaska
(unfortunately they sounded more interesting than they tasted)
We drank less than 40 bottles of wine
First South African sausages
First Sausagefest bag toss game was unveiled (order yours now)
There were no divorces papers filed within 30 days of the event
I woke up without a hangover
There was no karaoke
Before this list gets too long let’s get to the awards.

Let’s start with a new Award Category – “Best Sausage Pyrotechnics”

Who’d think to invent exploding sausages but that creative spirit, Alan Rohrbach. Alan has supported Sausagefest for many years. He’s the guy who brings Irish bangers, exotic beers, French wines, and is a pivotal part of our end-of-party clean up gang.

This year Chef Alan eschewed the store bought meat and created a sausage that will become famous – Exploding Sausage. While his artistic aim was to create a Jamaican-style Jerk sausage experience he actually surpassed his own objective.

But isn’t great art about not really being in control. The divine muse grabs hold and you just don’t know where you’ll end up.

We can piece this together now, and luckily for the people near the grill when the first explosion happened, they’re pieced back together as well. It was a bit ugly, the phrase touch and go comes to mind, but the medical staff did a great job.

Wanting to commemorate this new style of sausage and realizing that art is always challenging its boundaries, we wanted to award the first ever Best Sausage Pyrotechnics award to Alan Rohrbach!

Best Polish Sausage Award

Moving from the startling new to the familiar, “Best Polish Sausage” was awarded to Ed and Cathy Grabowski. This makes them a three time Sausagefest award winner. The Grabowski’s now have these awards: Grand Champion 2003, 2005 Unique Artistic Achievement, and 2006 Best Polish Sausage. Serious competitors, can’t wait to see what they do for Sausagefest 10.

Unique Artistic Achievement & Rookie of the Year

For the first time in Sausagefest history we have two awards for one participant: Vernon Patrick.

Vernon, erstwhile volleyball coach and Chicago watercraft captain, created a stunning work of sausage. We’re still not sure what to call it. But let’s give some of the details with the understanding that the sum of the parts was greater than the whole.

The dish started with polish kishka. The sausage was steamed with onion in a white wine sauce. The sausage and onion were broken up and mixed together. Mesclun greens were put on a plate and used as base. The sausage and onion mixture were scooped on top and layered out. More mesclun was add in the center of the meat mixture.

As a final and important touch, red champagne grapes were sprinkled over the top of the casserole. The casserole was seasoned with some salt and pepper.

This was served to a late evening crowd who were stunned at the complexity of flavors & textures.

Congrats, Vernon – what a unique dish! Even after writing this I realize that Polish kishkia and salad greens sounds pretty ho-hum but it was the strangest combination of meat, textures, and flavors I’ve put in my mouth since my last Ethopian dinner experience.

Best Achievement with Sausage & Vegetable: John Cananoco

In 2005 we were treated to Lou Cananoco bringing us small peperocine stuffed with sweet Italian sausage. This year his brother, John, continued the family’s winning ways. Maybe it was the older brother trying to out do the younger, or a famliy recipe he kicked up a notch. For this evening, John used small sweet peppers but the sausage had a heat and spice quality that made a statement. “The timid need not eat.”

Were they too hot? They were so good we vacuumed seal an many as we could and cooked them a month later for our own private consumption.

We don’t usually “bogart” sausage entries but, hey, its our Sauasgefest.

Congratulations, John!!

Sausagefest Grand Champion

On the eve of Sausagefest 9 there was some heavy money being bet on Richard Tuttle winning his third Grand Championship. In 2005 and 2004 he had distanced himself from the field with his home made sausages. Who could forget the hand-made smoked chorizo sausages he made in 2005? A depth of flavor ready for the finest Cabernets and Rhône’s.

As Sausagefest 9 kicked-off there was a buzz in the crowd. What would Richard do? Chorizo Part Deux? A reprise of his tequila sausage of 2004?

But a funny thing happened on the way to winning the trifecta. An old Sausagefest veteran, Chuck Rizzo, who had taken a two year hiatus from attending, made a Chili sausage that captured the best essence of home made chili. It also captured the Grand Champion Award.

Perfect seasoning captured the “bowl of chili” experience. The sausage was lean, flavorful and hearty – it was chili in a casing. A bit of heat but nothing x-rated, and certainly an easy compliment to a lot of the red wines that were open.

Congratulations, Chuck Rizzo (and welcome back)!!

2007 – Sausagefest 10

The ten year anniversary is staring us in the face. We have taken a goofy sounding party idea to a significantly large social gathering. Each year’s celebration continues to improve. You can expect #10 to be another step up. Thanks to all the attendees and contributors – it doesn’t happen without you!

Before the New Year starts, we wanted to say THANKS to:
Chris Kleiva and Ed Grabowski for grill duty
George V. at Woodfield Media for a great new website
Rick Haering for helping to set-up & the Alaskan smoked salmon
Rich Klott and Alan Rohrbach for the end-of-party tasks
Jack McClure for his great craftsmanship in building a Sausagefest bag toss game
Tom Graan for his always stellar sommelier duties
And for all you Sausagefest friends, start grinding your meat soon. For Sausagefest 10 we’re expecting big things.

August 21, 2007

Tin, aluminum, and diamond – those are the British, American, and Modern symbols for the tenth anniversary. I can see the Brits doing a tin of candy, a tin of tea, but what really nice gift of tin have you received lately? Something from the Wizard of Oz catalog from the Tin Man section?

But the Brits have been civilized longer than we have and maybe tin back in the day was more meaningful. Aluminum foil is handy but don’t bring a case of aluminum foil to Sausagefest. So let’s just agree that diamonds are okay and any size larger than a fingernail is acceptable

It’s hard to believe that ten years of great sausages and great wine drinking has grown into a very large party with a cult like following.

Hey wait a second; everyone I know is two cocktails from a Betty Ford alumni party. And, the smell of grill fired sausages has a wider appeal than American Idol. It’s not so surprising after all. The fest worked from the beginning and we’re still motoring.

This year the theme is 2007: A Sausagefest Odyssey. It’s been a long strange trip and it’s been our family of friends who kept the journey going. I hope we can all be doing this for many years to come – despite the indictments, work release agreements, DUI’s, restraining orders, and general disarray our lives throw at us.

Somehow we can get straightened up for one night and still do what’s important – drink and eat with friends. In the really old days it was a Roman orgy – togas, wine, endless food, and the god knows what else. I was thinking this might be a good toga year. It’s been a little warm, and something cottony and baggy would be okay. But rather than incur a toga expense I‘d rather you go find a great new sausage maker and buy his or her sausages. Or even better, go buy our T-shirts!

We have our tradition of great sausage with great wine. I urge each of the attendees to bring the best and the most delicious – as usual. We will speak glowingly of your great contributions of wonderful Zinfandel, Cabernets, Chilean Reds, Australian Shiraz; as well as your Polish sausage, Italian, and Irish bangers.

We are always interested in sampling home creations or tasting the creations of new sausage makers you have stumbled across.

Thanks to all the guests, friends and friends of friends that helped make 2009 a great Sausagefest.

Sausagefest has a simple goal – find the best sausages, enjoy tasting them, then let people know who’s making them and if they are publicly available. We also recognize that there professional sausage makers and amateurs.

Too often sausages get a bad rap. But, when you taste a sausage made by an sausage artist like Hungry Hill, Elburn Market, Lalich’s Deli, Gaziano’s, (Des Moines) or Goodrich’s (East Lansing) you know you are eating a quality food product.

The sausages from professional sausage makers at Sausagefest 2009 were many, but the following sausages and their sausage maker were exceptional.

Exceptional Sausages (Professional Sausage Artists):

Goodrich’s Shop Rite (East Lansing, Mich.)
• Lamb with cinnamon, mint & pine nuts
• Brown Sugar bats

Jim & Gary’s Meats (Pecatonica, Il)
• Bacon Cheeseburger Brats

Hungry Hill Sausage (Homewood, Il)
• Hot Italian Sausage

Lalich Deli (Niles, Il)
• Ćevapčići sausages

Paulina Market (Chicago, Il)
• Veal Curry Brats

Schmeissers (Niles, Il)
• Metwurst

These vendors have some outstanding sausages and you should seek them out.

Exceptional Sausages (Amateur Sausage Makers)

Best Sausage From a Existing Recipe
Urfa (Turkish Lamb sausage:)
• Norah Colson adopting a Saveur Magazine recipe

Italian Sausages :
• Ed Grabowski: Garlic & Black Pepper Italian
• Michael Tepper: Hot Sicilian
• Richard Tuttle: Italian Cucina

Creole Sausage:
• Chuck Rizzo

Red Wine & Shitake Mushroom Pork Sausage
• Lynn & Eric Slezak

All of these amateur chefs created terrific tasting sausages. Congratulations to all of them and THANKS for your hard work and creativity.

Blue Ribbon Champions for 2009: Lynn and Eric Slezak

Congratulations to the husband and wife team of Lynn and Eric Slezak for their Red Wine & Shitake Mushroom Pork Sausage.

A wonderful marriage of flavors where the mushroom didn’t overtake the meat and red wine. It was a terrific balance of all the flavors working together.

How a husband and wife can make sausage together and not kill each other is a mystery. But we’re glad you found the team work to create this great sausage.

2009 Sausagefest Recap – A Variety of Quick Notes, Comments
September 5, 2009

The Wine Results The wine consumption tilted heavily to red wine this year by huge margin. Beer consumption was way down. The cool fall weather had its effects.

Initial count of 44 different wines consumed. We’ll check bushes and the perimeter for stray bottles.

Thanks to the folks who brought the 1995 Ch. Pinchon Longueville, and 1995 Chateau D’Angludet. A larger list of wines tasted will follow. Its amazing how opinions vary in wine tasting.

Buddy – The Official Dog, Mascot & Tasting Judge of Sausagefest

He’s a 75 pound dream dog with a superb palate. His table manners are impeccable. More than 30 different types to taste and he was up to the challenge. In a large crowd of people he was a mild manner Buddy to everyone.

If he doesn’t like the sausage it doesn’t get past the first sniff gate.

True story – earlier this year he reluctantly ate a small bit of Italian sausage from a new butcher shop. Five seconds later he gave it back on the kitchen floor. He was right. I tasted it and realized there are some sausages not to like.

Casey’s Polish Sausage

Every year he brings Polish Sausage and Sauerkraut and every year he goes silent when I ask for the recipe. Somewhere past the Witty & Charming stage of the evening’s drinking I learn at the wine bar that he gave his recipe out. I was his college roommate, twice his best man and he hands over the recipe to a veritable stranger.

Worth noting, it was just excellent as usual. Based on a multi-year history of it disappearing so quickly its one of those phenomenon’s that’s like clockwork – like winning money betting against the Cubs after the Fourth of July.

Perfect Weather for the 12th Year in a Row!

BIG Thanks to: Great Thanks to Edward and Coach Patrick for the grill duty. Awesome work with a very heavy meat load this year. It was like O’Hare on a Friday night.

Tom Graan gets high sommelier points for his work at keeping the wine flowing and his modest editorial comments on everything he poured. Alan Rohrbach as the sous sommelier gets a thanks as well.

Chip Colson & Steve Zider for their set-up help. Steve Chastain, Jack McClure and Fred McMurray for their help aiding the chefs.

Record Attendance This Year

What made this fest such a joy was having so many friends bringing friends from out of town. Thanks to our old and new friends who travelled from Columbus, Ohio, Madison, Wisconsin, Champaign, Ill, Bloomington, Ill and even the North Shore.

Thanks to all who came and shared their wine, sausages and stories.

Grabowski, Rizzo & Tuttle

This trio is not the double play combination for the Red Sox, but amateur sausage makers who are creating some great sausages. Again this year they created some great sausages. Great stuff guys. But guys, watch out for Norah Colson, Lynn & Eric Slezak, and virtual Mike Tepper – new sausage artists on the radar.

Funny Stuff & Firsts

• Scotch as a sausage appetizer? Ronna made this a first for Sausagefest.

• Rich Klott as a sausage mule for Michael Tepper – who knew lawyers did this stuff?

• Notre Dame winning on Sausagefest Saturday.

• Mike Gannon letting Laurie out of the house.

• Wine bottle tossing. Glad the ground was soft.

• Wonderful beer from the Columbus Brewing Company. Thanks Patty & Mike.

• Thank God for Sausagefest being a cigar friendly event.

• Sausagefest clothing (and good quality stuff too) is now available.

• John Canonaco didn’t fumble a bottle of high end Cabernet into the cement.

• A record number of lost cell phones.

Thanks for stopping by and we hope you become a regular visitor to Sausagefest.com.

For the first time in Sausagefest history we had to deal with some rainy weather. But, we had positive things happened that helped us deal with the weather.

First, we had Spontaneous Tent Erection (STE, for you medical types) and that saved us from:
A. Electrocuting Irv and his musical equipment
B. Kept our sausage serving buffet dry
Many thanks to our friends who brought the extra tents. May your STE powers stay with you forever.

Second, several people walked up to me and said. “It never rains at Sausagefest.” Proving that a positive attitude can overcome obvious empirical evidence to the contrary. I think the wine and beer consumption helped bolster that ignore-the-weather attitude.

Here are some of the measures of our misbegotten behavior:
• For the first time ever we had more sausages consumed and tasted than wine. We sampled 31 different sausages and drained 28 bottles of wine.
• We had at a minimum 86 people in attendance – documented by photographic and other CSI (Criminal Sausage Investigations) evidence.
• We had the first sausages on the grill by 4:30 PM and the lights in the wine bar went off at 1:30 AM Sunday morning. Rain was coming down pretty good but at this time of the party no one noticed.
• We had two people take headers into terra firma. No injuries to report on either.
• The beer consumption was dramatically up. We had a variety of type flight micro-brews and our recycle bins were overflowing with that evidence.

The Winners of Sausagefest 2011:

Best Theme for Sausagefest 2011:
Osama Bin Sausage – Marc Zider

Best Home Made Sausage
• Kielbasa – Ed Grabowski (welcome back to the Winner Circle, Ed!!!)

Best Store Bought Sausage
• Philly Cheese Steak Brats, from Mariano’s – entered by the Wippman’s and Duffey’s

Best Italian Sausage: (two way tie)
• Sanagan Meat Market, Toronto, Canada – entered by Mr. Fuld
• Fausto’s, Arlington Hts, Ill – entered by the Kleiva’s

Best Sausage & Vegetable Pairing
• Italian-Mexican Sausage & Pepper, Paulina Market – entered by Rohrbach-Klott

Sausage en Croute
• Sausage Torte – home made – entered by Mr. McClure (second year in a row).

Creativity Award
• Piggy’s in a Blanket – entered by Lawrence (a first time winner from Champaign, Ill)

Best Home Made Desert
• Almond Cake – entered by Sue McClure

Best Store Bought Desert
• Fruit Torte – Mariano’s, Arlington Hts, Ill., entered by the Wippman’s.

Best Red Wine
• Parusso, Barolo, 1998
Honorable Mentions: 2008 Turley, Old Vines, 2008 Scott Harvey Zinfandel (Amador County Mountain Selection), 2007 Opolo Vineyards, Petite Sirah (Paso Robles)

Even with a one year hiatus the sausagefest participants went back to the established practices they learned over the past 17 years:

• Bring great wine🍷
• Bring lots of great beer🍺
• Bring lots of good sausage🌭
• Wish for nice weather☀

While three of the variables are in human hands, the weather answered prayers,a cool early fall day gave way to a beautiful evening. Eighteen years of great weather, so you know it is an ordained event from on high.

By unofficial count the fest had 65 to 70 people, 35 bottles of wine consumed, 30 sausages grilled and more than 100 beers consumed. (We actually received more than 30 sausages but when the grill crew took a break at 6:30 with 30 sausages already served the cooking petered out.)

The first sausage was on the grill by tradition at 4:30. By some past standards, the attendance was a bit down but the wine and beer flow was still fully turned on.

Check out the Sausagefest Photo Gallery.

Richard Tuttle won another championship award for his Jamaican Jerk Chicken sausage. Richard had been in a prolonged slump in the last several years and it was good to see his creativity return despite his advanced age. Several people wanted to know where they could buy the sausage. While another veteran sausage goer had this insight, Richard re-discovered proportionality of seasoning makes a difference.

Chuck & Nancy Rizzo get the award for Culinary Creativity. This award is not an annual award but is awarded to the chef who goes above and beyond to bring a food item to Sausagefest that has great quality but that is not necessarily an encased meat.

When Chuck and Nancy get into the cooking mode there is no messing around. They have won multiple SausageFest Championships for their homemade sausages. (Their Chili Sausage being a recent winner.) This year they went to a French classic dish: homemade rillettes. The pate melted in your mouth and went with both red and white wine.

Steve Zimmerman, a first time Sausagefest attendee, discovered a Wisconsin butcher who makes Bison sausage with a great name: Black and Bleu Bison Brat. What a huge hit. The flavor was huge, seasonings perfect, but there just wasnt enough for the demand. If you want to try some of these wonderful sausages, head to Salem, Wisconsin and find Lester’s Bison Farm. Salem is about midway between Lake Geneva and Kenosha on route 50.

Sausagefest 18 was a big hit because of all the team work we get from family and friends. Many thanks to: Kathy, Kristen, Alan, Richie, Mark, Ty, Mike, Steve, and Kellen Kleiva who was inserted into Sausage Grill Scheduler and did a masterful job.

If you want to see a small sample of sausages that you missed, the list below has some very good sausages. We hope you can get to these sausage artist stores and support their work.