Chips and dip

With Michelangelo due to visit over the weekend, we are hoping we will all be able to go to the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Toss and Festival on Labor Day. We have gone for a number of years, including one year when Karl was visiting at the same time Michelangelo was here. Anyway, just so you will know what you are missing ...

From the Sauk Prairie Eagle:

Travel Channel looks into chips:

New show will highlight Prairie's largest event

Photo Contributed by Rebecca Hildebrandt

Travel Channel host Andrew Zimmern is filmed Aug. 27 atop the large wooden "Trojan Cow" where chips are stored to let them dry out before this weekend's tossing event.

By Jeremiah Tucker, Sauk Prairie Eagle

Even if this weekend's Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw and Festival isn't the most well-attended in the venerable cow-dung heaving competition's 35-year history, it could be the most watched.

The Travel Channel's Andrew Zimmern, host of "Bizarre Foods," was in town Aug. 27 filming footage about the cow chip throw for an upcoming episode of his new series.

"He's starting a new show called 'Bizarre World,' and it's focusing on different customs in different parts of the world," said Rebecca Hildebrandt, co-chair of the chow chip committee. "The eighth one in the series will be on Wisconsin. He asked if we would be willing to be part of the show based on the cow chip throw and we said we would love to."

The episode is scheduled to air Oct. 27, Hildebrandt said.

This year's cow chip already has garnered more exposure than usual since Culver's partnered with the annual event to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary by bringing in Dennis DeYoung, the former lead singer of the '70s rock band Styx, to perform a free concert on the festival's grounds the night before Saturday's throw.

Both events will take place in Marion Park in Sauk City and on the grounds of Grand Avenue Elementary School adjacent to the park.

Zimmern won't actually attend the cow chip throw — although a film crew from "Bizarre World" will be there — but Hildebrandt said he interviewed a lot of people who work and participate in the event.

"He wanted to know about the history of festival, why it came to be and what it means to community," Hildebrandt said.

Terry Slotty, who's worked the event for 17 years and runs the competition, said he tried to give Zimmern as authentic a cow-chip experience as possible.

He took him to the field where the cow chips are collected every year and pointed out particularly fine specimens of cow dung.

"The chips have to be from grass-fed beef cattle," Slotty said.

Pies from corn-fed cows are too watery and dry out like newspaper, he explained, "They're too light to throw."

Slotty said he acted as if they were collecting for this year's event for the camera, but in reality the cow chips had been collected weeks ago to give them time to properly dry out before the event.

"People don't like to throw wet ones," Slotty said.

He showed Zimmern the shed where the chips are stored, the cow chip throw's large wooden Trojan Cow that's a staple of area parades and, finally, the throw itself.

A makeshift field was drawn and some local flingers, like past men's champion Greg Neumaier, were on hand to give pointers.

"He talked to all the people that were throwing, interacted with them and got their secret tips," Hildebrandt said.

Bill Wenzel Jr., who loaned his surveying equipment to measure the throws, said Zimmern's best throw was 143 feet.

In some years that would've been good enough to place him in the top 3.

"He did surprisingly well," Wenzel Jr. said.

Slotty said he thinks Zimmern surprised himself.

"He didn't think you could throw cow chips that far, that they could fly," Slotty said.

I note that the winners from this state contest go on to compete at the nationals in Beaver, Oklahoma next April.

And now you know more than you ever thought you would about cow chips.

BTW, a favorite candy treat made in Baraboo is the Cow Pie.