Fighting hunger by eating a lot, fast

There are a plethora of ways to fight hunger in our society. You can volunteer at your local soup kitchen. You can serve a hot lunch to isolated seniors like I did last weekend with Project ORE. You can advocate for smarter allocations of funds to food stamp and school lunch programs. You can donate food stuffs or money to a neighborhood food bank.

Or you can eat as many dumplings as you can put into your mouth in two minutes.

This Saturday I will take part in the 6th Annual Chef One Dumpling Eating Contest. This event will benefit the New York City Food Bank. Last year the three time champ Joe Menchetti put down 66 dumplings taking first place, $1000 prize money and a year’s worth of bragging rights. That is 1.81818 dumplings per second in case you were wondering. (For those of you who don’t click on links, this link goes to an ESPN radio station…yeah eating is so a sport)

But Joe, you better watch your back. This may be my first competitive eating event and I might not be able to stuff half as many dumplings in my mouth at a time as you can, but boy oh boy do I hate the fact that millions of people —-and one in five children (!!!)—- in the richest city in the richest country in the world go hungry. So you better believe I am coming after you!

In the very unlikely event that I place in this contest I promise to give a significant portion of my winnings to the New York City Food Bank and I will use the rest to pay for a personal trainer.

So, if you are in New York City this weekend and are looking for something to do, come cheer me on at the festival. I will be hopefully wearing a dumpling contest shirt but if not I will wear a “The dcc Fights Hunger by Eating Dumplings” shirt, possibly a hat too. (Replicas will be made available by order only)

The sixth annual dumpling contest will take place this Saturday, Oct. 24 during the first-ever New York City Dumpling Festival, presented by Chef One.

Saturday, Oct. 24 1 p.m.
Sara D. Roosevelt Park
E. Houston Street, New York, NY (between Chrystie and Forsyth)