ZEBULON - The recipe for a sizzling chili cook-off at East Wake Academy is a cast of cooks with enough spice to make their chili jealous.

Take Cyndi McKnight, who stirred up a venison chili in her crock pot after she cleaned the deer herself and took it to a butcher on Pearces Road.

"If you'd asked me last year if I'd be out in the boonies cleaning a deer, I'd say absolutely no way in a million years," said McKnight, a former software systems engineer from Los Angeles.

She and her family made the move to Zebulon for a simpler life. She's a self-taught cleaner of deer and has even refined a drying technique to remove the gamey flavor from the meat. But she mainly spends time with her art.

"If it doesn't move fast enough, I paint it," she said. McKnight was one of about 15 cooks who entered the contest for bragging rights and to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to fight breast cancer. All proceeds from $5 tickets people bought to taste the chili were donated to the foundation.

"I think it's pretty cool," said Christian Thomas, an East Wake Academy junior. "I just like the fact that everybody can come out and get judged on what they can do with food."

And what they can do with food is as colorful as the cooks.

"Mine has shredded beef compared to most people who have ground beef which is kind of embarrassing," teases Dan Loomis, a Cisco Systems Engineer from Knightdale whose kids attend the school.

Loomis dusted off a found recipe he doctored from his days entering chili cook-offs at Cisco and entered. He slow cooked chunks beef in chicken broth until they fell apart, then added cumin, salt, pepper, garlic, meat tenderizer, chili, kidney and black beans, garlic, and coffee.

"I change it a little each time I make it," he said.

The chili cook-off brought out the Hunter family whose children attend the school. Ken Hunter entered his tried and true mix of pork, stew beef, ground turkey, ground beef, and black, and kidney beans - a family favorite.

Jeff Watson found a new recipe for his family's entry - a chili with cocoa and baker's chocolate. He and wife Krystal let it simmer 20 hours before carrying it to school where their daughter Mady, 15, attends.

Becky Thornton, Jennifer Byrd, Sandy Wainewright and Jennifer Thorn cooked with a healthy living theme in mind and even dressed the part. They wore sweat shirts they had made. In white lettering each wore either "health care," "exercise," "nutrition," and "rest." They also wore pink breast cancer awareness ribbons pinned above their shoulders.

Their chili was a thoughtful as their get-up. A lighter fare, it contained lean ground beef, onions, green peppers, garlic, pinto beans, chili beans, artichoke salsa and chili powder.

The chili cook-off was one of many events during spirit week that culminated Friday with Cowboy Day when headmaster Brandon Smith rode his horse in a parade around the school along with other riders. The week also included a pig pickin and a western music band and campfire.