You might want to stake a claim to your local TV this Sunday, Jan. 4, at 7 p.m. Central time. That’s when the Food Network will show its “Challenge” program featuring the famous Hico Steak Cook-off, Beef Symposium, and Tourist Trap. I was actually on hand this summer when the Food Network crew came to Hico, which is an impossibly cute north central Texas town, and filmed the event–the contestants were at their most outrageous and loquacious. Good stuff. This year’s steak cookoff will be May 16, 2009.  It’s really a great event–with bands, crafts, the steak contest, and about a ton of red meat. Yum. (The cook-off website is undergoing some revisions and isn’t up now–check it in a few weeks.)