Anyway, Hubby's first go at being our team cook went alright. Judging is stressful. You spend the morning cleaning up your booth and making it look pretty with tablecloths and china and then the judges come by one by one. You show them your smoker and then serve them some ribs and talk about your rub, your sauce, your technique and chat with them while they pull apart and taste everything. It doesn't seem tense but it is crazy. A huge park that was full of booty music and drunk 20 and 30 somethings taking shots from an ice luge the night before is eerily quiet as teams work to pick up cigarette butts and empty beer cans. Some put out mulch and landscaping plants. Seriously. Then there's the occasional applause as a judge exits the tent. Once judging is over, the booty music starts up again, don't worry.
Anyway, Hubby's very first judge showed up wearing a Famous Dave's Smoke Pit hat and shirt. His name was Dave. THE Dave who started this bbq restaurant in the midwest. Um. Yeah. No pressure. If you don't know who he is, google famous dave and you'll see. ugh. So here he is checking out our smoker:
 |
| From Wine glasses to baby bottles |
And this is what he was looking at:
 |
| From Wine glasses to baby bottles |
As is typical of BBQ fest, we had a major downpour on friday night. Here's the sunset after the tornado watch and lightning storms had passed:
 |
| From Wine glasses to baby bottles |
After all was said and done, our team came in 67th out of 113 rib competitors. Not terrible given we had some snafus during judging and only 30 points (out of 1000) separated us from first. NEXT year, we'll kick some butt. And I won't be pregnant. :-)
I don't really care for ribs (due to the bone, b/c I can't handle eating meat with bones in it. I do like rib meat though :) ) but that presentation is amazing! I'd say ya'll did great and it sounds like tons of fun!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see pictures of the newest little! When is (it's a she, right?!) coming?!?! and I really can't wait to see your first little, Mr. Handsome himself, Holden holding that newest little! Have you shared names and I'm missing it or is it a surprise?
That's pretty darn good placing for your first go-around. I'm impressed, and those ribs looked dee-lish!!
ReplyDeleteMandie - I'm not a huge fan of ribs either but these were pretty tasty. We hoped for top 50 but weren't too far from it. Next year!
ReplyDeleteIt's another HE! I'm going to be the only girl in the house. And that includes the dog. Although, he's fixed so maybe he's neutral ground? We haven't officially nailed down a name but are leaning towards Coby which is a shortened version of a family name. DH thinks it sounds like a pro baseball player's name, the thought of which he likes and me not so much.
Steph - thanks! I think they looked better in person!