Saturday, June 28, 2008

An excellent summer cocktail

From what I remember it was:

























And a splash of:



Friday, June 27, 2008

The Good and the Bad

Lets start with the bad. And the bad is my teams inconsistency over the past year or so out on the competition bbq trail. We just can't seem to put together solid efforts in all four categories on any kind of regular basis. Chicken has often been a problem, but when we put in a good showing on that front it seems inevitably we bomb Pork or Ribs. I'm sure not cooking quite as many contests as we used to has something to do with it. In Merrimack, NH this past weekend we trialed a new chicken recipe that we were happy with and came in 3rd. 1st place Brisket too. Ribs were OK and Pork (often a bread and butter category) was overcooked and bombed. We came in 3rd place overall which is nothing to sneeze at but I'm definitely frustrated and am looking to improve at the Troy, NY and Harpoon contests in July. The focus is consistency!


















Now the good is a load of hard-shell lobsters I picked up recently. I cooked, picked all the meat and cyrovac'd for lobster rolls later in the summer. All the shells were used for a stock.... the plan is lobster and mushroom risotto for dinner tonite. :)



Sunday, June 8, 2008

Vending and Gardening

Thanks to Jenny, a few projects are looking good. First was some new vending signage for the team. This was rolled out at the Harpoon Summerfest at the Boston Brewery
this past weekend and we'll be using it all season including the New England BBQ Championship up in Windsor VT next month....

Also, A bunch of heirloom tomatoes got planted and the herb garden has already bolted. Looks like some mojitos are in order, we gotta do something with all that mint!

Harvested some oregano that will be dried and used to make fresh tomato sauces later in the summer.

Grilled up some tasty Pearl hot dogs last night for dinner!