Hitting the BBQ Wall

To the handful of folks who read this blog, apologies for the lack of updates. Between work, family, the American Royal, Jack Daniels, and Harpoon Helps I've been flat out... and burnt out.  

Also, right around the corner I'll be going on a roadtrip to pickup my new Jambo Pit.

It was an honor and a great time participating in the Jack Daniels event.  Congrats to New Englander's Lunchmeat and I Smell Smoke on their great showings.    Team IQUE consisted of Dave, Jamie, John Delpha and Myself.   We felt we gave ourselves a good opportunity to compete in the BBQ categories with one of our best cooks of the year.  20th overall ain't bad, so no regrets there.  And, I think I have finally turned the corner on chicken with a new recipe (yeah, we'll see about that) so there is no plans to cook practice chicken all winter this off-season... (my family just sighed in  relief).

It rained like hell all day on Friday to the point we needed to move our camp.  We moved into the International area of the contest where us Bostonians with the weird accents fit right in.

The highlight of Jack was we took 1st place in Cooks Choice.  In our 7 years at the Jack we have a 3rd and two 1sts in Cooks Choice.   John masterminded this years entry which we dubbed a "Hunters Brunch" featuring Pork Cheeks and Quail Eggs.

The Royal

Just got back from the American Royal in KC.  Andy, Jamie, Kenny, Dave and Heather Chittum made up the I-QUE squad, we had a blast and had some good results.  A 15th place Rib ribbon in the Invitational event (30th Overall out of 90 teams)... in the Open we hit an 8th place Chicken ribbon and 8th overall (!) out of 475 teams.

Its a pretty brutal challenge spending 4 days in a parking lot and cooking two KCBS competitions back to back. First day ribs and brisket were real good .  The pork had great flavor but I had sourced a natural farm raised pork I had never cooked before. The butcher had taken a slightly different bias on the boston butt portion of the shoulder and as a result I had a hard time with presentation.  Chicken deservedly bombed (82nd).  Dave and I conferenced Saturday night and worked out a completely different chicken recipe for the Open.  We were pretty proud of the big turn around in that category.   Andy did very well with the side dishes and we came in 5th Overall in the side categories. 

I feel pretty tuned up for Jack Daniels and can't wait to get down there for another cook.   Congrats to I Smell Smoke for the Chicken call and Transformer for Ribs.