Pit Envy

Over the past 10 years I've owned quite a few different smokers and grills... Langs, Backwoods, Webers, Big Green Eggs. I've currently whittled things down to 1 BGE and 2 Backwoods Fatboys. Pretty optimal equipment for what I need. The BGE is renowned for it's versatility handling everything from pizza, to high temp steak searing, to slow and low. Ideal for cooking at home for my family. And the Backwoods are perfect when I need extra capacity cooking a contest or for a crowd of friends. Both are well insulated so I can use them 365 days a year in New England.

Practical right?

Well I'm itching for a new toy. I guess you could call it Pit Envy. I've had my eye on stick burners from both Horizon and Meadow Creek. I do like to play with fire. My charcoal cookers are so 'set it and it and forget it' I no longer have an excuse to hang out in the yard and tend to the cooker. And of course since the stick burner needs tending every hour I'll need to be equipped with a comfortable recliner and a cooler of cold beer.

So amongst all of the smokers I covet two stand out today. One is from the largest producer of charcoal grills - Weber. The other is more of an artisan producer - Pits by Jambo. Guess which one I can afford?

What both Manufacturers have recently announced is new availability. WSM groupies have been clamoring for a larger version of this cooker for years. There are also rumors of 26" charcoal grill as well. The new 22" WSM should be available by the end of the year and hopefully I'll see one under my Christmas Tree.

Jamie Geer of Pits by Jambo has built beautiful, custom, off-set trailer smokers for some of the top teams in the country including Smoking Triggers and Cool Smoke. Recently after a 3 year hiatus Jamie announced he is building pits again. I haven't figured out how to fund a purchase of one of these beauties yet, but I'm working on it!

Celebratory Dining

Jenny and I are turning 40 in a few months. ::gasp::

We of course are using this event as an excuse to spend a lot of money on a good time.

New Orleans JazzFest has been discussed. I'm partial to investing in a once in a lifetime dining experience. Alinea in Chicago has been on my radar as well as Per Se in Manhattan.

One of my favorite bloggers, Beef Aficionado, just posted a most excellent and thorough review of Per Se here. It certainly peaks my interest and also someday I hope to be able to incorporate the word salubriousness into one of my posts. Now I just have to convice my wife that an other-worldly meal at Per Se is worth dropping a grand on!

Troy, Harpoon

OK, back to blogging. I've been busy with vacation and cooking a couple of contests. Troy, NY was a great first year contest right on the Hudson. We had a great time cooking next to our friends Lakeside Smokers. The results were good, we cooked some killer ribs and took Grand Champion. There were some nice payouts that will fund this crazy hobby for a bit longer.

Troy Article

Harpoon was a great time as always. We had a our full team, a double site, and had a great weekend vending. Competition? Well lets just say the judges and I disagreed. I was very pleased with our entries. One take-away thought I had was so many teams are cooking in a similar fashion its getting harder to standout. I think I saw a Backwoods Smoker and a bottle of Blues Hog sauce at almost every contest site at Harpoon. ;-)

I have couple ideas of how to shake things up that I'm going to try in August, stay tuned.

Next up, New Paltz!

Chicken Entry, Lamb Entry, Ethan rocking the cheesy fries....

Grilled Beef

Nothing says summer like a good grilled steak. These ribeyes got a dusting of of Tom Douglas' Steak Rub.

Used some Wicked Good Charcoal to get my Big Green Egg to a molten hot temp. My family ate like a pack of hungry wild dogs:

An excellent summer cocktail

From what I remember it was:

























And a splash of:

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. :)

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!