Last Barbeque Contest for this Season

The first week-end of November is usually our last Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) contest of the season. There isn't a specific season for barbecue, but for us who don't want to compete in the snow, this was the last contest of the year. At home, cooking barbeque happens all year long regardless of the weather.
So our last contest was the Hog Happnin' in Shelby, NC (Matt Brinton's home town and where Mom Brinton lives). The contest is for a great charity and is truly a great southern cultural experience complete with lawn mower races and car show. Although we didn't win any awards our ribs placed 12th out of 64 teams. And the best fun is having family and friends there to share in all the fun (work).

Every BBQ Contest begins days before in our kitchen.
Sauces, Rubs and various other things have to be prepared before we ever even leave our house.

File folders folded and used to hold ziploc bags for dyeing fabric also came in handy for holding up the ziploc bags to pour our marinade into. (Thanks to Carol Soderlund's ingenuity from one of her dye classes. She's awesome and Fay was very nice to share this tidbit with me.)

Then when we arrive there is lots and lots of set up of equipment and preparations. This time we were graced with the help of my brother, Jonathan and his wife. We gave Beth the camera and asked her to take lots of pictures. We usually are much too busy to get very many photos so her work was very much appreciated!

Jonathan was in his element! Here he is rigging up makeshift wind breakers to keep the cookers warm during the record below freezing temperatures during the night. He is great with improvising and anticipating the need. Great team player!

More Barbeque Pictures

The sides are all up on our awning and Don has a heater running to keep the chill off. The temperatures set new record lows for that night that were well below freezing.

Elise loves to go through our gift bag of treats to see what was given to her and her husband, Josh is just hoping there's nothing there to take home to their small bungalow.

The contest is actually two days long with the real action happening on Saturday when the turn in of entries takes place beginning at 12noon.

Here we are busy preparing our box for turn in.

The rest of the team looks on with encouragement and hopes of being called into action to taste the product to help determine which entry that's the best for turning in.

Grandma always willing to do her part for the team!

And my niece, Natalie, is a Barbecue Judge in the making. She says she'd be a great judge because she knows what she likes and she doesn't mind telling people. (I'm sure her parents would agree.) Is she busy texting her opinions of our cooking to her friends?

And as the judge in training sits and waits, (what all great judges practice doing!) the work continues.

Jonathan is surprised to see how serious and meticulous all of the preparations are.

There's a bonus sauce competition so we leave that to our other team members, Beth and Elise. What will they concoct on the spot?

So even though we didn't win any awards for this contest we did end up with some very fine barbeque to eat which is a great reward in itself!

Happy Me!

This may not be big news to everyone, but to me it's as Barney Fife would say - "It's Big, It's Real Big!"
I don't have a picture to go along with this news - but I do have visuals! Look to the right and hopefully you're seeing my links now working! It's taken me several weeks and several tries, but finally I've learned how to edit my links and we don't have the "Edit Me" links there anymore! I've broken them up into two categories so far: Family and Art - you should know the difference, and if not then hey just click on them and see where they take you. I'm so thrilled and I actually figured this out all by myself. Now I'll have to go back and cancel a few request for help!