2013 - The year of still here, with apologies to Jimmy Buffett!

So with our 1 non-sanctioned comp in the books for our "comeback" season, we're ramping up for our very first comp of 2013, the Masters In May, in Fremont, WI, less than a month out!

We're pretty excited, as I've only even begun working full time as of Monday of this week! As to the title of this entry, it's borrowed from Jimmy Buffets' 2008 tour, which he called the year of still here. Feels appropriate given all we went through last year to get here.

After the Des Plaines Winter burnoff in February, we kept the barbecue fires lit by volunteering our help at a KCBS judges class in Westmont, IL. This years event had plenty of volunteers for table captain, but none other than us for assisting with box presentation, so Diane and I ended up helping the class leaders wife (Virginia Londeen) and her youngest son preparing the boxes, cutting and placing the meats, and then delivering them to the table captains. I have to say, with just the 4 of us, it was far less hectic than I recall from past classes. By all accounts, Virginia's husband David, and thier older son did a great job conducting the judges training, and at the end, a packed house of new judges took the oath! Dave, Virginia, and thier kids were great, and we look forward to seeing them again in May at Westmont, where they'll be 2 of the 3 KCBS reps.

In the meantime, Masters in May is a first time contest that sounds like it should be great fun, and will be our first outing this year. Unlike most competitions, that are done in conjunction with some other event(s) like a carnival, festival, etc. This one is being conducted at a Jellystone Park campground in Wisconsin, with no other activities involved. Just BBQ, all BBQ, all the time! And there are 48 teams committed to compete.

It's the first full weekend of May, and in mid-Wisconsin, the weather is, to say the least, unpredictable. Be that as it may, all competitors will face the same challenges, so we say, C'est lavie!

Our next will be almost in our hometown, Memorial Day weekend. This will be our 6th year competing at this event, and our 7th being associated with it (the first year we were judges) We've only missed thier very first year. What's more exciting is, in addition to this being thier biggest year ever as a competition (71 pro teams, and 19 amateur as of this writing, the most of its history!), they will also be playing host to Destination America's channel BBQ Pitmaster show! Not sure who the competitors will be, but it should be a fun addition! This comp is in Westmont, Illinois' Ty Warner Park, Memorial Day weekend. Carnival and festival starts Friday the 24th, and runs through the evening of the 26th.

We have 4 of at least 6 comps already paid for, and at least 2 or 3 more planned this year. Given last years issues (friggin cancer) we only were able to do 2, and summer was mostly a washout :-(

We are VERY excited to be getting back in the saddle, and hope we can enjoy the season we'd hoped for last year, this year! The next few weekends will require a de-winterizing of the trailer, and repacking with all the liquids we brought in last fall to keep from freezing. Photos will be posted as soon as possible after the contest, and if I'm able, I'll put the awards presentation up on youtube.

Good to be back!

Let's try this again, shall we?

Well hello again!

I haven't looked at this blog since last June. Well, okay, maybe once or twice, but the fact is our 2012 season was derailed thanks to lymphoma. So that became our contest last year, and we won!

So Sunday, 2/17, we cooked our first competition since early June of last year, at the non-sanctioned Des Plaines, IL Winter Burnoff, a charity event designed to bring attention to, and raise money for NOAH - the national organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation. www.albinism.org

I packed up the truck most of Saturday, and got up about 4:30 Sunday morning to finish packing the last of it, our meats and perishables, so they wouldn't have frozen solid overnight.

We woke up to a dark and brisk (14 degrees) Chicagoland morning, and after getting ourselves together a bit, left the house around 6, making a stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way to pick up a little breakfast and coffee, then hit the road for the (approximately) 30 minute drive to beautiful downtown Des Plaines, and the Rand-River Bowl, whose parking lot is the location of the contest.

We arrived, with the sun barely poking its head up, were pointed to our assigned space. I pulled a few things out of the truck to begin setting up, but it was cold enough that we both decided to go inside,  put on our cold weather gear and come back to finish set-up. So we got our gear all set, tarps up to keep the wind out, set up our 2 cookers, laid out our table, and set to work. Unfortunately, I realized toward the end of setting up that I'd left our chili, for the chili part of the contest at home on the counter, so wouldn't have a chance to defend my first place from last year.

Now, being that this contest is held in the middle of a mid western winner, they have a modified list of what meats get cooked, due to the limited time we have to cook it in. So, instead of KCBS categories of chicken, ribs, pork butt, and brisket, we do sausage, chicken, ribs, and pork loin or tenderloin.

Turn in times were
13:30 - Sausage
14:00 - Chicken
14:30 - Ribs
15:00 - Pork loin/tenderloin

I got my ribs started at about 09:30, cooks meeting was 10:30, by which time we'd settled in to about 30 or so degrees. Balmy by Chicago standards! (as I'm writing this on Tuesday afternoon, the temp is about 14!)

A total of 20 teams showed up, I didn't get to take too many photos, but Diane took the few here...

Below are our next door neighbors at the comp. They actually competed as the Chicago Pork Chop Offenders. One of their cooks owns Smoke Ringz bbq in St. Charles, IL...GREAT bbq joint!Our tent and smoker are just visible on the left of the photo

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All in all, it was a great day, the charity raised a little over 2500.00, and a good time was had by all!
Given all we went through last year, we'd have been happy with just turning everything in on time, and not having anything be disqualified. But as it turned out, we took 6th overall of 20, our best finish to date in this event! And came home with a new trophy, for third place pork.

We loved the look of our sausage, but the taste was not to my liking, and it ended up tenth

and our ribs made top ten, more for taste and texture than appearance, I'm sure...

We have our first three events entries paid for this summer, the first is the Masters in May, to be held at the Fremont, WI Jellystone Park Campground in Fremont, WI on May 3rd and 4th. Fremont is just a short hop away from Appleton.

At any rate, we had a great day, got to see a lot of friends we hadn't seen in a long time, and are now really looking forward to the 2013 comp season!

Yours in smoke!

Dann, Diane, and Ember

Season put on hold after St. Charles

Sigh,

Last year, our season was afflicted with equipment woes. What with getting a brand new trailer, we were looking forward to a much more positive year, but health problems that presented themselves after our last contest, that may derail this entire season as well.

We hope to be back in October to do Arthur, IL, and Libertyville, IL contests, but only time will tell.

If we can't post up again this year, we'll be back cooking and posting next year!

Hope everyone had a better summer than we did!

St. Charles, IL #2 for the year

Well, we had a week off after Westmont, but not a weekend. Saturday, 6/2, we cooked lunch for a group of folks at the church across the street from us, who were having an "all church fix-up day" They have been kind enough to allow us to keep our trailer there, as I don't have a good spot in our yard for it yet. We're working on it, but some other things have come up that may take precidence. More on that later.

After the church lunch, we also had a party for 60 folks we had BBQ and sides for, so it was a busy day.

The week of 6/3-7, I worked Mon-Wed, and Thursday, we finished packing the trailer, and headed to downtown St. Charles, IL. There's a nice little grassy park right at the intersection of Illinois street and 1st avenue, along the Fox River. That was to be our home for the next two nights and days.

We got set up easily enough, and were happy to have been early arrivals. There were a LOT of teams who came in the next day, and shoehorning into thier sites, for some anyway, became a bit of a puzzle. But all in all, Kevin, the organizer, and his crew did a pretty good job, considering this was a first time event! There were 29 teams total, and I'm not sure how many in the amatuer comp on Sunday, as we had to leave. (My niece's graduation/birthday party was Sunday afternoon, and we provided food)

Once we got settled in Thursday, we started a little fire in the fire pit (a first for us, as we hadn'g previously had space for it) and had a nice chat with Ty, the night security person for the event. Great guy, not from the immediate area, but very freindly and helpful!

Saturday morning, I got up and started staging tables and such where I wanted them, got my meats inspected early, and set about prepping for the evenings start of cooking. The bugs in the morning were unbelievable! A thick blanket of them seemed to be everywhere. At some point, I think someone said they were just called river bugs. They didn't bite, and didn't swarm food, they were just...everywhere! Along with the BBQ competition, in or around the same park, there was an event called DockDogs. ( http://www.dockdogs.com/ ) This was a lot of fun to watch, and at one point, I realized one of the participants was a coworker of mine, who started with my company the same week I did, some 14 years ago! (Hope you did well Scott!)

So, before I share pics from the event, I forgot to ever really post pics of the camper, so here are a few...

 

Those were from before Westmont, when we were getting things set up. The thing on the bed is a soft sided portable kennel for Ember. Turns out we haven't needed it yet! She's a good pup!

Anyway, I digress, let's get back to St. Charles! After getting my meat inspected (most of which I still needed to butcher) I decided to have a look at the bag of green leaf, and the one of parsley that I'd purchased at a restaurant supply store on the way. Ugh! Parsley looked good, but the lettuce was turning black, and slimy! I could have gotten out to a store with the truck at that point, but decided to walk across the street to a grocery there, and found enough decent produce to fill my needs! EZPZ!

So now we could set about finishing prep, visiting with old freinds, making new ones, and just enjoying the day! It was warm, so I'd connected the camper to the generator, as we only had 20A service from the venue. Water was a challenge also, as it needed to be toted from a fireplug attached faucet across the park from us. Fortunately, I'd loaded up 40-50 gallons (going by the tank indicators) to bring along, since we figured it might be a challenge otherwise. That got us through dishes, handwashing, etc. Until right after turn in, when the water ran out! So, although we'd hoped for a shower before awards, no such luck! We got almost everything washed though, all but 2 knives, and a cutting board.

I'm noticing that I'm kind of skirting the actual turn in, so I should go there...

I was extremely happy with our chicken. It is something unusual, that I have never seen as a judge, and although this wasn't the first time we tried it, it was our best effort yet. At least in my opinion. A similar box at Westmont got us 25th of 66th at Westmont, but here, despite a better presentation, spot on taste and texture, it got us 20th of 29. Not pretty!

Ribs, well, I figured we'd screwed the pooch on ribs. I ended up overcooking them, and, although they did taste good to me, they were tending toward the much side, and it was all I could do to get some decent looking bones in the box!  Oddly, they squeaked in to the top half, at 14th of 29! Pork was our best of the day, although I can't figure why! The taste and texture were good, but lordy, the box!!! I thought it was a nightmare, but Diane thought it would be ok. It got 4 9's (and 2 7's???) for appearance, 2 9's, 2 8's, a 7, and a 6 for taste (I don't understand such far apart scores, and was good enough to place 6th overall. No money for 6 and down though!
Brisket I knew we'd messed up. I made a HUGE mistake, going by temp instead of feel, and my brisket was a bit underdone. A dissapointing 24th of 29. Big fall from 3rd 2 weeks before! All in all, a good weekend though. We had fun, and my sister and brother in law came out from Michigan to see the contest Saturday, and then surprise my brother and niece by showing up for her party on Sunday.

I'll end this post with a few other photos of the contest. I alluded in the first paragraph about something else going on, I'll elaborate in a future entry. Thanks for looking!

Oh...BTW! congrats to QUAU and MBURS, Grand and Reserve grand champs, and also to Dan, of team Big Daddy Dan's Backyard, for placing 15th overall, 9th in ribs, 5th in pork, and being awarded best rookie team in his first ever competition! Congrats also to new freinds Husky Hogs for top 10 in 2 categories, and finally, to Stockcar BBQ, for thier first ever 1st place chicken. And to all who heard their names called!

                                           Contest - trailer top view#1

                                           Trailer top view #2   

                                           The DockDogs pool

A new season, and a new beginning!

So, our first competition (besides the non-sanctioned burnoff) is in the books. We had few, if any issues with the new camper. (Sorry, still no pics, but I'll be sure to take them at the next one)

We arrived Friday to a fairly small number of other competitors already being set up. But by 4:30 PM, the organizers were getting ready to close down access to the street we were parked on. Our freinds from Moose's BBQ in WI were already onsite when we arrived. Once they had thier site set up, they set off for dinner, and an evening in a hotel, before returning for the comp.

I set about getting everything leveled, wheel chocks locked up, power run (no water was available yet, but I'd brought in about 40 gallons). Set up the tables, cookers, etc. Wandered around a bit after dinner to say hello to freinds and visit a while, and had a very nice visit with the brothers from BBQSauceworks.com

These two know a lot about marketing, AND about barbecue, barbeque, BBQ, Bar-B-Q, or however you want to spell it. And they are down to earth, salt of the earth types. I'd talked with John previously, and he has always treated us well. His brother Josh is a great guy as well.


We spent a while talking with them and then settled into the new QCasa for the evening. Unfortunately, the exitement of finally being out in the new trailer made sleep difficult, and we ended up talking until 3AM, only to be awakened at about 06:40 to the sound of something rattling outside the door. Turned out it was our banner, flopping fairly wildly in the wind, and trying to pull off the canopy of the trailer! Turned out the wind had kicked up pretty well, and was gusting up to 30 or so mph. I quickly cut down the banner and retracted the canopy, and then noticed my surroundings were a bit...dishevelled!

The first two photos were the shelters of a first time team, who set up their gear Friday, and left. Apparently, they weren't anchored will enough.

The last photo belongs to another first time competitor, who was nice enough to help us out back in February at the winter burn off, and we'd had located as close as possible to us so we could help him out as needed. His stuff is on the left. When I first saw it Saturday, the pole structure in back was a twisted mess. The tarps tie wrapped to it were just yanking it every which way. So we cut the tarps down, lowered the canopy in front, and tucked things away as securely as we could until he and his crew could get things back up and stabilized.

I believe that this was the 6th or 7th annual Westmont event. I know it was our 5th cooked, and we judged the year before that, so we have been involved in one way or another, almost since the beginning. I believe that it is now one of the largest, if not the largest, in the state of Illinois! And they did a phenomenal job this year, especially considering the 66 professional and 47 amateur teams they had to cram into one space!

One of Diane's childhood freinds came by and surprised us! They wanted to say hello, see the new trailer, and also had a relative competing that they wanted to say hello to. We were fortunate enough to have been asked to cook for their 25th anniversary party, and will be doing so again this weekend for their daughters college graduation! I would congratulate her by name, but not sure she wants that.

By Saturday afternoon, the bands were jamming, we had most of our meat prepped, and we were getting ready for some of the side competitions, which included sauce, sausage, wings, and dessert. Other than dessert, all 3 other sides were to be turned in Saturday evening, after the cooks meeting.

So we did them all. And in retrospect, I think it would have been better to do one or two, and keep a closer eye on the main 4 categories, but what's done is done.

Sauce, well, no photo there, red stuff in a foam cup, not real exciting.

For sausage, we thought we'd do something a bit different. Instead of stuffing our spicy jalapeno sausage into a casing, we packed it into corn husks, tamale style. garnished with a few sweet and spicy pickled jalapeno slices...

I know, not all that visually appealing. But the smell of the cilantro, and of the sausage was really amazing. I just doubt the judges knew what the heck to do with it! I'll tell you what, the leftover made some awesome breakfast sammies! And the pickled Jalapenos are killer (and homemade!)

Then came the wings, and although they tasted good, I won't even bother to show a photo! When the sides were done, I finished brining,  injection and leftover prep of the main meats for the next day, got the pork butts in the cooker (much later than I'd hoped) and wandered around to visit a bit.

There was a pretty good crowd Saturday night, which hopefully meant that all the vendors, the carnival, and the concessionaires had a better year than last, when the weather rudely interrupted the proceedings!

Normally the wife and I do something that has come to be known as the Shot Fairy Rounds Saturday evenings. It was started by my wife Diane 5 years ago, at the Westmont comp, our very first time competing, coincidentally! It was conceived as a way to break the ice and meet all the teams without being regarded as "shiggers" (Note: Shigging means that you are lurking around other folk' site trying to observe, and potentially steal methods and secrets from. We've always made it clear, or tried to, that we generally go against what is "standard practice" anyway, so we don't care about shigging. But it is fun to meet as many new folks as possible, and we try to see old freinds as well. The "shots" are flavored like apple pie, and we've been told, are a pretty good approximation. While they do contain a little alcohol, they are in no way meant to knock anyone off their game. They are merely a little something. Many teams these days actually will come by and ask "where were you" if she doesn't show up!

Well, this time, Di stopped a a few sites a little longer than normal, and before we knew it, it was after 1, and time to go home, especially after the late night Friday. So to those who the shot fairy missed, we're sorry, and will try to catch you next time!

On Sunday, time came for the "big 4" Chicken, ribs, pork butt, and brisket.

Unfortunately, I didn't get photos of all categories.
Chicken, I got, but won't be showing it as it is a new box for us, and we want to work on it a bit more.
We managed scores of 878 878 889 988 889 and 987 on it.

For those unfamiliar, the groupings of 3 each relate to 1 of 6 judges. The first digit is the score for appearance, the second, for taste, and the third for texture. The allowed scoring is from 1 to 9. One is a DQ, and is only given on the direction of the KCBS rep in charge of the event. A one is only rewarded in the event of a disqualification for breaking a rule. Beyond that, scoring is from 2 (bad) to 9 (excellent) It is a weighted system, meaning that taste is weighted more highly (at 2.2858) than is tenderness/texture (at 1.1428) or appearance (at .5714)

That doesn't mean appearance or tenderness/texture are any less important. Any of them that aren't decent can tank you.

Anyway, on to ribs. In my opinion, our ribs this time weren't the best. And this isn't to reflect on the meat, but on my own failings.  I found them a bit underdone, and with 958 689 888 877 789 and 876 scores, the judges agreed. No big surprise.

Pork wasn't much better. I had 2 beautiful Duroc butts from Standard Market, one of the sponsors, and there wasn't a thing wrong with either of them. The problem was I let myself be distracted by sides, and didn't get them on until after 9 PM. Something I try to not ever do. The result being that I had to push them to get done Sunday, and wasn't happy with the end product.

But I still had brisket left. And that gorgeous, 30 day aged, 14lb Choice Angus brisket from Standard was looking every bit as good as I hoped it would!

It was done right on time, and had I not been distracted a bit, I think I'd have remembered to put the burnt ends back in the cooker a while, add a few ingredients to punch up the flavor, and maybe taken it a notch higher. But when all was said and done, we took 3rd place brisket! I guess since I explained the scoring system, I should post our scores for brisket as well. 999 988 887 879 999 899

And what made it better, was that the person who took 2nd, hadn't bought his meat from Standard Market. So in Standards alternate contest (they donated 1,000.00 per category, 500 for 1st, 300 for 2nd, and 200 for 3rd) we won 2nd place! (and 300 bucks!) And a nice trophy from the comp, and a nice ribbon from the market! After doing only 3 comps last year, and only one call, this feels like a good start!

We have a busy few weeks coming up. We have 2 events to cook for this weekend, the following weekend, we will be competing in the Firin' up the Fox challenge in St. Charles IL on Friday and Saturday, then heading to my brothers place in Bensenville to cook for my neice Autumns' high school graduation party on Sunday

Then there's Jimmy Buffett show 6/30 in Tinley Park, where we'll be tailgating (but not with the trailer) Our BBQ schedule through the summer is fairly light. We will be catering a wedding in the Traverse City MI area for the son and soon to be daughter-in-law of some of my oldest high school freinds, an event we're really looking forward to!

Our comp season won't pick up again this year until late summer, early fall. We'd intended to do the Kenosha, WI event on 8/24-25, but a conflict came up, and the Debuque, IA comp was cancelled. So our next scheduled comp after St. Charles will likely either be Murphysboro, IL (if we can swing it) 9/22, and/or Arthur, IL in October, followed by Libertyville, IL. We missed Arthur last year for lack of a decent power system/heater, and then we had the fuel pump issue that killed our season Libertyville weekend.

5 or 6 will be plenty this year, and we'll see what comes at us. We are still waiting to hear from the Chili Pepper folks about thier rib contest faceoff in Houston, I suspect that will be in the fall as well

Well, it's the first of May, and our competition season is coming up fast! Still have a lot of work to do on the trailer, getting equipment stored, organizing, etc. I will try and post some photos prior to our first competition Memorial Day weekend at Ty Warner Park, in Westmont, IL.

The Westmont contest has a few interesting wrinkles this year. In addition to the 8,000.00 prize pool, there are some additional awards available. A local new market in the area, Standard Market, is a sponsor for the event, and is offering an additional $1,000.00 per category, to be divided into 500.00 for first place, 300 for 2nd, and 200 for third, in addition to the regular contest money. The only condition is that for each category, the winning meat has to be from their store (receipt required) I visited their store last week, and can say they have a great meat selection, with specialties of Berkshire and Duroc pork, at fairly reasonable prices. The meat manager, Joe Parajecki, is friendly, helpful, and great to talk to! My first trip I brought home some of their Berkshire spares to try, along with a pork steak from both Duroc and Berkshire varieties, to evaluate the differences. Also picked up some Fleur de sel, a little foie gras, and a small tub of D'artagnan duck fat to play with!

They have phenomenal seafood, sushi, produce , you name it, as well as a restaurant in house, with a new one going up just across the street! http://www.standardmarket.com/ and http://www.bakersfieldrestaurant.com/?page_id=38 Can't wait to try the restaurant too!

Anyway, I digress. There is also going to be a raffle amongst the teams, with the winner being awarded a 4,000.00 Tremore Breeze smoker http://www.breezebbq.com/

Never have seen one, but based on the web site, I'm thinking one would look nice in my back yard!

Interesting note is it says it's worth 4K on the Westmont website, but this years model is 4,999 + shipping and handling. I don't have the right equipment to use it to compete, (more to the point, to haul it) but wouldn't mind a nice shiny new cooker!

So we have 24 days to get it together and prepare. Lots to do between now and then! But having the trailer should make competing easier. I used to cram most of the smoker stuff into the pop-up, but not wanting to get the inside of the new trailer too cruddy, I'll be mostly carrying cookers in the truck, except the bases, which will fit in one of the trailer storage areas.  We should have less dependence on the carlisle insulated carriers, as we can now keep our meats in the fridge/freezer, and will try just going with a single Carlisle for this one, to keep meats warm once they're ready.

I'm going to be trying to keep my knives, boards, rubs, injections, tools, thermometers etc. all in a Stanley tools FatMax toolbox this year. That should hopefully reduce the clutter caused by dragging all our stuff around in bus tubs that fit in the pop up, then having to empty everything out to use the bus tubs for dishes! My goal this year is to be much more organized than years past.  We will be bringing a portable 10x10 EZ-up as in the past, but hope to be able to do without it, and use the canopy that came with the trailer.

So 3 weeks, and 3 days until our 2012 season officially kicks off!

I will try to add photos of the trailer once I have them

A new season is just around the corner! And we have reason for excitement!

Well, the Des Plaines Winter Burn was a ball as always, and got our juices flowing for the coming season.

Our first move towards a better season this year than we did our last, was to try and upgrade our equipment a bit. We started by attending the 2012 Camping and RV show in Rosemont, where, after a day of running around comparing, we finally settled on a shiny new 2012 Jayco Jayflight model 22FB!

We'll be hopefully picking it up either this Saturday or next, and I'll post lots of photos as soon as I'm able!

Not having to set up and tear down that old pop-up should make a marked improvement in our results, AND our attitudes! It's a great old trailer, but I just don't have the time to fix the cables for the roof, etc. And wanted something that, at least for a while, just needs routine maintenance.

Since we don't have it in our possesion yet, this link shows what it looks like.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFbWOwLB4Vo

So now, we look forward to taking delivery, stocking it up, and our first sanctioned contest of the year at the Westmont, IL Red, White, & BBQ event, 5/25-27 at Ty Warner Park in Westmont!

But that won't be at least until Saturday. So I should mention a little about the outstanding meal we had last night at Sweet Baby Rays, in Elk Grove Village IL.

Dave Raymond, the owner, (and the original Sweet Baby Ray) had an idea to get Chicago Area Barbecue folks together, to spread the word about something called Operation Barbecue Relief, an organization founded in May of 2011 to assist those affected by the tornadoes that devastated Joplin, MO. Since then, Operation BBQ Relief has expanded and grown to now include many more members, now able to help many more people. More info about Operation BBQ Relief can be found here http://www.operationbbqrelief.org/about.html

Anyway, to bring all those folks together, he invited about 150 or so of his closest freinds to enjoy a phenomenal spread of some really fine food, and take a little time to talk about the cause. Among the crowd were scattered some local as well as national bbq personalities, including Lee Ann Whippen, of Wood Chicks BBQ as seen on BBQ Pitmasters, Barry Sorkin, of Chicago's Smoque restaurant, Mark Link, of Westmont's Uncle Bubs BBQ, and  others, as well as a host of local competition bbq teams, and supporters of OBR as well. I have to apologize for not being able to list all the guests. It was ver loud, and where we were sitting, it was hard to hear a lot of the introductions.

The menu included a variety of appetizers, including gumbo shooters, bbq martinis, a mix of bbq beans, pulled pork, and slaw in a martini glass topped with a strip of millionaire bacon, burnt end bites, and bbq shrimp. Followed by the entree selections of pulled pork, brisket, St. Louis spare ribs, baby back ribs, Texas sausage, and jerk chicken, accompanied by sides including corn maque choux, potatoes tchoupitoulas, green chili mac, red beans and rice, bbq beans, and 2 cornbread varieties, and finally topped off by a selection of desserts that included pecan pie, key lime pie, and an assortment of mixed dessert platters. Dave and his whole crew put on an amazing event, for a very worthwhile cause! And every bite was delicious! Sadly, I forgot both my cell phone AND my camera, but there are lots of great photos of the event at SBR's Facebook page, which you can find here https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Baby-Rays-Restaurants-Catering/198579583486159?__adt=9


So now we've got a 3 day wait ahead before hopefully being able to go pick up our new "bbq wagon"! Can't wait to get it loaded up and head out on our maiden voyage!