Garnish
 

Well I didn't have time to make parsley boxes at Lowell and just threw in some leaf lettuce that looked half decent. Meat still looked the same but my appearance scores were down. And I didn't think they were a Kodak moment so I got what I thought I deserved. For all those that ask is it worth it the answer is yes and I still like the garnish rules.

As far as Vending and competition at the same time all I can say is it's tough. It's more the small things that you just don't have time for but I'll do it again. Lessons Learned include getting more help on the prep day so we can make boxes.

thats true(the garnish)the presentation makes a world of difference especially on tv(food network-georgia comp).

as far as vending @ a comp i personally couldn't see even being able to do it w/out @ least 6 people-it takes 3 just to run my concessions.

vending @ comps- most comps that i've been to don't allow both because of hd & insurance riders. are these kcbs or other that you're vending & competing at??

I did an event this weekend at Sam Houston Race Park they only allowed ten teams to enter and you could vend. I was a late draw into the event on Thursday so I was not able to get everything in order in time to vend so I only competed.

I think the should of done this ether in the spring or fall it was way to hot for people to come out of the building and get BBQ even worse they made the BBQ vendors shut down by 8:00 pm just before the concerts started. The hour or so after the last race and before the concerts the crowds were large at some of the teams areas but I'm sure they lost money.:shock:

they had Fox Sport camera crew on site and wouldn't you know right at turn in time here they come poking the damn camera right in my face and asking all kinds of questions, like why are you putting all that green stuff into the bottom of the tray it went down hill from their and after I not so nicely told him to leave me alone :icon_pissedand after I turned in my entry I felt bad and he was filming some cheerleaders I gave the camera guy some ribs he was very happy after that:-D

I did manage to win so it all turned out good :biggrin: I still need more practice in putting greens :shock:

We did Nj state BBQ championship this weekend and basically went no garnish in our brisket box. We pt parsley down, but filled the box and you could not see it when the meat was placed in. We got 8th out of 62 and our presentation scores were 788799. I am still trying to get the balls to go no garnish.

There were 5 of us with 4 vending only except for running my boxes. And I did most of the cooking although 1 person did finish most of the the chicken and ribs on the new grill while I was doing turn-ins.

I used one FE just for the contest and held my comp meats in a cooler and did all the work comp outside the trailer. But nobody questioned me doing both including the health department.

I completely understand where you are coming from. As a judge, I honestly don't look at garnish at all when judging. People will say they don't , but they do. We had a DQ recently because one team didn't understand the rules. Per new KCBS rules, I judged the box anyway for the meat and it looked pretty good. Even with the DQ. You go out to eat in a nice place and they serve all their food on white plates. Food looks infinetly better on a white surface than on a green or dark one. If they could find a way to use something other than styrofoam, I think the field would be alot more level.

good to know.it was in another post(worst turn in boxes) but, if ya took pics of the lettuce boxes compared to parsley boxes it would be great to see in contrast.

we did comps about a month apart. for one the boxes were leaf lettuce, the next we switched to parsley beds. I broke down our scores, and with the weighting factor, our slight appearance score increase gave us a 4 point bump in our overall score. Although neither team in front of or behind us in the overall standings was less than 4 points away from us, many places were decided by far less.

the next day I emailed our team to let them know that they better get used to the drudgery because IMO 4 points is 4 points.

Agreed, the parsley boxes do look nice but, try to keep the parsley from underneath the samples. Judges have to spend/waste time picking off pieces of parsley that are stuck to and cover (yes cover) the bottoms of their samples. I heard several comments from judges on this problem this past weekend. There shouldn't be so much parsley stuck to the bottom of a sample that you have to wipe it off with a paper towel.
You may be taking some of the taste of the sample along with it.

Ok, these may be noob questions for this area, but I need some advice on garnish for my first Rib competition, coming up this Friday. I am not expecting to have a top-of-the-line box, but I do want to create something that I won't be embarrassed to share with the Brethren. After all, you have provided me with many examples of great turn-in boxes. How could I ignore that information?

My mission is to build a simple, basic garnish bed for my Ribs. My plan is to mainly use lettuce leafs, with maybe a bit of parsley to help out, if needed. My first question is there a specific type of lettuce that is easy (or easier) to work with and produces good results? My initial thoughts were something along the lines of Romaine leaves. I am not that well versed in different varieties of lettuce, so let me know if I am missing the mark here.

Second, how much time do you normally spend on preparing your turn-in boxes? I know that the "putting green" boxes will take a lot of time, but want to get an estimate as to how much time I should focus on this portion of the contest.

Again, many thanks for all your comments, suggestions and warnings. They have already saved me years of "hard-knock" learning experiences. I am sure I will have my share of those, too. But out of the gate, you have prepared me well to face the challenge. All I have to do now is perform. :shock:

If you really don't want to do putting greens, and if you are only turning in one box of ribs I think you should, I would suggest fresh, crisp green leaf lettuce. Place the end that was connected to the root in the center of the box, extending the wavy end towards the edges of the box. Go around the box this way overlapping pieces of lettuce until you have a nice bed to place your succulent pieces of ribs upon.

Even with this method will take ou at least fifteen, twenty minutes to do it right. What you want to prevent in your box is it looking like you just threw the greens in there, and that takes time. My wife does our putting greens, so I cannot say for sure, but I would imagine she spends thirty minutes per box to intially put it together. We take all our meats out of the cooker/cambro 15 minutes before dead-on and use all that time to make our final preparations for turn-ins.

For our first competition last year, the Nevada Kiwanis State Championship, we used green leaf lettuce and did well on presentation. On our website you can see pictures of our turn-ins if you have your heart set on a lettuce presentation.

I hope this helps!

Are you doing the Hall of Fame rib cook? If so good luck. The green leafy lettuce will do you well, as mentioned above. Get a fresh head, make sure you wash it, every piece, and follow the advice above.

I suppose its all in the pack. We pack our parsley in nice and tight. I actually watched one of my boxes being judged and saw only one little piece of green come out with the meat.

We did walk around and watch a few of our neighbors building boxes after we got done with ours on friday night. Despite seeing several teams making parlsey beds, we didn't find anyone making what I'd recognize as a "putting green" compared to the pics posted here. Seemed like a lot of careless thrown in parsley on top of some random lettuce leaves.

Bingo!

Yes I am. Thought that it would be a good learning experience. :roll: