First Judging - Madison Ribberfest

Just got back a couple hours ago from Madison. I don't know the winners, as we left right after the judging.

Here are my main impressions from the weekend (I'll add more on my blog later):

1. The Ribberfest treats the judges pretty well. They had a nice reception on Friday, and had everything pretty well organized today.
2. There were a couple of judges that took it too seriously, as I expected. There were judges that really thought a lot of some judges that had judged a lot of comps... not cooked, but judged. There's nothing wrong with that, but...
3. Judging isn't hard to do at all... Cooking for a comp is a lot more than judging for several.
4. Maybe most important, I didn't think any of the entries I judges were any better, or often as good as, what we turn in. I think we're on the right track.
5. A lot of judges go too much by what they like or don't like, not if the entry is good on its own.
6. I really hate the take home coolers, though what I saw didn't seem to get misused.
7. I think cooks are in general more friendly than judges,though most of the judges today were pretty friendly.
8. My wife said there was a lot of bad brisket!
9. Dessert is a nice way to end the day; after very mediocre barbecue for the most part, the desserts were great!
10. It was kind of nice to go to a comp and NOT have to do all that work! (though I missed it at the same time)

Mike, First, thanks for asking about Woody. A good friend stayed with him. Last night, we hadn't heard from him by 6:30, and I was getting nervous. I started calling him about every 5 minutes, and we called a friend to come by to see if he was here or not. I was afraid something had happened to my friend as well as being worried about Woody. Turned out my friend just left his phone in the car, called me then and reported everything was fine. We were ready to drive back home and go back in the morning if needed... But Woody was well cared for and was fine when we got home. He continues to improve on his meds.

Second, the weather was warm, but not as warm as last year's Ribberfest. It's really a great site, right on the Ohio, in a gorgeous town with a lot of charm.

I updated my blog with more stuff, including seeing how my predictions came out... I did ok on them, I guess.