Spares on the Spice (Pics)

This weekend I had the privilege of cooking at Ric Gilbert's annual Backyard BBQ for the CBBQA. We had a great time, met a lot of wonderful people, and the best part was getting our food judged in real time by CBJ's so we got instant feedback on our boxes and food. Plus I'm always looking for an excuse to let the Spicewine see a little bit of comp action!

Here was our set up in the morning. My bro in law Mike is getting his game face on:




I got some sticks burning in the spice, getting a good boil on that water:




A great bluegrass pickin band started playing:




And people started showing up:




Anybody see the MUFFIN TIN!



A big thanks to Ric for hosting all the Brethren that were there as well. Good to meet you all!

The cook went great, the feedback was great. Since this was a backyard event I wanted to experiment with a few things that I normally have not done before. My main focus was on two things, 1. chicken skin and 2. rib tenderness. I took it easy on the seasonings since all I wanted to hear from the judges was "your chicken skin was bite through" and "the tenderness of your ribs was just right". My skin was perfect and my ribs were good but my slicing technique could use a little work. I also did not see one of the ribs was a shiner and got dinged for that, I never checked for that before, glad it happened there where the entry was free!

Oh yea and the muffin tin is a PITA, not sure what the hype is over that, but I'll stick with just cooking it like I always do from now on.

Too make a long story short I got what I wanted from the comp, great feedback, met some nice people and look forward to the upcoming season.