[drbbq]

Hi Guys,
Sorry to be so late.
First off, let's not overreact. No one is saying a judge can't "interact" with a team on Friday. It's a long tradition to party on Friday and judges are welcome. Reps aren't allowed to drink at the event, but judges certainly are, and do all the time. Everyone is allowed to eat and visit with each other. To spend the whole evening in one teams camp might be inappropriate though, since they will have to be prepping for the contest at some point. Use your head, it's not that hard. I don't think KCBS has a solid stance on this. (Gee, what a surprise). Someone told Dave or Tim that the judges were free to do as they please on Friday. True. But.............

I don't think whoever said that was thinking that the judge would be cooking dinner in the teams camp. Maybe that's OK, since it was clearly appetizers and a prime rib, which had no place in this cookoff. I still think it was a questionable idea, since the teams spices, sauces and meat were all in close proximety to the cooking, and the teams pit was being used. One could easily have thought Phil was cooking with this team if they'd stopped for a visit. When Phil was prepping a pile of ribs in the team area at 8:00pm, it definitely looked wrong and that's when we talked about it.

I think Tim is on the right track. If you're coming to judge, do that. Hang out and visit on Friday, but don't plan to cook anything. If you want to cook, just pass on the judging the next day, you can still have fun and eat lots of BBQ. I don't think you should do both.

That's my opinion.