Here's how the Long Island event worked for the past two years.
You paid your entry fee well in advance of the event (to ensure your spot as they ran out of space - a good problem to have for any event).
They emailed the team lead a fairly detailed list of ingredients that you could check off.
They had a cooks meeting on the Thursday evening prior to the event. When you arrived, they had your ingredients waiting for you as well as your meats. You could bring other kosher ingredients with you, but they had to be submitted onsite to the Rabbi. If the Rabbi approved them, you would be allowed to use them. If not, you couldn't. There are variations of 'Kosher'. Some items were approved, others weren't.
After prepping your meats at this meeting, they were sealed in plastic bags and put in a refrigerated truck. Your ingredients went into a numbered bag and were saved for you.
When you arrived after sunset on Saturday you were given your space, two tables, a few chairs, your meat, your ingredients, two weber kettles, charcoal, a charcoal chimney, heat resistant gloves and your bag, which also contained two knives, utensils and a thermometer.
The categories this year were chicken, beans, beef ribs and brisket. The first year there was no chicken category.
The public came down in force and with a full expectation of eating food cooked by the teams. The teams were not given extra food to satisfy this expectation. We made sure to make extra beans that we served in 2oz cups and we cubed up some of the leftover brisket and served that with toothpicks.
Judging, scoring and awards were pretty standard.
I hope that helps.
Eric
