Recovery Fest 2013: “We brought the Backwoods!”
Richmond’s McShin Foundation employs Peer to Peer Recovery Services — meaning thatrecovering addicts and alcoholics mentor, educate, and spread the message of recovery to individuals new in sobriety. One of their approaches to show the newly sober that fun can be had without substances — teaching the ins and outs of competition barbecue! For nine years, they have held an annual Recovery Fest, and the past four years have featured a KCBS-sanctioned BBQ Competition. They also have a pretty killer squad — the McShin Alumni BBQ Team.
We arrived in Richmond on Friday morning to find that our cooksite had already been picked by our buddy Dave from Pavone Brothers. There’s nothing quite like seeing “Old Virginia Smoke” in neon orange Krylon paint sprayed on a church lawn! Set up was pretty quick, which gave us a little extra time to get to know the newest team member — a Backwards Party Smoker. While we’d given her some test fires, this was going to be her first competition. Also, after a fairly divisive series of team votes, we christened her “Mountain Mama II.” Leigh Anne Terry, the self-proclaimed “Angriest Woman in BBQ,” also broke her in by baking some chicken flatbread pizzas and some good ol’ West Virginia pepperoni rolls!
Temperatures dipped down into the fifties on Friday night / Saturday morning, so we bundled up and kept close to the cookers for warmth. With MMII providing some extra real estate, we filled up all three cookers to the max to give us as much meaty opportunity as possible. Box Babe Kim Darnell made like Shamu on Saturday morning, as the injector was giving us some problems and splashing anyone in a 15-foot radius.
Blue Ridge BBQ Festival Wrap-Up
The team from Old Virginia Smoke wrapped up another competition this weekend in Harrisonburg, VA at the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival. Started out on Friday with a rainy drive down I-81, which by now is getting to be strangely familiar. We decided to stop about 30 minutes away at Sheetz to get gas and eat, as the weather was telling us that we may not get a chance to eat later.
Boy, were we right.
We got to the fairgrounds and picked our site, right next to our friends from Pepper Monkey. Leigh Anne and I got the cooksite all set up and started to contemplate some lunch. And then the heavens opened up. For a good 45 minutes. We were soaked, and all of our gear was soaked. Thank god for the UHaul again, as the charcoal and wood were fine. But, well, look…
And then this was the cooksite…
So that was fun. After much debate about moving, (which consisted of Leigh Anne wanting to move and me arguing against it. She turned out being way way right.)
So…we moved to the site next door. And we needed MUCH help…so an added thank you to Erin and Joel from Pepper Monkey and Tracy from 3 Eyz for helping us move our monster tent. Only took us a bit of time, so no big deal.
We had a really great cook, in our humble opinion, but really got hammered by some inconsistent judging. Again, its all about table roulette. If you hit table 5, then you had a chance. We didnt hit it. But we still got our first Brisket walk. Now there’s a cow in the house…
Big congrats to Hollywood and Swine for the GC and DC Firefighters for their RGC.
And thank you to DC Firefighters, Black Cat BBQ, 3 Eyz BBQ, Heavenly Hogs, Deguello and especially for neighbors Pepper Monkey for a very fun weekend. Next up…Richmond.
COFAQUE 2013 a HUGE Good Time
The (cough) in COF-A-Que stands for “Circle of Friends.” That’s as good an indicator of the kind of people who cook this competition as anything. It’s all about having one damn fine time. This is the 14th year for this private competition / charity fundraiser put on by the good folks at Hands On Events, Inc. Proceeds from COF-A-Que benefit Hungry for Music, a non-profit dedicated to providing the gift of music to underserved children with a hunger to play. The event has grown largely by word-of-mouth here in the Northern Virginia area. And grown it has . . .
COF-A-Que is also a bit of a homecoming for Pitmaster Lukie D, as his former team, Smoke Dreams, is a longstanding supporter and participant.
However, this is not a KCBS sanctioned event. In fact, it might be fair to say that most teams at COF-A-Que feel that KCBS competitions offer too many rules, restrictions, and caveats. As such, COF-A-Que features not only the big four meats, but judging on breakfast foods, side dishes, random meats (!), beef (not brisket), adult beverages, seafood – just to name a handful.
OVS competed in seven categories – appetizer, chicken, pork, brisket, ribs, dessert, and kid’s choice. We were so pleased to be joined by Bristow’s own Jake “The Snake”. The Snake lives right next door to the Darnells, and he slithers across the yard every time those smokers get fired. He jumped at the chance to join us for a cook and asked to make baby back ribs. After doing a taste test of different rubs and sauces with Luke and Kim, the Snake zeroed in on a killer recipe.
In addition to Snakes’ baby back ribs, we turned in our standard KCBS versions of the big four, some killer Tsunami wings (SPICY!), and chocolate-dipped pig candy that looked just like slices of scrumptious brisket, complete with the illusion of smoke rings!
At the end of the day, we pulled 3rd in pork and our man Jake the Snake walked away with 2nd place in the kid’s category (I love it when we hook ‘em young!!!). Additionally, Pitmaster Lukie won the special “Horse’s Ass” trophy from the event organizers due to his pestering e-mails. Did you know they made a trophy that features the back half of a horse on it? Me neither, but we have one.
OVS wants to send some special love to Kirk Vespestad, Tim Butka, Dwayne Allain, Michael Burton, and Eric Woodall at Smoke Dreams BBQ Team for hooking us up with some extra lettuce when ours got mysteriously left in the fridge.
Additionally, we want to send some big love to our award-winning neighbors on the campsite – Kiss of Smoke, Smokeadelic and the Que Funk Allstars, and Blondo St. BBQ – mmm, mmm, good y’all!
As always, a special nod to Brother James Walker at First Heritage Mortgage for his financial and transportation assistance.
Thank you Keith & Cara Thompson, Rick and Jake the Snake for coming out and joining us!
Results from our practice cook!
Well, gang, I thought I was going to be able to post some pictures rather quickly during our practice cook, but we sure were under the gun! That, coupled with colder temperatures outside and darkness quickly falling left just about zero time to update you.
Have no fear. It is ready to go now.
Overall Impressions
This was the best idea that weve had so far. It allowed us to go through our set up, all of our meat prep, box making and turn ins. Also gave us a chance to have a delicious lunch from Fosters, as we had to beg some clam shells off of them for our boxes.
There will be some tweaking to our routines and processes, but overall, I think we have it good to go. The BBQ Jamboree cant get here quick enough.
Here are our boxes….
Our chicken box came out really good for the first time. We learned a lot of cool things here, though. One, that we need to make a lot more sauce!
These were some of the best ribs that I have ever done. They were positively spectacular. Couldnt staircase them this time, but we’ll get the right amount of parsley in there so that we can do so.
Here is our pork box. This is the category that I think we can improve the most on. I think Im way over thinking it. We will get it dialed in, don’t you worry.
And last but not least, our brisket box. There was a lot to be learned here as well. But that was some damn tasty brisket.
Please, let us know what you think in the comments! See you in Fredericksburg!
Dreams, coming true
Well well. Thank you for stopping by and checking out a dream of mine that has come to reality.
The truth is that I wanted a barbecue team before I even knew. I started cooking Que around 7-8 years ago. Rub some meat. Plug the smoker in. Wait 9 hours. Consume. And that was working great. But there was always something more. Something new to try.
One day my wife came home from her job saying that she had a coworker who’s husband had a competitive BBQ team, and that they were looking for someone. I jumped at the chance. I arranged to have lunch with Kirk and started reading everything that I could about competitive BBQ and how it works.
There was a large problem. I had never cooked on charcoal before.
And I mean never. We grew up with gas grills. I was on my second electric smoker. Sure, people had criticized. But I was making good meat. I didn’t see the need for the mess.
I figured I had to tell Kirk about this during our meeting and I wanted to demonstrate my commitment to doing it. So on the day of our meeting, I purchased and picked up my Weber Smokey Mountain on my way. We talked, and I explained how I had never cooked with charcoal, but told him I was committed to doing so. Then I showed him what I had bought.
What happened then was a complete love affair with charcoal.
(Sidenote – I have not become a BBQ snob. Cook it however you want. Electric…gas…wood…charcoal…pellet. As long as it is outside and flavors the meat…yum. I am, however, a liquid smoke snob.)
At Kirk’s, Eric’s, Michael’s and Dwayne’s sides, I cooked for two years. Learning the ins and outs of competitive barbecue. Yet the feeling kept growing that I wanted to do it myself. Which leads us to this winter…
During a day of band practice with Leigh Anne, we were shooting the stuff about BBQ and things, and both Leigh Anne and Kim said, “You really ought to start your own team. See how good you are…”
So I thought about it for a month and decided, why the hell not. Then the wife gave me some resources to begin the journey, and here we are. 2.5 months away from our first competition.
It wouldn’t be possible without the support of my family and friends, particularly James, Leigh Anne, my brother MJD for creating this fabulous site, and of course the biggest teammate and cheerleader, my wife Kim. Barbecue has already brought us closer together.
Which is what barbecue is all about.