Some of you will know the BP BBQ team went to Niagara Falls New York (a non sanctioned event). There were 19 teams and it was a turn in of 3 meats, no garnish, for us that would be Chicken, Ribs and Pulled Pork. I thought this would be a great experience, try a few new recipes and to hone our cooker skills. What really attracted me was that it was at the same time as the Merlin contest in Ontario, all of the heavy hitters would be there and we could cook our stuff without any pressure.

I am humbling learning, that nothing is what it seems in the BBQ world. With only two weeks to go, the Ontario circuit is canceled for lack of interest, where are all of the hard core competitors going... you guessed it, right beside Susan and I at the Summit Mall. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy our Canadian teams, they are among the most open and helpful group around. I just didn’t want to compete against them until I had a little more experience. Not to mention that I am still lost in the world of brisket.

Well we pulled in Friday morning early thanks to spending the night over at the Super 8 hotel. We scored a great deals for a room both Thursday and Friday nights for only $8.88 each. Just down the road was a Ponderosa, "score" I have not been to one of those since I was a kid. What a adventure, hopefully, my kids will not have to return until they have children of their own. I have had better meals at a fast food shop on the beach in Mexico, the food reminded me institutional cooking that should be served in prisons. Not the club fed prison but the nasty evil prisons of third world countries, was this a premonition of things to come? Anyways back to the competition, we set up fine, got our prep done and had a chance to socialize with a few of my favorite beverages and some people whom I only met on the forms. Our meats got on the grill right on schedule and the cookers were doing their thing. We were informally told that we may have the opportunity to cook all four meats, it was announced that we would turn in only three. We decided to cook the brisket just for the experience. Weather called for thunder storms but it held off and we had to only deal with wind.

This is where my inexperience shows, the wind played havoc on our cookers, we were adjusting them every 15 minutes, up and down, up and down. I felt like a toilet seat at a beer convention.

To ease time constraints, we made all of our sauces up the Wednesday night,  we just had to open, heat and pour. The sauce was ok but lacked character, the bold spices were dull and it lacked sizzle on your lips. This was not the same sauce that did so well in Barrie, it was nice but lacked that critical WOW factor. Also, the ribs were the consistency of pork chops, they needed another 45 minutes on the cooker, but there was no more time, they had to be turned in. I have made these things the same way 45 times and they were always done to perfection. I’m told, you can deal with rain and cold but the wind will screw you every time.

Nice....

With a well deserved break we decided to kick back a bit. Saturday I had stuck a bottle of Malibu Rum into a watermelon and let it soak in over night. We cut it up and enjoyed some very refreshing and fortified melon, YUM .

With the competition over we passed around some of our products and was also able to sample some or the other teams stuff. Did somebody say BRISKET..... We were fortunate to get to taste some from our neighbor who took the time to explain what it should taste like.... Beef, nice tender full flavored beef

The results were available and we could have done much better. The pulled pork was great but we only were called for 6^th place. The chicken 7^th we had a interpretation issues with the spice and thus could have been better. Ribs weren't even on the map... 

A good event overall, but enough for this year we have some bacon to smoke....