Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Sugar Creek MO 4-23 and 4-24

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Our next contest is in Sugar Creek MO. This is another 1st for Sticks-N-Chicks and we were excited to be there. Will dropped the trailer on Thursday afternoon and both Matt and myself got a phone call on his way home, stating how frustrated he was with this contest already. I was like, "dude we have not even cooked it". Turns out there is a limited amount of space and it was a very tight fit getting the trailer dropped in our spot. I will admit I was concerned for what the weekend would bring after hearing that. Will went out Friday morning and since Matt and I do not have the luxery of having 10,000 hours of PTO days, we had to work and come out in the afternoon.

The concern Friday was the weather. This is the start of Tornado season in the midwest and we were in a decent risk of a tornado outbreak. Thankfully someone was looking out for all the contestants at this contest. We dodged a huge bullet and for whatever reason we were spared the sever weather. We did get rain but nothing severe.

The highlite of the weekend was, a very dear friend of ours and many in the BBQ community, decided to come out not only Friday but again Saturday and hang out with us. "Snail" is the "Godfather of BBQ." Snail has cooked BBQ before all of us were born. He is the manufacturer of the "Trash Cans" we cook on, and his knowledge of BBQ is unreal. From a personal stand point he makes me think outside the lines when it comes to cooking BBQ. The hours Will, myself, and Matt have spent with Snail are irresplacable. He truly is a blast to hang out with and to sit and not only cook BBQ but hear his stories are beyond words. Snail thank you for all your insight and hours you have spent with us helping us in our journey.

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Overall we finished 16th out of 52 teams. Chicken killed us again, 39th overall. Ribs we finished 7th, Pork 16th, Brisket 19th and Sausage we finished 7th.

This was an awesome contest overall. Spending time with Snail was a treat and finishing the way we did was awesome. We have ideas on chicken that are in the works and we will debut that in 2 weeks, May 7th and 8th in Platte City MO.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Pleasant Hill MO April 2,3 2010

Our 2nd contest of the year was in Pleasant Hill MO. This is the first time we have competed at this contest, but from its reputation its a contest we had to cook. Jeff Stith and Stan Cook are some of the best organizers in KCBS and let me tell you these guys do one hell of a job putting on a contest. We took the trailer out on Thursday night to get it out there early. Friday, Will picked me up and we were out there by 9:30. We got everything set up by 11:00 and then out of no where, we had a storm blow through. It was somewhat breezy for a while but we survived. It rained a lot throughout the day but it finally cleared late in the day.


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All the rain left a lot of mud. As I write this, I wish I would have taken a picture, of the amount of dirt we had in the trailer. Will said he swept and mopped the floor 2 times to get it clean. We got to cooking around midnight Friday night. Went to bed and got up early Saturday morning to get the briskets started. Like North KC we were on schedule and we were happy that things were going as planned.

We got everything turned in on time and we were pretty happy with the what we turned in., unfortunatley the judges had a diffrent opinion.

Overall we finished 23rd out of 65 teams. 41st in Chicken, 44th in Ribs (We learned a valuable mistake we mad that Matt will keep to himself LOL), 15th in pork and 15th in Brisket.

Our next contest is 4-23-10and 4-24-10 in Sugar Creek MO

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

NKC March 12th and 13th 2010


Hey I know we are late getting this posted but better late then never IMO! We survived the winter and cooked a ton of food in practice sessions and Will was even kind enough to buy us a new toy, a trailer that is big enough to live in. we had 1 practice cook out of it and it was really nice. Everything organized and really allowed us to concentrate on cooking without having to worry about the weather.

NKC was start of a new season for Stick-N-Chicks BBQ team in 2010. As usual the contest was fun but very cold. It is always hit and miss when it comes to this contest. Weather wise you never know what you are going to get. The selling point of this contest in my opinion is its is the first one in KC and tons of teams are anxious to get cooking from a long winter.

This year was no diffrent then last other then the amount of teams exploded from 78 last year to 108 this year. My personal opinion is the reality show "BBQ Pitmasters" shown on TLC had alot to do with it. It was fun the to see the growth of the sport.

Our cook was good and we were lucky enough to have good friend of ours, who as I write this has become a "Master BBQ Judge" (you get to be a master judge after having judged 30 competitions). He hung out all weekend with us and it was fun to get an opinion from someone who knows what to look for when it comes to BBQ. For this contest we finally hit all of our marks. we went in with a plan to follow our cook schedule and we did a good job doing that. The overall results showed in that too.

Although we did not get any calls we finished strong. Overall we finished 19th out of 108. Chicken was 27th, Ribs were 20th, Brisket was 37th (All of us thought we got robbed on brisket, we did think it was one of the best we have cooked), Pork was 36th overall.

All in all a good cook for the start of the year. Our next contest is Pleasant Hill MO on April 2nd and 3rd 2010.