results of my first competiton


 
Could someone please hand me a paper towel?

Thank you for sharing.

I'm a father of three, now in their twenties, and they tell me that the moments they remember, is simple situations from soccer tournaments, the whole family working together cutting wood to heat the house at wintertime, grilling sausages out in the woods and so on. Such small moments are more important than expensive holidays or something similar.
 
Awesome story. I have a 15 month old daughter and I look forward to moments like these. Thanks for sharing.
 
Fantastic story! My brother and I have just started a comp team. It would be great if our kids shared in the experience too!
 
It's been six years since I posted the OP, the years have flown by and Becky is now 18. She decided to write a number of college supplemental essays about her passion for food and the bbq contest loomed large. I've posted her essay below, I believe it serves as a nice capstone for my original post:

Food is fuel. For me, it's not only fuel for the body but ignites my creativity. Every parent teaches their child right from wrong. My parents took it one step further and taught us the difference between good and great food. My family grew to love eating at “Moe’s Dead Body Shacks,” a phrase my brother coined to describe sketchy places that had the best hand pulled noodles and pierogies in NYC.

In high school, I watched tons of different types of cooking shows. I always dreamed of being in a competition like the ones I saw on TV so I was ecstatic when my dad asked me if wanted to compete in a BBQ competition. I helped him smoke ribs, chicken, and salmon, but I was completely in charge of the dessert round. Wanting to challenge myself, I chose to bake a cheesecake on the grill. The weeks before the competition I practiced making cheesecake after cheesecake. I learned the different ways of controlling airflow to keep the grill at a constant temperature. My first few cakes came out tasting like burnt wood but, after finding the perfect wood to charcoal ratio and placing the cheesecake pan in a water bath, the dessert eventually came out delicious. I was awarded 5th place out of 30 adults for my efforts.

My role within the foodie community evolved from researcher to active participant when I began selling organic, gourmet muffins. Whenever muffins are on the breakfast menu at the Lakewood House Bed and Breakfast, I wake up at 5:00 AM and bake muffins from scratch. I’ve created my own muffin recipes including Cappuccino Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Pumpkin and Carrot-Ginger. I also created Truffles for Troubles, an Oreo-based truffle my friends and I sell to raise money for our organization to improve girls’ education in developing countries.

When I meet someone with a favorite food or restaurant in common, I feel a spark of excitement and an instant connection. If admitted, I’d love to eventually join a co-op where I can whip up new creations for my housemates!
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becky will be attending cornell university next fall.
 
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Jeff, this is the first time seeing this thread. I have to say i read it from cover to cover and its a GREAT story. Looks like you raised a great daughter there. I have 2 year old and raising him to be a good person is probably the only thing more daunting than figuring out how to get the perfect color on my chicken.

I really appreciate the great stories.
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the saga continues! with Becky in college, my wife cooked with me and was in charge of dessert. In the week leading up to the competition, she cooked all manner of rice krispie treats, the best rendition had chopped, smoked bacon running through the treat and rich chocolate on top. At the last minute she tried pecan pie, topped with smokey, spicy pecans (the recipe for the nuts, one of our favorites, is in cooking topics) and it was a winner.

we arrived at 9:30, turn-in for chicken was at 2. Turned out we were last to arrive (again) by quite a bit but knew we'd be ok with our cooking schedule. Given our late arrival and lack of bbq equipment (an 18 inch wsm and a kettle grill), I think most of the teams dismissed our chances.

Ribs were on at 10:30, my wife's pecan pie was done by 11:30. The low point of competition was boning twelve chicken thighs and scraping chicken skins. I'm definitely going to do this at our kitchen table prior to our next competition. Actually, given how poorly the chicken did, I'm giving up on boneless.

chicken went on at 1:00 off at 1:55, skin was "bite through", meat was juicy but the taste was off for some reason, way too salty. Still can't figure what went wrong. The ribs were a little soft out of the foil but the bigger rack felt ok. I put them back on the wsm for 15 minutes to firm up, sauced and back on for 10, pulled them off with 10 minutes to go. Took five double cut ribs from the firmer rack, one from the softer rack.

chef's choice was steak, all went well but the steak was a little tougher than I'd hoped. As I was turning in our box, I saw beautiful, restaurant quality presentations and realized I'd missed the boat.

My wife's pecan pie had been chilling in the cooler since noon, it was tough to cut but she managed 6 nice slices. She shaped some cool whip on top and placed a single pecan on top of the cool whip for presentation. Three teams complimented her during turn-in, so she knew it looked good.

As a kcbs judge, I'd given the chicken 8 for presentation, 8 for tenderness, 7 for flavor and that was about right, landed us 10th overall. Self-scoring the ribs, I had 8, 8 and 8 and again, that wasn't far off from our scores, good enough for 2nd place. I had given myself similar scores for chef's choice but the jddges didn't agree, awarding us 8th place. My wife's pecan pie finished 3rd, with lots of very high scores!

it was my third time competing, my wife's first, we worked together well and had a great time!

Couple of lessons learned from this comp:
- my wife has a much better sense of composition and helped with all the boxes. Small adjustments made big differences in presntation.
- never estimate the value of a good, sharp boning knife! I'd ordered one off amazon two weeks before the competition and it was absoluely invaluable.

best,
 
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