Well I am really behind in my blog posts but I thought I should share a few pictures and results from the Canadian National BBQ Championships in Whistler BC as well as my trip overall.

I flew out earlier this summer to spend some time with my BBQ BFF Angie Quaale teach at her incredible gourmet food store Well Seasoned and while I was there compete.

It was a culinary indulgent trip for sure. BC is where my Mom was born and I have not been since I was just a few months old.  The first thing I said after getting off the plane was holy crap those mountains are huge.

*Please note this picture was taken by Ralph Maughan

You see no picture does them justice to get their magnitude and their impressive size and beauty. Gorgeous breathtaking and majestic don’t seem t do them any justice as an adequate description.

Also I have to state the people of BC are seriously laid back. They take their relaxation very seriously.  Shortly after getting off the plane we headed to Granville Island. Now this was an incredible place to spend the day just hanging out eating some of their delicious local fare and well of course having a few cocktails.

Wandering around the streets of Vancouver afterwards with my hosts Dennis and Angie was a whole lot of fun. There is so much to look at and see taste and experience that it is a bit of sensory overload.

After spending the day being tourists we proceeded to the beach at English Bay for the evening to watch one of the most incredible fireworks displays at the Symphony of Fire from Team Spain. We had a very long extended and relaxing meal with a whole lot of cocktails.

Here is part one of some video from the event.

It was an incredible way to end my very first day in BC.

The next day was all about relaxing kicking back and just getting caught up.

We also headed out for some great food. super yummy.

To top it off we went to a comedy club contest. This was held in a not so savory part of the city and was an adventure in itself. Some of the comedy was so horrible it was funny. The highlight was a friend of Angies – Art Factora who was funny, truly funny and kept us laughing long after he came off stage. they also served PBR a favorite beer of mine.

I also held a couple of recreational BBQ classes while I was there. I taught a class on ribs and also a class on BBQ desserts. Well Seasoned has had chefs from across the world come and teach at the store everyone from top TV Chefs to local favorites. Their course calendar is packed to the hilt with culinary excellence and opportunities to learn.

On another day we headed out to lunch with Anthony Sedlak famed Chef and star of the MAIN on the Food Network. Funny guy who likes to stand on his head. A lot. He was great company to have lunch with and I am really looking forward to seeing his various projects come to fruition. We tried a new burger place Romer’s Burger Bar and by the descriptions on the menu I was really looking forward to my burger. Sadly the burgers lacked in taste texture and overall appearance but the company I had more than made up for the poor meal.

One of the all time best meals I actually had during my stay was in Angies and Dennis’ backyard. we had a truly divinly decadently delicious halibut that Angie crusted with Salt & Vinegar potato chips. It was incredible. Dennis had caught the halibut himself. Paired with some fresh veggies, salads and a couple of bottles of wine this was by far my favorite meal from the entire vacation.

We also did girly things like get  pedicure and one other thing I never ever thought I would do … we got tattoos. Yup. Tattoos. You see I have been calling Angie and I and a few other ladies of BBQ sisters in Smoke. Angie one day called me a said in her ever so exuberant voice you know we should get tattoos when you come to BC….. and so we did.  She got hers on her leg and I got mine on my wrist. I won’t kid you it hurt like heck at first but the pain went away and I am so happy I did it. There are a few other ladies now that have plans to get the same tattoo as well and thats going to be pretty awesome.

We had to prep and get supplies for the competition in Whistler so we ended up doing some shopping and of course did a little trip to Washington as well.  One of the great things about BC is the availability of incredible produce and meats everywhere you go.

I have to go into more detail about one of the places at the Granville market.

Oh My goodness this place is an amazing culinary feast. We went back to Granville to stock up on munchies for Whistler. This is where I fell in love with an incredible charcuterie place called Oyama Sausage Company.

They make everything themselves. Pate’s, hams sausages terrines salamis cured smoked meats you name it they have it and its all delicious. I want to go back and try every single thing they make. Everything.

Smoke Signals Magazine Issue #4 is now available online. If you haven’t checked it out before now is your chance. Its a great BBQ Brethren Publication that covers outdoor cooking and entertaining.

Just wanted to share something I am finally able to post… had to wait till this weekend as it is being unveiled at the Traeger HPBA expo booth.

This is the picture of the brand new Traeger 300. It is really cool and I get to play on one next month. I can’t wait. Monday I’ll post more specs on it. Its going to be awesome.

Theres a new website online for sharing videos, BBQ tips and creating more BBQ communities:

www.GrillQ.com

Check it out and upload, watch and share your BBQ!

Just an FYI we have announced two classes for 2010 with more dates being announced in the future. Please see our Classes tab for more information. Please note all of our past classes have sold out continuously so sign up soon.

Well my day was filled with some lovely cold smoking.  Ian McKend sent me this unit to review.  See the above You tube video for more information about the product. Also here is the Company’s website.
I chose 5 types of cheese I already had in the fridge. Haloumi, cream cheese, a Maclarens Imperial Aged cheddar, and a couple of inexpensive blocks of Marble and Old Cheddar.

For the cheese project I decided to use my own smokin dust. The kit comes with Oak however I am not a huge fan and thought for the cheese that something a little more delicate would be better. I had a couple of bags of Smokinlicious products in the garage, pecan and mango. I think they were an excellent combination.

The kit isn’t very large at all. I will admit I really had my doubts about it effectiveness. How could such a simple tray filled with dust and a tea light impart that lovely smoky goodness on my cheese?

I filled in the two flavors of dust and got it started

So I loaded up my Traeger rib rack with the cheeses and set off for my nearest grill my little Tex. Its right at my backdoor. It has been heavily used over the years. I don’t take this one on the road with me it is my home unit.

About an hour into it I went to check on the cheese. I realized I had made a critical mistake in the placement of the cheese. I had put my beloved Aged cheddar directly over the unit causing some of it to melt.

A quick rearrangement of the cheese and we were once again on the road to cold smoked cheese.

After another hour and a half I pulled the cheese off.

the temperature never varied much above 90F the entire time. At 2.5 hours I think I had enough smoke on it – however next time I will let the aged cheddar go longer.

I am really impressed with the simplicity of this unit and how wonderful the flavor is on the cheese.I am already planning on lots of experiments this summer with it.  I highly recommend this unit for how effective and its ease of use. Now if you will excuse me I have to go make some smoked cheese nachos in preparation for the Canadian US hockey game tonight. It will be fun to watch Canada WIN while enjoying some of this smoked cheese.

Ill be on the road for the next couple of days travelling to Memphis to attend the NBBQA conference. I had such a good time last year in Austin for the conference . I have been looking forward to this a LOT!! Also will be taking Myron Mixon’s class while I am down there. Should be an interesting trip and I’ll blog about it as much as I can.

Just wanted to pass along that we now have a working Facebook fan page. Thanks to everyone who let us know the first one did not allow people to join.  Please see the link on the top right of this screen or click here

We really appreciate our fans. This year we plan on running some fun fan contests where you can win some BBQ prizes!!

OK so this post is at least a week old (in my drafts folder) but I just did not have time to do an update of the pictures since I have been travelling.

The road to New Paltz from Barrie is really long. Almost 9 hours travel time for us each way but it certainly is an interesting drive.

On our way there we made a very important stop in Syracuse at Dinosaur Bar Be Que. Well worth the trip for anyone going through the area. We pulled up at about 10pm and the place was rocking out big time. What a blast we had. Great music great beer and some terrific BBQ for sure.

It was probably the best chicken I have had all year the texture is incredible – its moist delicious and considering how much I hate chicken I was thrilled and surprised at the same time.

Here are some pictures of the joint. I would go back in a heartbeat.

more pictures here

It was a great stop to our New York adventure in BBQ for sure.

Moving on to the competitions . This was the first time we had ever done a NEBS grilling contest. It was pretty interesting. The categories were steak, dessert, pizza, and shrimp. We did our best but we did not do well at all. We of course thought our steaks etc etc were awesome. I thought our presentations rocked it out. NExt to us Mr. Bobos did an excellent job as well and we got to sample some of their fine fare. Additionally we got really low marks on our shrimp as some of the judges thought the innards were a bit raw. We temped each at 125F (plus rested tented for 15minutes in a delicious roasted garlic and shallot butter) so not sure how that happened. Ugh. We had fun though and a friend of mine Bob came along to give us a hand. He is a terrific BBQ chef. Knows his stuff and has been a good resource for lots of ideas. We were thankful to have him around for sure!!!! Thanks Bob love ya lots buddy!

One of the best parts coming in early for the grilling part of the comp was getting the chance to unwind a bit (also know as shooting many tequila shots with Julie LOL) and socialize. I was smart enough to set up my bed in the comp trailer prior to the nights festivities. We were also really pleased to have Can’t Stop grilling right beside us. We love to be around these guys. They are a class act. They are also a lot calmer than I am at Turn in time. LOL

We had a great time seeing many of our friends at this competition. Between meeting many of the Brethren and of course visiting with new and old friends there never seemed to be enough time. We had a great time at the potluck and a big Happy Birthday to Vinny and the Grand Poobah himself Phil (seriously I think he has reached the depends stage of his life I heard there were caution stickers and items everywhere warnings of the OLD person). I did also get to try the famed HoDeHo potatoes. Kim (God Bless her) saw me in line (a very long line) she grabbed my plate ran off and disappeared. I then got to try the ultimate in potatoes. AWESOME!!!!

Once again I ended up trimming a whole lotta meat later on in the night. We ended up with a 1st in pork for the KCBS competition. I have to say this was a HUGE HUGE HUGE Thrill (With many thanks to Andy & Kim for their help – Did I mention how much I love PLOWBOYS>>>>>>>???????) 16th in chicken and 19th brisket and a jaw dropping so disappointing I can’t even begin to tell you 44th in ribs. Seriously I can’t figure it out. UGH. Lets just leave it at that. Overall we ended up placing 16th. Thats 6 places out of where I wanted to end up for sure.

It was a well organized competition. The volunteers that I met (Stephanie, Rolf etc) were terrific people however I will say I was mortified for the final awards presentation of the top 4. I found that the announcer did a serious disservice to the teams constantly reminding them of the “cheap plastic trophies” and dismissing them American Idol Style. It sucked royally for them and it should never be repeated. The amount of work and money the teams put into preparing attending and travelling to a competition deserves a hell of a lot more respect than that. The guy was thinking he was funny but ended up being a complete jerk in my opinion.

It was a long drive home after that and I needed a day to recover and sleep.
Here are all the pictures from

New Paltz