Posts Tagged ‘Jack Daniels BBQ’

Road trips !! Love em or hate em they are necessary if you need to haul all your BBQ equipment to a competition.
We left my house at about 230pm and started our adventurous trek to the Jack.

 Let me introduce you to my friend Jack!

 One of our important stops !! Duty Free!

The weather was grey and overcast the entire trip.. Mass pockets of rain hindered what is usually a beautiful scenic drive.

Getting to the Jack and our hotel as fast as possible was our goal. We had decided that it would be in our best interests if we drove through the night as much as we could safely.

Vlad – drove 99% of the way he is a trooper! 

There were four of us in the truck from the team – Vlado, Jamie, Mike and myself. Lets just say the ratio of testosterone to estrogen was a bit skewed. The boys talked about sports and argued the validity of their teams. Jamie had downloaded a lot of 80′s music that was great to listen to. Mike was in charge of candy procurement and snacks.

With all the rain and fog and mist we didn’t take a lot of pictures but how cold you miss this Dinosaur LOL 

It seemed like it took forever to get here. It almost did – almost 28 hours after we left we arrived in Nashville.

Now I am a very superstitious BBQ lady and I believe if you have done something in the past and it has worked then you should repeat the process. SO off to Jack’s BBQ for some food and a slice of chess pie. Just like I did 3 years previously.

At Jack’s I made sure to pet his pig at the front.  Then we grabbed a couple of plates of food to share with each other.  I think it is really important to try as much BBQ as possible wherever you are. I think it is a lifetime of learning about the different ways ppl make BBQ.

The guys about to Chow down!  

left to Right Mike Miller, Vlado Dimovski Jamie Parisi 

 

It was a good meal and a great kickoff to our time in Tennessee.

Texas Sausage, mustard greens and sweet potatoes all of it was delicious. 

Great memorable beans, cornbread, delicious brisket also ribs, pork and mac & cheese. 

 

After Jack’s BBQ we finally got to our hotel in Tullahoma TN and after cleaning up it was time for a few cocktails and talking to some of the teams that had already checked in.

We love Motts clamato caesars and Yeungling and we are well stocked for the next few days! 

 

Libations at the hotel with some of the fine folks from Smokin’ Hoggz

 

That’s it for day 1 !! (well that’s all that can be published lol) Today we are off to the legendary Mrs. Mary Bobo’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to this contest as a family. It was a super nice change from the Royal. I love being with my family at BBQ contests. The route to and from PA was spectacular with all of the fall foliage.

Vlad the happy driver!

The contest was a KCBS & MABA event. KCBS categories Chicken Ribs Pork and Brisket and MABA categories Weavers Bologna, Bell Evans Chicken Wings Bell Evans Leg and thighs plus dessert.

I got the shock of my life when we received our products to use in the auxiliary categories.  The Lebanon bologna was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It is much closer to a sweet summer sausage. I had no idea what to do with it. My plans went out the window as soon as I saw it. I had never entered a bologna contest ever. Both the bologna and the wings were submitted on Friday night so it was a busy evening.

 So I cubed it up and slathered it with Sam Dog BBQ Mustard Sauce and a few other ingredients. Placed it in one of the Traegers and let it smoke for 4 hours until all the sides were caramelized. Lets just say it wasn’t pretty, but it was super tasty. We put it in our individual containers added a shot of Forty Creek whiskey as a chaser and sent it off to the judges.

We also competed in the wing category.  I love categories with open plating and we had a lot of fun with this one. We decided to give the judges some of our Yeungling beer as a side to the wings. I mean really who doesn’t love wings and beer?? I wish we could have tried one of teh wings but we had so few to work with (Meat was supplied) that we just had enough to barely fill the plate.

The rest of our Friday night was spent socializing. There are a lot of teams we got to catch up with including one of my Sisters in Smoke Jenny from Black Cat BBQ.

I believe there may have been some tequila involved. Really really good tequila from the fine folks Chip & Sally at Red Lion Spicy Foods one of our neighbors.

After a few libations I headed off to bed for a couple of hours. It was a lovely albeit cold evening.  Perfect for me.

When I woke up one of my other neighbors was up and stoking the fire in his Jambo. Mike Richter is an uber BBQ competitor. Currently ranked #3 in the KCBS TOY. He is super kind and nice to chat with I am glad to call him a friend.  I don’t get to see him or Barb often enough.

Then as the sun rose I took a bit of a walk about. Got to visit with the Smokin Gnomes, Tim, Tiny’s BBQ, and a whole lotta other terrific people.

The time got away from me a bit and I put on my Bell Evans best legs contest meat a bit late. Grill Grates came to the rescue and we turned in grilled chicken. It was tasty chicken. Much different from our normal KCBS chicken.

I can blame the time getting away from me on one thing. Donuts. Seriously damn good donuts. The biggest box of donuts ever that was provided to the teams along with coffee too!  Like a moth to a flame I was entranced….

The rest of the entries including dessert last went off without a hitch. They went in the boxes fine but the brisket was dry and I tried a couple of new presentations that I was thinking of doing for the Jack next weekend.  I figured if the brisket came in above DAL well then the judges were going to be very generous.

The awards ceremony time came and we headed off.

To my absolute shock we got a 1st place in bologna. LOL still makes me giggle.

We also took a 3rd in dessert 4th in wings and a 4th in Pork. The judges were uber generous and gave us 39/47 in brisket. They didn’t like our ribs 23/47 or our chicken 24/47 overall coming in at 21/47. Ugh. The Bell Evans BEst legs I am not sure where we ended up as they only reported to 5th place.

Huge congratulations to Aporkalypse Now (aka Myron of the North) for their GC and to Lo & Slo BBQ on their RGC and to all who competed!

So that’s it for regular comps for the year for us and we are now packing for the Jack next weekend. Hopefully we come home with at least 1 of these again that would be spectacular !

I just need to get through catering a wedding and a baby shower this weekend plus a couple of soccer matches with the kids- a presentation at school and then driving there for 18 hours. I’ll sleep when I am dead. God bless the staff at Starbucks. They are keeping me upright with all the caffeine I am consuming.