This was the 5th Annual Smokin' in the Park California State Championship at Viejas Casino.
As usual - Aaron was harrassed by the Meat Police - why do they always want to inspect my meat?!!?
This is always a great event - even though we had some minor glitches.
There's Joe - in his usual position. He is a huge help at these competitions - how would we do it without him?
This year was the first year that the event included vending - the crowd purchased tickets from the event staff which were then used to "buy" 2oz samples from the teams that were participating. The tasting event was tied to a very important cause - a portion of the proceeds went to the local school system's music program to help purchase intraments and trips for the bands. We were more than happy to particpate.
Dean arrived late Friday night - he brought a bottle of Sailor with him. Why is almost gone by the time he got here?
The team consisted of Aaron, Noe, Dean, and Joe. We had some extra help from some other people. All was going very well until there was some confusion during the turn in process. We accidentally turned in Brisket instead of Pork. This disqualified us from the Pork catagory and since we had hundreds of people lined up at our booth, we immediately sold any and all meat available so we sold the remaining Brisket as soon as our turn in box was made. The KCBS Competition Rep brought our Brisket Box back and since we didn't have any more Brisket we were actually DQ'd from two individual catagories. We had the Rep taste the Brisket for us and he said it was definitley a quality turn in. Dean did a really good job cooking this meat and it was a big dissapointment that we messed this up.
Noe prepping chicken - er... Bloody Marys.
Joe - the official taster. I don't think he moved all weekend.
On a positive note - we finished 8th out of 52 teams in Chicken catagory. Noe did a great job with the chicken! Unfortunately, since we DQ'd two catagories, we finished dead last in the overall points.
Here is a link to the contest results:
Aaron making chow for the team.
The other positive was the vending. Dean had the crowd literally mooing and our line was 100 - 150 people long at times. The Viejas staff said that we finished with the second most tickets sold - that was pretty impressive since the team that took 1st in tickets was a 5th wheel vending trailer specifically set up for this type of event.
Another cool thing that happened was we were on TV! The Viejas Staff suggested to the TV Station that we would be an entertaining group to interview. I think it looks pretty good. Check it out:
Aaron explaining the process to the TV Crew. Here's where I describe that I really don't have a "Good Side" and there is no lens that will make me look slender.
Dean ready to show off his meat!
Dean is keeping the crowd involved.
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