the big business of barbecue

we are going to try something new this blog. both of us are going to comment. we'll see how it goes. i'll be in green, and beth will be in black.

at the urging of bucky's barbecue and bread, beth and i, along with two of my fellow temporary p&g-ers, emily and tom, attended jim dandy's barbecue competition. unfortunately, we did not see bucky, but we did try some amazing barbecue. and i have to say, i may be converted to a barbecue lover.

myself, i was surprised at the intense competition in the community of barbecuers. one of the double d's bbq out of hudson, ohio gave us a little bit of the lowdown on bbq competition. he explained that there's kansas city bbq, and then there's everything else. the difference is more of a vinegar based sauce rather than tomato. competition is usually in 4 categories - pork, brisket, chicken, and ribs. some competitions have additional categories, such as 'anything but'. each dish has to be delievered to the judges at the appointed time. if there are more than 25 teams, it's a state qualifier. most teams camp the night before on competition grounds, since it takes so long to smoke the meat. he also said judges tend to like sweet sauce on the ribs, which is what i have decided i do not like, and may be why i have been anti-bbq until now. the ultimate goal is the jack daniels national competition. that's big time bbq, baby.

double d's is two guys, a cpa and a waste water management worker, who decided to get into bbq. we had the immense pleasure of trying their brisket. all i can say is wow. it was so tender and flavorful, and the sauce was ambrosial. even writing about it now my mouth is watering. tom has commented almost every day this week how it was the best brisket he's ever had. double d's says the key to superior brisket is consistent temperature for 8 hours. whatever their secret, magic was definitely happening.

one of my favorite bbq's is rudy's BBQ. the guys had double d's had also had rudy's and enjoy it almost as much as i do. obviously they are partial to thier own sauce which i think could certainly give rudy's a run for their money. more on rudy's later as we will be visiting one of the locations in early october during our vacation.

beth got the sauce on her shorts. and shirt. i couldn't have been there more than 15 minutes and then i was mess. i swear its like being with a child at times the frequency i have stuff all over my clothes. its not limited to food either.

i think i may become a double d's bbq groupie. in fact that may be the only way to have their sauce on any sort of regular basis as they don't bottle their sauce. but don't worry, we suggested it.

we stopped by the master basters and tried their anything but. their anything but happened to be macaroni and cheese. i asked what was in it, but was told that if he told me, he'd have to kill me. what i could identify: macaroni, cheese, bacon, and wonderful deliciousness. very unique. it reminded of of eating bbq potato chips, except in soft form. i can't describe the taste other than that. other people had done crab cakes and salmon as their 'anything but'. we weren't able to try either of those items and honestly i'm not sure that seafood has its place in the bbq world.

i got the mac and cheese on my shirt. white of course.

finally, we enjoyed some ribs by cincinnati natives sweet meat. while i can appreciate the art of bbq ribs, i am too much of a priss to eagerly gnaw meat off bones, smearing my face with sauce. just not my thing. we had arrived towards the end of the event. although their meat was good (and sweet which we have both decided is not our favorite) it was also a little cool. they were packing up and had refridgerated the meat and had generously pulled some out for us to taste. if anyone chooses to check out this event in future years i recommend arriving on the early side of things so that all the contestants have samples. basically they enter their meat in the contest and then any leftovers are available for on-lookers such as our selves.

somehow both of us avoided getting sauce on our clothes while eating ribs. we were able to snake some paper towels from someone's folding chair to clean up a bit. although we weren't there for a long period of time i think i can speak for both of us that we will make sure to check out the competition again next year. we didn't stick around to hear the results but we're still confident that double d's were able to take an award home.