Cooking Blog

Let's see... It has been a while since I put a new blog out there so I'll just wrap it up (no pun intended) for the year. First off, I did repair my camper and it is working well again. The Generator saga still continues. I received the parts to fix it and got it all put back together again. It worked.... TOO GOOD! Over a 300 volt output. Tech support has no idea what could be wrong. So the idea was to drain the gas and oil and let it air out for a week to ship it back. Meanwhile I needed a generator so I convinced them to sell me another one at a hell of a discount. They agreed. Had a brand new generator in 2 days. Now being suspicous of EVERYTHING, I unboxed the thing, put in some oil and gas and guess what??? It started on the first pull. Super.... Things are looking up. Hooked it up to my camper and power, glorious power. Turn on the AC and the whole thing when dark. A tripped breaker??? Surely not. Turned off AC and went outside to check it out. No breaker is not tripped and I have power again. Weird!!! Went back in and turned on AC again. Went dark. Now I'm pissed. I'm not having any luck with these things. I figure it has to be the voltage regulator. So I swap it with the old generator. Now the new one is running 300 volts and the old will not carry the load. OK... Bad regulators. Called tech support again. Took 3 weeks to get these parts. Meanwhile I used the old Generator with the new regulator. Just didn't use the AC. Well it spun a bearing probably from a bolt I tried to reuse but knew better. Got the regulators. New unit is working prefectly now. Old one is waiting on a bearing and the replacement bolt. I have ordered these 3 times now. I have a wide assortment of bolts and bearing now. None of which are the ones I needed. I sent pictures of the parts this time. Hopefully that will help. Moral of this long boring story???? DON'T BUY POWERMAX GENERATORS!!!

Now about the cookoffs. I attended two since my last blog.
The event at Traders Village was a real nice one. Lot's of teams competed (121 if memory serves correctly). Nice facilities. I even found a little time to work in the judges area since is was a 3 day event I and wasn't cooking in every catagory. Didn't do too well with my cooking but there were a lot of heavy hitters there. I guess that is becoming my favorite excuse. Congrates to Dale Sembora on winning the Stumps smoker in the drawing.

Meridian National Championship Cookoff. Once again. Lots of heavy hitters and no prizes for yours truely but was still alot of fun. Got to hang out with Lance, Leroy and Smoke Daddy. Thanks Lance for alerting me to my grinding Generator at 4 am. Congrates to Leroy "The breadman" on Grand Champion and to Jake Beaver for 2nd place Brisket. (Ha Ha Marty didn't place!!!)

Check back often for the continuing saga of my attemps to cook Q. Looking forward to a better year in 2008. The first event will be at Austin VFW 2/8&9/2008.

Later Y'all and Keep em Smokin'

This was a Chili Cookoff in memory of our very dear friend and fellow cooker Jim Penney who passed away earlier this year after a long battle with Cancer. Rest in peace my friend. The cookoff had a few more competitors this year. Congrates to brother wayne with his first place and to "2 Dogs" on his second place. This will likely turn in to a yearly thing. We hope to see more cooks in the future.

This is one time that I really should have stayed home. Lots of stuff went really wrong. Friday night I managed to burn up a near brand new Generator. Thanks to Dennis Kolar. He was nice enough to let me hook up to his Motor Home for some power. The Cook off itself went pretty good have again made final table with my ribs. Getting closer. One day may actually place.

The real trouble started when starting to leave. While backing out I managed to jack knife my pit and it caught one of the power jacks on my camper and ripped it off. Destroyed the door on a storage box on the same side. Was pretty sick about this happening but wait there is more. On the way home a tie down broke and I lost a wooden folding table. I hope to goodness it did not hit anyone. I have no idea where it landed.

How can so much go so wrong so quickly? It is almost laughable. Anyone see that movie RV????

It's going to cost me quite a bit in repairs but I'll be ready to go again soon.

Well it been awhile since I wrote an update so I guess it is time to catch up. West was a lot of fun. As usual the promoters and local folks did an outstanding job making sure everything ran as good as it could. Will definitely make this one again next year. We had six kids doing the pork chop cook off on Friday night. Everyone got there samples in on time and no one got hurt so this is always a good thing. Congrats to Danny, Logan, Wesley, Dakota, Kayla and Chrystal on a job well done. Got to keep practicing!!!

Now my competition. About the same. Made final table with chicken and brisket. Other than watching a couple of drunk teenagers making asses of themselves. Nothing too exciting happened.

This was good cookoff. With all the rain recently, they had to put us all on harder ground which made it a bit crowded but it all worked pretty well. My showing this time left a lot to be desired. The bad thing is I don't know what happened with the execption of the beans ( the SALT MONSTER attacked when I wasn't looking ). Yep way too much salt. Everything was "boot leather tough". Oh well... there is always another event to test some new theorys. I might figure it out one day!!! BTW the next will be in West, Texas on the KC grounds July 27th and 28th.
Congrat goes out to Donnie, Ronnie, Jeff, Steve, Danny, the Coles and everyone else who got the call. For those who did not, just keep on keeping on!!! For those interested in visting a discussion forum for IBCA, you can visit: http://ibca.michaelbros.com. Usually some interesting topics going on.

The West KC cookoff also has a kids event on Friday. If anyone has some kiddos who want to cook some pork chops, y'all come on out and join us. More info can be found here: http://www.ibcabbq.org/flyers2007/Txallstar.pdf

Catch y'all next time and keep on Smokin'

Well things seem to be looking a little better for the Tone Deaf Team. We placed in 3 of 4 catagories this time. 7th place beans, 8th place Chicken, 10th place Ribs. Made final table (12th place ) with the brisket. Not too bad out of 21 teams. Congrats goes out to Linda Kolar Grand Champion. And yes we were actually a team this time. Brother Wayne joined me for the adventure. Other than some unruly drunk kids showing their colors and a passing thunderstorm on Friday night, it looks like everything went pretty smooth. Really looking forward to this one again next year.

The next event will be Itasca 6/29-30. Y'all come out and see us.

Howdy Folks,
Here we go again. Still charged with my success at Rockdale, I headed off to Burnet with high hopes. My hopes were pretty much squashed when all the heavy hitters started rolling in around 7:00 PM Friday night. It was nice to see Dennis, Linda, Dale, and Lance again.

Really nice grounds, and the Cook Off was very well ran. Got to meet some folks who visit the forum. Not sure what happened on Saturday but everything cooked in record time. This is quite a change. Unusally I'm sweating it trying to get the chicken and ribs done in time for turn in. Anyway is was all pretty smooth. No hits this time. But that was really not that surprising considering the folks I was up against. Anyway we live to cook another day eh???? The next Cook-off will be in Penelope 6/2. Brother Wayne will be joining me and he is out for revenge. (Should be interesting)

This was a nice little cookoff. Was somewhat disappointed that there were only 10 teams. Nice grassy area behind the post to setup. Was lackin a bit in organization but it all came together. Finally some success. Since there was only 10 teams, everyone placed in everything but I did manage to bring home a little cash. I place 2nd place in Brisket and 1st place in beans. The 2nd place brisket qualifies me for the National Championship BBQ Cookoff in Meridian this October.

Hey y'all remember I was thinking about a new camper? Got one. This sure makes things a lot easier.

This event is always a big one. There was 101 teams there this year. Nothing unusual really went on Friday night other than the drinking and visiting that takes place the night before. The next morning a reported from my company news letter came by and did an interview and took some pictures while I was working everthing. Everything turned out fine as near as I could tell but once again it was not enough to impress the judges. Pretty much got a thrashing again. I stayed over again Saturday and was out meeting some of the other cooks. Because I was wearing my IBCA jacket, one group mistakening thought I was one of the officials and proceeded to rip in to me about how the cook off was rigged and only folks from West could win. That they would not be back again. After stating serveral times that I had nothing to do with the running of the event, that I was competing too, they calmed down and we had a nice chat. I know alot of the folks who got the call and most were not from around the West area. So anyway sometimes it is hard to accept defeat but we must move on.

As usual the West folks did a pretty good job organizing the event. I think they need to concentrate more on getting judges.

This is probably the longest drive I have ever made for a cookoff but it was well worth it. The folks at the VFW post in north Austin really know how to put one on. The first person I ran in to ( not literally ) while driving on the grounds was a gentleman named Tom who was a member of the post. This fellow really went out of his way to make sure I had everything I needed. After I got my pit and canopy (remember this is February ) set up is was time to start on the chili. I just started using a propane burner I purchased a few months before. Pulled it out of the box and guess what???? Assembly required. LOTS OF ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. No tools!! Nothing but one of those foldup pocket plier things and a huge adjustable wrench for attaching a hose to the LP bottle. I made due and finally got it together. Did you know that a brand new preseasoned cast iron dutch oven should be really scrubbed out good before you use it the first time? Me neither. Needless to say the chili was black by the time it was done. I turned it in anyway and shockenly it didn't place. Tasted pretty good though. All the cooks were treated to an excellent Spagetti dinner provided by the post on Friday Night.

Boy did it get cold over night. I had my big canopy with the wall kit setup around my pit to help break the wind. Inside it wasn't too bad as long as I had a good fire going. Cobey and Lance came by to vistit and Tom dropped by from time to time. Lots of beer was consumed around the pit that night. Ok time to get up Saturday and shake the cobwebs loose and get busy. The local Boy Scout troop was making the rounds with pancakes and sausage. (It hit the spot) Well it was still pretty cool and I did not compensate while cooking the chicken. No folks, bloody chicken does not impress judges. The Ribs and Brisket turned out really good ( I thought, Tom was impressed too ). Judges did not think so. So at the end of the day, nothing but tired feet. I decided to stay over again Saturday night. I ran out of wood about 10 PM. Was sleeping in my truck and thinking seriously about a camper by 1 am. 7am Sunday was loaded and on my way home.

This was a very fun cookoff and I will be there again next year. Better prepared.