Cooking Blog

The weather was perfect and it is a shame we did have more teams but it was a very nice time. Congrates to Wayne, Gilbert, Betty, 2dogs and Barbara on your places.

I guess David and myself might need to give up with our Chili Recipies. :(

As always this was a very well run cookoff. Other than have to setup next to a couple pure assholes, this was a great event. Saturday really didn't go too well but sunday was great. I placed 13th with my chicken and made final table (17th place) with my ribs. Actually won enough cash to pay for my entry fee and a little left over. Afterwards I went to a very nice RV resort farther up in north Texas and spent a few days. Had a very nice time.

This was another well run event in the piney woods. Many thanks to Brad Caraway and the VFD for all your hard work. These folk made sure we had everything we needed. Congrats to Dennis and Linda Kolar and Danny Chistian on you places and to David H on your GC.

Once again these folks put on a great event. Not much else to say about it other than It was one HOT son of gun out there!!! Thom Emery from Indigo, CA. happen to buddy up with me for the event. He cooked the ribs. Although they were very good, as well as everything else we turned in, We pretty much got a whuppin. Oh well we'll get it one of these days. I think the kids event was somewhat disappointing to Danny. His streak came to a grinding halt. There is a good lesson to be learned there, You Can't Win Them All. All in all everyone seem to have a good time and I'll be looking forward to this one again next year.

The next event will be the Hill County Fair Cook Off in Hillsboro 9/13

What a great weekend. I had Dakota and Kayla with me so they could cook the kids event Friday night. Danny showed up a little later. The kids event here is really pretty neat. The butcher shop for Davids Supermarkets sponsered the event and supplied the pork chops. Danny has been kicking butt lately and this time he placed first. Dakota got third place (Thanks Missy for the correction)and Kayla got tenth. The kids really had a good time and were also a big help to me. I had a fairly sucessful weekend myself having placed 7th in beans and 4th in brisket. I made final tables with my chicken (11th) and ribs (13 th). Congrates to Jeff Shivers making Grand Champion and Steve Chupp making Reserve.

There wasn't quite as many teams competing this year. 25 adult teams and 23 kids I believe. Down quite a bit from last year. None the less, we had a great time this weekend and looking forward to the next event at West 7/25

The folks at Penelope once again put on a great event. My great nephew Danny hit second place with his pork chop. Looks like he might be getting this whole cooking thing down. My cooking didn't do much of anything. I made final table with the beans. Congrates to Dennis Kolar making grand champion. It's been a while bud, Good job!!

Howdy all,
Just got back from Burnet today and I must say it was a great weekend. So lets get the stats out of the way. I pretty much bombed out. The only thing that really had any show at all was the brisket making final table. If they were placing higher than 10 places, it been around 15th place. Out of 61 teams it wasn't too bad. Everything cooked really fast for some reason so I was scrambling to slow it all down so as you can guess everything was overcooked. It was great meeting up with friends and making some new ones. I even met a few from the forum who I never met before. I always like to personally meet our forum members when possible. A big thanks goes out to the Burnet County Sherriff for his hospitality. I believe his name is Joe Pollack. This man and his crew really busted their backsides to make sure all the competitors were fed Friday night and Saturday morning. My space was near where they were setup and they were some kind of busy over there. Near as I can tell the overall event was very smooth and a great success. Even the Whiskey man who was such a thorn in my backside at Austin was somewhat subdued. But then again I was on the otherside of the park from him. :) Other than a touch of rain Saturday afternoon the weather was great. Congrats out to Linda Kolar and her first place brisket and Walker Keeney named GC.

This was a very good cookoff this year. They have more than doubled the contestants from last year. The post there seems to be committed to growing this event. The weather was a bit chilly during the evenings but was just beautiful during the day. Met another fellow member from the forum and had a good time visting with Rich as well as the other cooking buddies. I managed to get Dead Ass Last with my chicken. DAL is a jackpot they do at this event. I guess I need to forget about the new chicken recipe I came up with. Ribs did not make the top 10 but at least they wasn't DAL. The beans made 10th place. I was pretty sure they came out too sweet so I guess this will be my excuse. I was pleasantly surprised to get 1st place with my brisket. This is the first time I have ever hit a 1st place brisket. All in All it was a very good weekend. Really looking forward to this event next year. With the excitement the Post was showing, I can see this event getting better and better each year.

This was, as usual, a great cookoff. The VFD guys really do a great job of putting this thing together. I guess I need to find a new spot. I'm starting to feel a little guilty that for the last 2 years, Coty and some of the other fellows have spent a lot of time repairing the AC outlet. BTW, if you guys are reading this, Thanks Again. I hear the Kids Cookoff was a big success. If I heard correctly, 32 entries combined in both groups. Nephew Danny competed. I think he got 12th place. I did something a little different this year. Friday Night I got out the small Karaoke system. Seem to have a lot of folks hanging around the site and everyone had a good time. I might have made a mistake because I think I'm now known as the "Karaoke Guy" Oh well it was a lot of fun. The cookoff went pretty much the same as usual for me. Zip, Zero, Nada. Congrats to Barbie on the Grand Champion and Terry Blount on the Reserve.

I also decided this weekend of changing the team name to Degenerate "Q". Perhaps it will bring me some luck.

Howdy Folks,

The first cook off of the year for me was, how shall I say, INTERESTING???? The weather was great. I made final tables on Chicken and Cooks Choice which was a different twist on Venison I came up with. Dee Dee and the IBCA folks did a great job on the cook off and any following comments are not directed at them in any way. What a difference a year makes. This years event was nothing like last year. Last year all the teams seem to behavethemselves and the promoters seem to go out of their way to make each and every competitor feel welcome. This year it seems they couldn't have cared less. Everything seemed fine during the daytime but at night, as least in my area, it turned in to a drunken free for all. This type of activity is exactly why I refuse to compete in a CTBA event. The team behind me is apparently sponsored by a very popular Whiskey Company and they were mixing free drinks by truckload (Firgure of speech). It appears that free booze to the public attracts all walks of like, but mostly loud mouth A$$HOLES. In the several years I have been competing, I have never had anyone bother anything in my assigned space. This weekend I have had road cones put on the door step of my camper ( Damn never tripped over it this morning coming out ), screwing around with my generator, trying to piss on my PIT, not near but on it.( yeah I was amazed at this one when I caught him and run him off) Very loud booming music, standing by my camper both Friday and Saturday nights yelling and raising hell until 2 or 3 am. I guess this is when they passed out. Giving out free booze to the public does not seem like a bright idea and I'm surprized the VFW is allowing this. Most events do not allow it and states so specifically in the rules. In my opinion, this is my blog so it does count here, they should really reconsider allowing this at future events. Next year I will be thinking long and hard about whether or NOT I will be attend this event. Right now because I'm still pissed off, I'm thinking not.

I know the upcoming event at West will be much better and I'm really looking forward to it.