Posted By AmyD. on June 8, 2009

Last weekend was the big event… the one we’ve been practicing for, the Bakersfield Biggest Baddest Barbecue Championship 2009! After months of tweaking websites and eating loads of Mike’s barbecue everything came down to late (very late) Friday night right up to noon on Saturday.

They say that competitions are won or lost within the 15 before the first turn in. The rules are strict, the judging is fierce, and the garnish nearly caused me more than a few gray hairs.

The good news is that we took 10th place in Brisket.

The picture above is not our brisket. In fact, I only have ONE picture of our brisket and only ONE picture of a finished presentation because I was just THAT STRESSED over it being my first time doing boxes with garnish and being judged and all that jazz!

Of course, in the normal realm of things 10th isn’t so great, but we were up against PROS! And to place AT ALL our first time out was WICKEDLY AWESOME!

And, after going over all the data and scores (extensively) we found that our ribs actually beat out a few restaurants here in town. Which, at the very least, secured us some bragging rights.

Saturday morning I attended a class on garnish by Harry over at Slap Yo Daddy Barbecue. Harry is a super nice guy, very informative, and very helpful. He was also the grand champion of the event. There are all kinds of tricks and tweaks that go into these competitions and we were nearly blindsided if it weren’t for Harry’s demonstration Saturday morning. Needless to say… Ethan made great friends with a produce guy at a local supermarket and that is probably what saved the day for us.

We didn’t go into it expecting to win or even place we just wanted to have a good time. We did… probably too good thanks to Jeremy Tucker over at T-Bones Ranch House. Jeremy is an old friend (he was at our wedding helping to run the reception) and one of the sweetest guys on the planet, donating a lot of time, blood, sweat, tears, and talent to cater the event and help out for a really great cause.

Jeremy showed up at our spot with a bottle of Patron and by the end of the night Mike was nearly useless. Jeremy’s awesome wife, Lora, had to drag him off to find a designated driver since they both had to be up early at their restaurant the next morning and then back out at the event again!

Most of the grill teams stayed up all night cooking (and drinking) which was pretty fun. We’re already looking forward to next year’s event. By 10am Saturday morning one of the guys from another team took a run through all of our “cook sites” to let us know they were setting up 10 O’ Clock shots of Jager, Goldschlager, and God only knew what else to “take the edge off.” He reminded me of one of Mike’s old buds, Fed (think I’ve told a few Fed stories around here) because, and this won’t be as funny as the actual thing was because you can’t HEAR him say it, “Everyone takes this shit too seriously, like babies in China are dying because you’re out here barbecuing…”

Aside from the 12, 12:30, 1pm, and 1:30pm turn in times on Saturday when things were a little tense (UNDERSTATEMENT!!!) everyone was out there to laugh, enjoy some live music, drink and have a good time. We met some great people and had a really good time and that even takes precedence over the fact that we placed!

I wish I had gotten more pictures. I was also twittering for the event (not on my twitter on the event’s twitter) and of course, helping Mike prep, grill, and present so by the time I could dig in for pics my batteries were croaking and I was just having too good a time.

After all that, we’re woefully addicted to BBQ competitions. We’re looking into a competition in October for our next venture!

Categories: Family Antics, Stupid Husband Tricks, Stupid Wife Tricks, Things That Could Get Me Killed
Tags: 10th place, Bakersfield's Biggest Baddest Barbecue Championship, barbecue, bbq, brisket, dawgnawt, family, fun, grill, Jeremy, Mike, Patron, t-bones