The One Where I Judge a Barbeque Contest

I'm gonna jump ahead in the textbook and bring you the recap of my weekend as a barbeque judge before my Rogers Centre review. Usually when I want to remember things on day/road trips, I take pictures of them. Later on, I look through all my pictures and remember what I wanted to say. Unfortunately, at these barbeque competitions, only certified photographers and such are allowed to take pictures. So I'll be doing this while the weekend is somewhat fresh in my mind. As a quick refresher, this is how I became a certified barbeque judge.

Before I begin, I'll offer this piece of advice now, as well as at the end of the post: If you love barbeque, become a certified judge. If you read on, you'll understand why.

Labor Day Road Trip, Part I

Here's your aforepromised (a word which isn't actually a word, even though you know exactly what it means) Labor Day Weekend Road Trip Recap. Characters in this saga are me and Adam, a friend from school. We're gonna do this in a few parts, partly because I can, but mostly because I don't feel like writing all of it up now.

Before we start though, I just want everyone to know that karma's gonna come back to get me sometime soon, since on this road trip, everything seemed to go right. We didn't hit any traffic and each of our border crossings delayed us no more than two or three minutes. We cut an hour-long line at the BBQ restaurant in Syracuse. We stumbled across the National Buffalo Wing Festival without even knowing that it was going on. We randomly found the restaurant that was voted to have the best beer selection in Ontario. We saw indoor and outdoor baseball in Toronto, all in one game.

And after that teaser, the highlights of Day 1:

The One Where I Become a Certified Barbeque Judge

Regarding the previous post, Daniel did an excellent job explaining the day-to-day activities of the unemployed. My method, while largely similar to his, has a few key differences, mostly because of the longevity of my current stint on the inactive roster. I'll let his explanation simmer (or maybe ferment) for a few days before I pile on.

Now, a post that I promised you last week: my experience at a Certified Barbeque Judging Class. I guess it all started a couple of months ago when I began watching a show on TLC called BBQ Pitmasters. This program showcased a handful of barbeque cooking teams who would travel around to contests, competing for culinary fame, trophies, and often tens of thousands of dollars, simply for cooking barbeque. To be fair, the extent to which these cooks would go to ensure perfection was astounding --  48 hours straight, barely sleeping at all, killing themselves to make sure every minute detail of their food was perfect. But the cooking part wasn't what intrigued me the most.

Friday Tidbits

Three days, and we're still going strong. Take that, doubters. Evidently the over/under for this blog has been set at July 31st. Personally, we think that seriously underestimates our ability not to have anything else to do, but we'll let you be the judge of that. Take a look at the poll on the right and let us know.