It’s been REALLY hectic lately. My wife and I were on vacation all last week, and now we have a competition coming up THIS WEEKEND! We’re going to the Taste of Grand Rapids, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We’ll be proudly displaying our Ohio State camp chairs, of course.
What’s different about this competition? Well, a lot. First of all, they provide no electricity, and no running water. That’s going to be odd; those 2 things have been available at my other comps. There’s going to be water, but not running water.
Also, I don’t have much time to prepare. Last night, I did rubs and sauce to get ready, and I purchased meats. It looks like we’re going to have up to 25 visitors on Friday, so we’re making sure to have food for all of them, too.
The downside to the whole thing is that prize money is low. This isn’t a big deal to us, as we don’t really expect to be in big money. Fortunately, it still looks like a big comp, so that will be fine.
And the weather looks hot and humid. Close to 90, yuck! The average for this time of year in Grand Rapids is supposedly 83, which would be wonderful, but no such luck for us!
We do look forward to meeting some teams from the BBQ Brethren, and seeing some teams we’ve gotten to know over the last year or so.
Fortunately, we’ve got a good checklist, and having one smoker to haul instead of 3 chargrillers is going to be GREAT. We’re taking 2 trailers; one is the smoker itself, the other is a covered trailer with all the gear in it (and potentially my sleeping place for Friday night).
We’ve got 3 guys helping us, so it should go smoothly, though there are lots of extra categories (some of which we may not enter). We’re doing veggies, potatoes, beans and dessert on Friday night, and then an open category on Saturday, though it’s right before turn ins for the main categories of chicken, ribs, pork and brisket.
