Monthly Archives: August 2006

The week of August 28, 2006

n 3 weeks exactly, my barbecue competition teammate, Mark, and I will be holding our first cooking class! (Details can be found here.) With that in mind, later this week, we’ll be reviewing the class and deciding what we’re going to be doing. The theme is tailgating, and, weather permitting, we’ll set up a pseudo-competition site to show the people in the class how a comp might be run. We’ll also be cooking all the food we’ll be going over with the class. My thoughts are to include more than recipes, though; I want to talk about the different types of outdoor cooking and how/when to use different types of outdoor cooking (direct, indirect, smoking). I hope to have a really good packet of info for everyone, with the 2 part goal of getting more people interested in barbecue/outdoor cooking and to be asked to do a class again. Continue reading →

DMCA.com

“Feasting On Asphalt” Review

I’m now going to do what half the food bloggers in the US are also doing this weekend: reviewing Alton Brown’s latest short-series endeavor, “Feasting on Asphalt”. The reason everyone’s doing this is simple – The final episode aired over the weekend. I just had the chance to watch it on Tivo the other day, and I wanted to get my judging thoughts out before I had no more thoughts of any sort. Continue reading →

DMCA.com

Competition judging reflections – VERY long!

My wife and I have now used our judging certifications for the first time! We judged the Madison Ribberfest KCBS sanctioned barbecue competition in Indiana. The good news was that all the judges were certified judges, which, from what I hear, isn’t very common. The bad news (not really that bad) was that some judges didn’t show (or call even), so we had to do an extra entry per category.

Last week, I posted some of my preconceptions, so I thought I’d just reflect on those to see how right or wrong I was, and I’ll add some more observations afterwards. Continue reading →

DMCA.com

The week of august 21, 2006

This week, I’ll be reviewing my preconceptions on judging from last week, now that I have one competition behind me as a CBJ (Certified Barbecue Judge).

I’ll also be talking about something new I tried with ABT’s that I really liked, as well as reviewing Alton Brown’s latest short series, Feasting on Asphalt.

By week’s end, I’ll do another update on my improvement, or lack of improvement after judging a barbecue competition! Continue reading →

DMCA.com

Carnival of Food Photography

I have to admit I’m having fun with this blog community stuff. There’s a huge range of approaches to food, and people are writing about it all over the world.

I’ve recently been included in 2 ‘carnivals’, which are groupings of blog entries that pertain to a topic. One is the Carnival of the Recipes: BBQ Edition, and the other is Carnival of the Grill. In fact, I’ll be hosting the next Carnival of the Grill. Submissions have to be in by September 4, 2006 (Labor Day in the US). Please send stuff in to give me lots to choose from!

I also decided to start up a Carnival of my own: The Carnival of Food Photography! Instead of concentrating on a type of cooking like grilling or barbecuing, I want to focus on great pictures of food, with varying topics. (get the pun… focus… photos…).

The first Carnival of Food Photography will have a submission deadline of September 10th… and the topic is:

(drumroll)

Grill Marks!

So, while there’s no stipulation as to the type of cooking or what’s being cooked, I want to see some GREAT grill mark photos. These can be from indoor cooking as well as outdoor, but, when we have grilled items, those grill marks really get a lot of oohs and aahs! So let’s see your best!

Click here to submit an entry!

If you have any topics for the carnival you’d like to see, let me know. I already have some in mind, but I’m open to suggestions! Continue reading →

DMCA.com

Week 2 “Lifestyle Change” Progress

‘m calling what I’m doing a lifestyle change, not a diet. I won’t stick to a diet most likely, and just the term ‘diet’ makes me think of a temporary thing that, once I’m where I want to be, I can go back to eating whatever I want.

Won’t work. I already know that. So why use semantics to get around this? Partly because semantics actually do mean something. Semantics can give positive or negative connotations to things. Understood definitions of terms can imply things. “Lifestyle change” allows me to keep telling myself this isn’t temporary and that I won’t be doing what I did before. “Diet” says, “Lose weight you fat pig, then you can eat again!” Continue reading →

DMCA.com

Competition judging preconceptions

his weekend, I’m, most likely, going to be judging my first KCBS competition. My wife and I got our certifications in January, and we’ll be using them finally! I thought I’d kind of document what my thoughts are going into the experience, then compare them next week after having done the judging for real.

Just like any new experience, it will be interesting to see how right or wrong my preconceptions are after this weekend! Continue reading →

DMCA.com

Blog carnivals

I’ve started trying to be more a part of the blogging community lately, and I found these blog carnivals. Just about any topic you can think of is included, but I, or course, focused on recipes (my post from a couple of days ago), and now the Carnival of the Grill!

I’m actually going to host the next Carnival of the Grill, after September 4th, so keep an eye out! The current Carnival of the Grill is hosted by Adam at Men In Aprons, and lists some really great grilled stuff! Take a minute and check it out; you may be insp Continue reading →

DMCA.com

Salmon stuff

What is it about salmon? I can hate it or love it. I’ve found that the quality varies greatly, and that, to be good, I need to get better salmon. To me, this means to look for 2 things:

1. Wild-caught salmon
2. Scottish salmon

First, Atlantic farmed salmon is listed by the Audobon Society to be avoided, while wild-caught is ‘green’, meaning safe to eat. Second, the flavor is so much better. Scottish salmon has taken some quality hits, mainly in smoked salmon, but the fresh, good quality Scottish salmon is organically raised and very high quality, on par in flavor with the wild-caught salmon.

I also think that salmon takes well to outdoor cooking better than about any other fish. Continue reading →

DMCA.com

The week of August 14, 2006

This week in blogging… Great start, huh? I thought I’d do a blog preview of the week, to keep me focused and hopefully keep my readers’ interest!

Carnbbq First off, I submitted my tomato pie entry to “Carnival of the Recipes – The BBQ Edition”, and it got included! This is a feature that can be hosted by just about anyone, but pulls together a topic of recipes. The tomato pie is included in the side dish part of the entry. I’ve submitted another entry for an upcoming “Carnival of the Grill”; if it makes it, I’ll post about that, too.

Later this week, I’ll have some info on salmon. I have generally cedar-planked salmon recently, but I hot smoked some really great salmon, and I’ll talk about salmon in general for outdoor cooking.

I’ll also have my next installment of updates on how I’m doing diet-wise. Already, I’m noticing a difference in how my pants are fitting!

And I’m preparing for my first judging experience at a KCBS event. My wife and I will be going to Madison, IN, this Friday to judge Saturday. The only thing that will change that is whether I can leave my dog overnight… Woody’s having some issues, and I have to be comfortable leaving him with a friend that will come over to watch him. We’ll see how he’s doing later in the week before I make up my mind. Continue reading →

DMCA.com

ABTs today!

BBQ Joe from the BBQ Brethren asked if anyone had pictures of making ABT’s, so I thought I’d do some this weekend and try to do a photo-journal of the making of them.

I started with 3 kinds of peppers: jalapeno, fresno and some sweet peppers. In the photo to the left, there’s the chile grill, some pepper bacon, cream cheese, fresh basil, serano ham. Somewhere, there’s also some chorizo (it’s on the stove browning at the time of this picgure), asiago cheese and some pepper jack cheese. Continue reading →

DMCA.com