May 27, 2010 - BBQ!!!

We visited Daddy at his BBQ competition

He "grilled" a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler with bourbon and cinnamon in the dutch oven. By counting out a certain number of coals, he knew what the internal temperature of the oven was and baked it accordingly

Grilling corn for the vegetables in a bourbon cream sauce. They had to make ribs, a vegetable and a dessert, and center it around a theme. The Kingsford group chose Kentucky Bourbon as their theme

Meanwhile, Riley had a blast playing with the trees

and walking around the site

Its the cutest Kingsford model ever!

The 8 racks of ribs are out of the smoker

The cobbler is a perfect golden brown

The ribs are juicy and artfully placed on the plate (you get points for presentation)

Plating all the food for the judges was a little crazy

They had to describe their food, method and ingredients to each judge

And showed some Kingsford spirit upon winning Grand Champion!

On Friday Chad and some Kingsford colleagues participated in a BBQ competition for charity. It was their first competition so they weren’t sure what to expect. They had to prepare ribs, a vegetable and a dessert with a crust all centered around a theme. Being a perfectionist, Chad and his group practiced all their food several times. He and I made a strawberry rhubarb cobber with different crusts and fillings in a cast iron dutch oven; you can put charcoal on top and around the oven to create a baking temperature. It’s a 12 qt oven so we’ve eaten a lot of cobbler in the last few weeks.

Their theme was Kentucky Bourbon, so everything had a little bourbon in it. We added cinnamon and bourbon to the cobbler and it was delicious. Another team member made a root beer/bourbon reduction sauce for dipping the ribs, amazing!

They arrived at the fairgounds at 8 am and started slow cooking the ribs right away. Riley and I went to visit around 3 pm and the other dishes were all being prepped, they were a well-oiled machine! At first I thought the Clorox group had an unfair advantage since they all worked in the Kingsford department (Chad assembled his team carefully) and grilled all the time. But most of their competition was from restaurants. They guys next to them were chefs at the Hyatt and another group was from Lickety-Split BBQ. They had a huge BBQ on wheels that was pulled in by a truck. But it was for charity so its just the participation that matter, right?

Wrong! The Kingsford placed at all categories, won 1^st place for best dessert (I take a little bit of that credit) and won grand champion! I was totally impressed, but it shouldn’t surprise me. Chad works so hard in everything he does.

Ironically, the very same week Chad was informed that he’ll be moving into the Brita group (as in the water pitchers; Clorox owns them, too). Clorox likes to move people around every few years and Chad has been in Kingsford for 3.5 years so apparently it was time. It’s a parallel move but a completely new business so there will be lots to learn. Unfortunately he’s going to be doing his full time job at Kingsford while on-boarding into Brita, so he’s working some very long hours already. But he’s excited about the change, working with new people, and learning a new product. And of course, he’ll always be a master at the BBQ!