Woo Hoo! We officially moved up to #3 in America in the Kansas City BBQ Society (KCBS) 2010 Team of the Year (TOY) race among over 4,000 teams participating. We also kept our lead as the #1 Team of the California BBQ Assoc. (CBBQA) 2010 TOY for the state of California! With our #1 TOY from the Arizona BBQ Assoc. (AZ BBQ) won in early December, Canadian BBQ Championship in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, in September, and 1st place in the national KCBS Ranchers Reserve Beef Cup, we’re surpassed our wildest imaginations as a three-year old team from California. That’s a total of 10 Grand Championships and 6 Reserve Grand Championships amid the PNWBA, IBCA, and KCBS sanctioning bodies we cooked under the past year.
On New Year’s Eve and New Year Day, Benny and I finished our 2010 contest year with two back-to-back Reserve Grand Championships (RC) at Wildomar, California, amid heavy competition from top teams in California and Arizona, including several KCBS top-25 teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and beyond.
On NYE, we finished 2nd Overall RC amid 45 teams with 1st Pork, 7th Ribs, 7th Brisket, and 23rd Chicken. On NYD, we again finished 2nd Overall RC amid 43 teams with 3rd Brisket, 8th Chicken, 9th Ribs, and 13th Pork. A big congrats to my fellow co-worker and former SYD assistant cook Dave Malone of All Sauced Up for GC for Day 1 and a big congrats to Vince and Alexa from Rhythm and Que for GC for Day 2. A big congrats also to all who walked and participated in this fun event.
Chilly morning w 1/4-inch ice formed in our outdoor three-basin sinks
It was a pretty cold weekend with temps in the mid-twenties, but it warmed to the 50′s during the day. Thanks to Benny’s sister Olga and her husband Vern who brought along their RV, we really enjoyed creature comforts during this cookout without frostbite!
New Year Catfish with head and tail intact symbolizing the start and finish of all ventures in 2011
We enjoyed meals of tamales, black eyed peas, and baked catfish to bring in the new year. The two fish with heads and tails intact symbolized the successful start and end of endeavors undertaken in 2011. For example, if you start a business in 2011 and the objective is to make a profit, the head represents the start, and the tail of the fish represents the successful end with profit. I used two fishes to symbolize a yin-yang pair so couples could follow each other and have successful relationships for 2011.
It was awesome that our friends and neighbors Larry Schroeder from the Rib Ticklers provided the dance music, disco lights, and festivities while everyone counted down the new year. On the second day, I was “ribbing” Larry (pun intended) about the product consistency of his People’s Choice ribs and thought it was just private banter between the two of us. Unfortunately, it was overheard and of course, it got out to the BBQ community in the wrong way before it circled back to me and Larry. Larry and I are good friends and I apologized to Larry for the fun banter that went awry. No harm no foul!
SYD Lazy Man box presentation class
Based on popular request, we conducted our SYD Lazy Man presentation box class for the new and established teams who wanted to watch us build our 4 KCBS presentation boxes with 1 head of lettuce and 4 heads of parsley for less than $4.00 and less than 20 minutes. We’ve taught our easy technique to dozens of teams the past couple of years and the popularity of this technique continues to grow exponentially as we level the playing field so it’s about the meat and not the garnish. I ran in to Johnny Trigg who cooked this event and he’s been using it also.
Many thanks go to Henry Silvestre for organizing the event, the City of Wildomar, all the judges, Gene, Kelly and Kathleen for officiating, and all the helpers and volunteers. We’d like to thank our terrific Sponsors: Rocks BBQ System for our Stoker temperature control system, T&H Meat and Sausages for our meat products, Snake River Farms for our beef products, TheSlabs.com for our rub products, Cajun Bandit for our Weber stainless replacement doors, and Butcher BBQ for our injections.
EPILOGUE:
This is my last blog entry for 2010 and I’m very optimistic about 2011. We’ve proved we can cook consistently against the best in the West and the Mid-West.
My awesome side-kick Benny Adauto from Whittier, Calif.
I also wanted to express my deepest thanks to Benny Adauto who is my assistant cook and partner in crime whom I recruited for our crazy 2010 BBQ adventure. It’s been said that assistant cooks often don’t get recognized enough and I want to say that without Benny’s support, patience, and energy, including that of his wonderful wife Shari, we would not have come this far overcoming all the challenges along the way. 2011 is going to be a great year for Slap Yo Daddy BBQ and I hope you will continue to follow our progress on these blogs.
Happy New Year,
Pitmaster Harry