Grillin' On The Bay and The Brooklyn Chili Smackdown

It's back and better than ever!

Grillin' On The Bay 2009

To benefit St. Mark School Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
Sanctioned by The New England Barbeque Society
Sponsored by RUB BBQ and Butternuts Beer and Ale
Saturday April 4, 2009

Corner of East 18th Street and Avenue Z, Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn
Four Grilling Categories: Chicken Breast, Fish, Pork and Chef's Choice
$75 to $125 to Enter - Cash and Fabulous Prizes
and
The Brooklyn Chili Smack Down
People's Choice Chili Contest
Any type of Chili you want to make.
You call it Chili - WE call it Chili

Free to Enter
$100 to the winner!
$10 All the Chili you can eat - Till it runs out!

For more information: Web: GOTB Email BrooklynQ or call 917-763-5062
This contest is not affiliated with the Kansas City Barbeque Society or any Chili Contest Sanctioning body.

North Carolina BBQ Trail

I just found this on the internet today.

A member of the New England BBQ Society posted this link to the North Carolina Barbecue Society's historic trail of barbeque joints throughout NC.

Lookie here..

"NCBS has designed a barbecue trail from Eastern North Carolina to Tennessee. The trail will meander across the state with stops at 25 NCBS Historic Barbecue Pits. These pits were carefully and selectively chosen by the NCBS board as representatives of the distinctive methods and barbecue cooking styles that have made North Carolina the Barbecue Capital of the World. Each NCBS Historic Barbecue Pit still cooks the old fashioned pit cooked method."

"Criteria for selection to the NCBS Historic Barbecue Trail included, among other things, that the NCBS Historic Barbecue Pit cook their meat product on pits fueled by wood or charcoal, make their own sauce, that the pit had operated continuously for fifteen or more years, that the end product was a good offering and representative of North Carolina Barbecue and that the pit had earned and enjoyed the high esteem of its community, the barbecue industry and barbecue aficionados. The board decided to only include pits that provide a sit down dining experience for the public"

I need a road trip!

BBQ Events: The Harpoon BBQ Championship of New England

From yesterday's Boston Globe, here's a great article about the premier BBQ contest in the Northeast, The Harpoon BBQ Championship of New England.


Ray Depot of the Anchormen Competition Barbecue Team of Narragansett, R.I., inspected his team's chicken entry before submitting it to judges during the Harpoon Championships of New England. (Jason Johns for The Boston Globe)

In the South, the word "barbecue" is a noun, as in "Let's eat some barbecue." But up here, it's a verb, as in, "Let's barbecue!" And as we learned at this summer's Championships of New England Barbecue, we're doing it better than ever these days.

Fired Up!
By Erin Byers Murray | September 2, 2007

I'm inside the judges' tent at the Harpoon Championships of New England Barbecue in Windsor, Vermont, watching carefully as Frank Plankey, a heavyset man with a cheerful face sporting a baseball cap covered in collector pins, picks up a handful of shredded pork and studiously examines its coloring. Satisfied, he closes his eyes and holds the chunk up to his nose, inhaling audibly. He inhales again, then pops it in his mouth before scribbling numbers on a score card. It is the first time I've ever seen anyone regard the bouquet of a hunk of pork, but that's what Plankey and 48 other certified judges are here to do, to evaluate the culinary skills of 42 teams that are part of the fast-growing sport of competitive barbecue. This late-July fest is a major event for the New England circuit and will end with the crowning of the Team of the Year. It will also draw a record 6,000 spectators to the Harpoon Brewery over the course of two days.

Barbecue competitions are nothing new in the South, Midwest, or West, but up here they didn't catch on until the early 1990s, when a group of amateur cooks, mostly in Massachusetts, put together a friendly competition called the Pig and Pepper. The event spawned copycats and eventually an organization of teams was formed, now called the New England Barbecue Society. In 2001, Harpoon Brewery sponsored the first regional competition and since then, with help from various marketing efforts and the pastime's increasing exposure on television outlets like the Food Network, the season has grown to a dozen competitions in New England and membership has skyrocketed to 350 teams. Not bad for a sport that didn't exist here 20 years ago. One look around the festival and it's easy to see – actually to smell and to hear – the draw. The air is thick with hickory smoke and blues music; aging hippies, leather-clad bikers, 20-something couples in madras shorts, and entire families (including their dogs) wander the grounds munching on pulled-pork sandwiches and drinking Harpoon. Teams are camped out across the grounds with enormous rigs made up of smokers, kitchen equipment, RVs, and tents. Some teams, like Malden's I Smell Smoke!!!, are competition veterans that hit 20 contests each season and have 12 or more years of experience, while others, like the Pokey Smokers, a husband-and-wife team from Stow, have little more than a year of practice.

They all arrived Friday night and stayed up late tending their smokers, which were filled with entries for Saturday's barbecue categories (chicken, ribs, pork butt, and beef brisket). A separate competition will take place Sunday for grilling, where most entries are prepared over open fires, unlike traditional barbecuing, which requires longer cooking time over very low, indirect heat. Winners will earn prize money and bragging rights. Here, they compete against the best, and this year, that means teams from Kansas City and Chicago as well as a few professional chefs, like Tremont 647's Andy Husbands and his team, iQue.9

Read more »

Pictures

Not much to post today, but here's some more pictures from NYC's only New England Barbecue Society sanctioned barbecue contest Grillin' On The Bay.

BBQ Events: The Snowshoe 2007

Looking for something to do today?

Well, the competition barbecue season begins in earnest in the North East. Take a ride up to the Abington VFW Post 5737, 30 Central Street, Abington MA for The New England Barbecue Society's annual Snowshoe Contest.

This is a great event that attracts some of the best competitive barbecue teams in the country. Here's this year's lineup:

1. Dirty Dick and the Legless Wonders
2. B.S. BBQ
3. Q Ball
4. D&D BBQ
5. Smokin' Bones
6. Purple Turtle Catering Co.
7. Faux Pas BBQ
8. Q Haven
9. I Que
10. Tranformer BBQ
11. Uncle Jed's BBQ
12. Lakeside Smokers
13. Feeding Friendz
14. Boneyard Smokers
15. I Smell Smoke
16. Smokey Steve & the Hickory Boys
17. Big Boned BBQ

Do yourself a favor, go.

Grillin' On The Bay - The Teams

Grilin' On The Bay - 2007. Wow. This is going to be a great event. Look at this line up! There are some of the best barbecue teams and restaurants in the Northeast cooking in Brooklyn on March 31st. (Corner of East 18th Street and Avenue Z)

Barbecue in New York City is alive and kicking. Come on out and check it out, you'll be glad you did. And if you're interested in cooking, we still have one spot left. Grillin' On The Bay rocks!

Hot Hogs
Smokin’ Mikes
Purple Turtle Catering - The Returning Champions
Hill Country - Rob Richter's new barbecue team
Notorious BBQ
Fat Texan BBQ
Richie’s Rib Shack
The Anchormen
IQue
Lost Nation
RUB
Fugheddaboutit BBQ
Front Street Smoke House
Smoke in Da Eye
Q Haven
Burnt Side Down
Duke's
The Mutiny Smokers
Smokin’ Dave’s Tailgate Party
Smokin’ Bones
Ma’s Que Crew
Beer Belly Porkers

Enjoying Public Space Again

Well looky here. I found this to be very intriguing and inspiring. An architecture student who's into grilling and challenging authority. This man could be my son! This article comes to us from the good folks at the Islington Gazette.

BRIAN HOY: “It’s about enjoying public space again"

A NEW extreme sport has hit the streets of Islington - and enthusiasts are abandoning their skateboards for charcoal, tongs and prize-winning bangers.

Rather than surfing that killer wave or throwing themselves out of aeroplanes, these adrenaline-junkies are braving the heady new world of "extreme barbecue".

The goals of the "sport" - created by architecture student Brian Hoy, 23 - are simple. Find the most inappropriate spot in an urban environment possible, fire up the barbie and get cooking.

The first extreme barbecue was held on a traffic island in the middle of Euston Road, King's Cross.

Mr Hoy, who lives in Finsbury Park, said: "We set off to the traffic island armed with disposable barbecues and a selection of fine meats.

"Soon enough the police turned up and told us that it was a totally inappropriate time and place for cooking - so we offered them a sausage. They were doing the good cop/bad cop routine. One thought it was funny, the other kept threatening us with arrest."

Explaining the philosophy of the sport, Mr Hoy added: "It's about enjoying public space again - as things are you get given a few parks to enjoy yourself in and everywhere else is just somewhere you go to work."

"It's the same sort of idea as graffiti - but less of a territorial marking and a lot more pacifist.

So far Mr Hoy and his fellow enthusiasts have such struck bizarre locations as the top of an abandoned 18-storey building on Oxford Street, and the roof of University College London's chemistry department.

Mr Hoy said: "I would encourage anyone who wants to get involved at the cutting edge of extreme sport to take up extreme barbecue. Whenever I cross Euston Road I fondly remember the hiss and crackle of cooking bacon.

BBQ Events: The Winter Sizzler

OK. BBQ folks are nuts. Some very brave souls just spent the weekend outside in New Hampshire's winter weather to cook some very good barbecue. Here's the results from the Winter Sizzler, The New England BBQ Society's newest event. Congratulations to everyone.

Posted by YankeeBBQ on The BBQ Forum January 14, 2007 at 15:52:57:

Great contest lots of winter fun even a snowball fight or two !!

Chicken
1 Purple Turtle
2 Q Haven
3 Que Ball
4 Lunchmeat
5 I Smell Smoke

Ribs
1 The Pokey Smokers
2 Boneyard Smokers
3 I Smell Smoke
4 Big Boned BBQ
5 Dr Frank n Swine

Pork
1 Dr Frank n Swine
2 Q Haven
3 I Smell Smoke
4 Big Boned BBQ
5 Que Ball

Brisket
1 I Smell Smoke
2 Porky's Butt Burners
3 Qwannabees
4 Lunchmeat
5 Boneyard Smokers

Chili
1 Porky's Butt Burners
2 I Smell Smoke
3 Boneyard Smokers
4 Lunchmeat
5 Q Haven

People's Choice Pork: I Smell Smoke

Grand Champ: I Smell Smoke !!! Reserve Grand Champion: Q Haven