I'm Burning For You

'Sup, yo?

This past weekend we had the Grill Kings contest out on Long Island. I was on my way when family matters got in the way. As it turns out, I'm glad I wasn't there. It sounds like it was pretty much a disaster.

I know my buddy Robert from WhiteTrashBBQ will be posting about his experience, so I won't say much more than it was in the upper 90s, the contest was in a parking lot with no shade, they didn't have ANY water for the teams between 3pm on Saturday and 10am on Sunday-- turn-ins started at 12 on Sunday!! There was no communication with the teams about what was happening, no information about the cooks' meeting, the awards were more than an hour late and the local cover band played on and on while people waited in the sun....They were putting the awards together when the ceremony was supposed to be taking place.

The cost was $5 to get in, but for teams that were friends with the organizers you could put your family on a guest list, but few people knew about that. The rules for the grilling contest said you had to use the sponsor's lousy charcoal, but then they didn't enforce the rule. And that's not even all of it. I know the organizers put alot of time and money into trying to make this a great event, but with a $300 entry fee (plus the cost of gas, supplies, meat etc.), teams deserved better. Not to mention the vendors who expected a certain size of crowd and supplied themselves proportionally, only to have much of that go to waste. It's really a shame. Out of love for the sport of bbq, Robert and I both tried to help promote the contest, giving them some ink in the papers and on our blogs, driving to Delaware to do a 5-minute live cooking spot to promote the contest on TV and thensome. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future-- I hope for the best. I expect the contest will come back with some serious re-tooling.

In other news, check out our buddy Mr. Cutlets (aka Josh Ozersky) on Slashfood where he tells the story of his trip to Texas Hill Country, a bbq holy land. Rumor has it that Josh just landed a plum gig for NY Magazine. Congrats! In the meantime, reading about his time on the bbq trail will tide us over. Along with that pic of him in the spiffy outfit, below.