Cape Cod, New Hampshire

Well the Cape Cod BBQ Championship is in the books. This was the second year I organized it and it seemed like more work this time around. But it's over, and I am relieved. I haven't cooked a KCBS contest since September, but I have organized or helped organize two events since then. These experiences have reminded me that I enjoy cooking contests a lot more than organizing them. But I will be running Cape Cod again next year, but I plan on keeping things a lot simpler.

The good news is that the cooking starts this weekend in Merrimack, New Hampshire at the New Hampshire Rock-n-Ribfest. This was our second ever contest in 2006, and we won it that year. It is not the best contest in the world, with huge crowds and small prize money, but we keep going back. I like looking across the field at the spot where we cooked that year, it seems like so long ago. Especially since we have not won a contest since then.

Looking at the forecast I am beginning to worry that we may be dealing with more of the mud that made that 2006 contest such a mess for everyone. Hopefully I'm wrong.

So I am excited about getting up there for the weekend. I have been packing, unpacking, cleaning, trimming, and planning all week as we get ready to cook this one. The grilling will be a little screwy, with shrimp and salt water fish fillet as two of the categories, and pizza and sausage as the others. I was tempted to just say "screw grilling" and skip it but we are just going to give it a shot. As of this writing I have no clue at all what I am doing for that fish fillet category. I'll come up with something and let you know how it goes.