Team 58: The Canadian Festival of Chile and BBQ

For the third competition of 2010 Jonna, the dogs and I drove down from the island to Richmond for the Canadian Festival of Chile and BBQ. The event was held at the Casino and down the street from some of the best Chineese food money can buy! This was a full two day comp. Saturday had turn ins for hamburgers, kangaroo loin, competition chile, and finally camel chile. Sunday was the same old same old.

We got to the event nice and early on Saturday morning, unpacked quickly and got to work. We just made the hamburger turn in on time. Turns out we had to name the burger.......I choose the prophetic name of the winning burger, of course spelling it wrong and Jonna having to correct it! The burger turned out incredibly. We ground up fresh chuck and mixed it with a panade, roasted red peppers and mushrooms. We smoked them with jarlsberg cheese and put them on home made grilled naan bread. Honestly the best burger I've ever tasted! Very proud of this turn in.

Unfortunately as is often the case the judges didn't agree. Obviously because they have no idea what they're doing, not because someone elses was better! Yeah right! But like we say At Least We Thought It Tasted Good! We ended up finishing 13th out of 26 teams.

The next turn in for the day was Kangaroo loin. I had only tasted kangaroo once before so this was tough. I decided to go with a juniper berry rub and a blueberry sauce on a bed of strawberries. This turned out exactly like we wanted! So so good. The crowds loved it as well. Once again the judges didn't.......so it goes.......we finished 13 out of 26th again.

The third turn in for the day was an ole bowl of red. The crowd loved this one too. We made the same chile as in Astoria. A pound of chile and spices, very nice. With chile it is turned in with tickets and they announce the winners just by ticket numbers to ensure blind judging. Having said that they only called the top five and we weren't in, a rough day keeps going!

The final turn in for Saturday was camel chile. This one was tough, neither of us had ever tasted camel so it was really a crap shoot! We decided to make it a pineapple chile. The taste was amazing but very very unique. Needless to say we continued our shut out for the day, no calls....so it goes. The camel and the Kangaroo came from Hills Meats in Vancouver, check them out, they have everything!

With that we stopped for some authentic Chineese and parsley to make some boxes. Headed back to the Holiday Inn Express and got some rest, hoping for a better Sunday.........

After a few hours rest I headed back to the comp site at about midnight and settled in on the old portable cot for the night. Woke up to pouring rain and wind and the sound of a drill, the boys of Landshark bbq were building an enclosure around there cookers, pretty cool idea, I couldn't do it but still a cool plan!

After checking out the cookers I went and grabed some breakfast and picked up Jonna. Time now for the main even turn ins........

Unfortunately we were pretty wiped after Saturday and things didn't go so well......the pork was very very tough. Not at all what we were looking for. We were able to get enough good pork to build a box but it honestly just wasn't up to standard. We ended up finishing 11th out of 26th......much better than we honestly deserved! We'll take it. The fine folks of Richmond still enjoyed the samples though and they dissapeared quick!

Our brisket was the worse turn in of the day and maybe of all time. This was dry dry dry. We really had to sauce it up in order to try and make it passable. This was the worse brisket I have ever cooked in my life, anywhere. Really not ok..........The picture pretty much tells the whole story. We ended up finishing 15th of out 26, also better than we deserved, the judges were kind today!

We are a team that loves to cook chicken. We have our method down and we finish well in it as a rule. Not today. Not sure what happened with us but Sunday was not coming down our way.......The thighs we got from Pipers meats in Nanaimo were huge, way too bug, they barely fit in the box and I didn't cook them properly not letting the sauce set enough or all the fat render out. Not cool. We finished 18th out of 26th.

Now the fear was setting in. We decided at the start of the year that if we didn't get a single call in a comp, meaning for any category, extra's, mains, whatever we'd call it quits.......well seven categories were behind us and we hadn't heard our names yet.

At this point Jo needed a meat break.......apparently no vegetables is not cool and she ran out and bought some zuchinni to grill and made a salad. Pansy!

The ribs were the one thing that we thought we nailed today. We weren't holding out hope since we thought we nailed everything on Saturday and didn't do so well. But they were good, nice appearance, we cut the heat in the recipe from Kelowna, perfect texture. We had our fingers crossed......

As luck would have it it wasn't just us who thought it tasted good! The judges loved them and Team 58 took our first ever FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They also gave us all kinds of bbq prizes for the win!

After a relaxing night on the town and a couple adult bevs we started to make our way home in the morning. The fine folks of Port Alberni were selling whole salmon on the side of the road and we decided to take advantage.

We split it in half and made a paste of olive oil, savory, onion, garlic, and sumac and tossed it on the old WSM who somehow wasn't tired after the weekend!