Monday, October 18, 2010

Third times a charm at Autumn Blaze


This past weekend we competing at the Autumn Blaze cook-off in Garnett, Kansas. This was our third consecutive year to compete at the event, having finished as the Reserve Grand Champion the previous two years. Ted Uhler and his crew run a tight ship and this year was no exception.

Turn in time came and went without incident. With our newest lucky charm, our niece Shea, there to help us pick the absolute best product to put in the boxes, Sheri and and I felt like we'd strung together four decent categories. As Darren Warth of Iowa's Smokey D's would say about his food most days, "good enough to win, good enough to lose." Thanks for the hard work of Dennis and Linda Polson, our KCBS contest reps, to our surprise, awards were ready thirty minutes earlier than announced at the cook's meeting. As awards progressed we heard our names in all four categories, but none were really strong calls (7th Chicken, 4th Ribs, 3rd Pork and 10th Brisket). Ted decided to call out top ten places overall, ultimately removing all doubt when he called Getting Sauced as the Reserve Grand Champions before taking a break from finishing up the overall to recap the Knights of Columbus participating teams and thanking a few more sponsors, before calling Pellet Envy as the Grand Champion of his 2010 event with forty teams competing.

After being so close the last two years, it was truly a sense of relief and accomplishment to be named the winner of this years contest. We're already making plans to get back to Garnett for the 2011 Autumn Blaze event as long as Ted promises not to wear that outfit again.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Just discovered the blog. Well done on the Autumn Blaze.

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