The American Royal is finished, and so am I. Spent. Beat. Done. I think everybody had a good time; I know I did, and that’s what is most important. I took over 160 pictures, I’ll try and work on those this evening or maybe tomorrow. It takes time to weed out all the ones that might incriminate myself.
To recap: We arrived onsite at the Royal Thursday afternoon to start setting up our spot. We ended up with a huge spot this year, and it had some ideal qualities… It was in an alley, so we had wind blockage from at least two sides. We backed up to one of the buildings, so there wasn’t anybody behind us. We were on the end of the row, so we could park our cars at the end of the spot without getting hassled. Overall, a great spot. We dropped Zim’s 30+ foot camper at one end, giving us yet a third side protected from wind, so weather-wise we were in good shape. The rest of the day was a blur of cigars, poker, and cheesesteak sandwiches. We put the “party food” on sometime close to midnight and then sat around watching it cook for the rest of the night. Somebody came up with moniker “Float Trip on Asphalt” for the Royal, which is very appropriate. Same bunch of guys, doing the same thing we do all day and night at Pettit’s campground, just without the river.
Friday we got down to the business of preparing for the big party. This involved lots more poker and cigars. Unfortunately it didn’t involve any tasty cheesesteak sandwiches, since we’d eaten all those the night before. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Kevin hosted a little lunch party for his bosses around noon. He served spareribs and chips, which came out pretty well. Around three o’clock we started getting seriously busy; slicing meat, setting up tables, putting out the chafing dishes, etc. We were a little better prepared than last year; At the designated time of six o’clock, we had six briskets, four or five pork butts, around eight slabs of ribs, and then a bunch of chicken, sausage, and turkey, all sitting out and ready to go. (OK we actually had FIVE briskets… I don’t want to hear any lip.) For sides we had a tomato basil salad, two pans of beans, a black bean salad, and a big bowl potato salad that Doni’s Mom brought us. When the smoke cleared, we estimated that we fed roughly 200 people. This was based on a plate count: We had a total of 300 plates, figure 100 of those got used for nachos and cheesesteaks and such that the team used, and that leaves a rather conservative estimate of 200 that went to guests. Now THAT’S a party. The party broke up around midnight, and then it was back to cooking. We got our competition entries rolling and then it was another long night of sitting around watching the smoke roll. I only put on one competition brisket, which turned out to be a grave judgment error. Hey, I was tired, it happens.
Saturday was pretty much all business. Lots of prep work, checking the fire, tending the meat, and getting the turn-in boxes ready. Doni’s nephew Joshua came down to assist with the sampling and shuttling the entries to the judges. All this effort resulted in scores that were roughly as dismal as last year. Sigh. I think I’ll just give up on brisket and do a dessert entry next year. Stupid #$(*)^ judges wouldn’t know a good #$(@# piece of brisket if I hit them over the *@$%^ head with it. Well, in all fairness, it WAS a little too tender. I thought it tasted good though. Oh well, what can you do. I soundly thrashed our nemesis, the Red Glove BBQ team, so I’ll take small comfort in that. Well, that and my AWARD WINNING ENTRY at Kearney. Our best entry was sausage. Let me recap the sausage entry for you: Bruce wakes up around 6:00 in the morning and rolls off the pile of straw that he’d slept on all night. He walks over to the ice box in his boxers and dress socks, grabs a handful of pre-packaged sausage links, and tosses them carelessly in the corner of the smoker. He then stumbles back over to his little manger of straw and goes back to sleep. Around 9:00 he gets back up, gets in his car and goes home, leaving his sausage to whoever cares enough to turn it in. Not wanting to take a zero, Zim graciously chops it up and carries it to the judges. Yes, naturally this effort resulted in our best entry by far. Nothing short of maddening.
We did however have a few bright spots in the weekend, contest scores aside. We set out a few buckets for ALS donations, and at the end of the party pulled almost $700 out of them. I was expecting more along the lines of $200, so I was more than pleased with these results. That’s a nice chunk of change there, thank you to all who contributed. Also, our party was infinitely better than last year. Our party site and our food preparation were head-and-shoulders above our last attempt, and since we’re in it more for the Friday night activities than Saturday, we can claim an unqualified success there. And, Doni won a gallon of barbecue sauce in a raffle, so we didn’t leave totally empty-handed. Call it a consolation prize.