Well, I do believe the last American Royal BBQ for team TFB is officially in the books. Never say never, though. If it was the last, I think we got our money’s worth; I know I did. I headed down Thursday afternoon to get things started. Thursday is kind of our “team-building” night. We hang out, catch up with team members we haven’t seen since LAST year, and go over our respective cooking plans for the weekend. Honestly, I’d say a lot of the first two items, not so much the last one. It was, as is usually the case, my “late night” for the weekend too. I don’t know what time I called it a day (morning) but it was later than common sense would dictate.
Friday is the big party day of the weekend. We all spend most of the day decorating the spot, preparing all the side dishes, putting on the tablecloths, etc. I must say, the guys who did the centerpieces this year really went over the top, they were breathtaking. Our first guests arrived around 6:00, and it was all downhill from there. I won’t rate it our best party in the 10-year history of the team, but it was a good one. And, while nobody will say it out loud, the rain storm around 10:00 was a blessing; It effectively cleared out most of the riff-raff and left only a handful of people. The second storm that rolled through around midnight got rid of the stragglers, and we had the spot to ourselves. Perfect crime.
Saturday is usually a rather brutal day. Generally there are only a few of us left onsite, left to deal with a sea of half-full plastic cups, broken glass, discarded plates, and other assorted trash. I stumbled out of the trailer early in the morning to find that this year would be no different. In his last declaration as acting CEO though, Martin declared that the remaining four of us should take the day off and go get some rest. Hey, no need to tell me twice, I was on the phone with Donette in about two seconds. She was so overjoyed to hear from me at 7:30 in the morning she could barely form a sentence. Once she got past the excitement of getting to see me, she rushed down to pick me up and took me home to a hastily prepared breakfast of smoked salmon and bagels. I then took a hot shower and crashed for about three hours. (That last sentence is actually true; The ones before that, not so much. She DID actually come get me though.) After catching up on some sleep, we headed up to The Well for a tasty dinner, then I loaded a few bare essentials and headed back down to the BBQ. It was with much delight that I arrived to find the site pretty well cleaned up, courtesy of Schmidt. There were still only four of us Saturday night, and we all were a little worse for wear. We had the good fortune to find the MU game on TV and watched that, then everybody kind of dozed off where they sat.
Sunday started off around 4:00 with the smokers getting fired up, food prepped, and detailed plans drawn up. All went well, or at least as well as it ever does. To tell the truth, there was at least an 80% chance of chicken and brisket not even being turned in, as Martin and I had already discussed the fact that since we had no plans of returning in 2014 there was no reason to bother with it. But, in the interests of the team members who may or may not choose to carry on the tradition next year, we grudgingly decided to at least submit them. Judging from the results this morning, we’d have been just as well served to stay in bed, but at least we didn’t get disqualified. (Barely.) Actually, chicken turned out to be our team’s best-scoring entry, although it was certainly nothing to brag about. Brisket… Well… Again, we didn’t get disqualified and that’s what is important, right? I had a good day of it though, it was certainly a lot more relaxing not really caring how our entries did. Part of this was the due to our arch-rivals, The Red Gloves, not showing up this year for the contest. In the grand scheme of things, we historically have only cared how we did against them anyway. (And it might be worth mentioning, we historically whup them too.) Without them to compete against, we didn’t really have any motivation.