Wow, why is it still so cold out?  This doesn’t bode well for our upcoming BBQ contest next weekend.  We struggle enough without fighting challenging weather conditions.  It was a mighty crisp ride to work on the motorcycle this morning too;  Those mornings should be over by now.

I’m a little lacking on material from this past weekend, so I’ll jump back to Thursday night.  One thing we did do a lot of over the weekend was eat, and it started Thursday with a trip to the new Maker’s Mark restaurant in the Power & Light district.  I’m on their mailing list for some reason or another, and a few weeks ago, I got an email inviting me to come down for a “preview.”  That’s really all it said, but I figured “what the heck” and we went down to check it out.  The gamble paid off nicely:  They put out all you could eat and drink for a couple of hours, all free.  SWEET!! They put out some serious grub too;  Sushi, oysters, shrimp, lamb chops, steaks…  Heck I can’t even remember what all we tried.  We both got stuffed, I know that.  We even met Bill Samuels Jr, who has been the CEO of Maker’s Mark since 1975.  We had a nice little chat…  I can’t believe he hasn’t called me to get together yet though.  Well, now we can say we’ve been there at least.  From a glance at the prices on the menu, it might be our last trip…

Friday evening our free meal ticket continued, with the volunteer appreciation dinner for the American Royal.  Donette volunteered last year during the BBQ competition, putting in several hours of back-breaking manual labor, so they put on this nice banquet for a “thank you.”  We joined several elderly ladies at a table, one of whom kept insisting she knew me from somewhere.  We never figured it out though, after running through every single place I’d ever been in my life.  Anyway, not a bad dinner, despite not quite living up to the fare from the evening before.  There was a monotonous presentation-thing going on in the background the whole time though, which cut into my dining enjoyment somewhat.  But, the price was right and we really didn’t have anything better to do, so it passed the evening.  Incidentally, I woke up in a cold sweat around 3:00 A.M. with a clear recollection of who the lady at the table was;  She was the mean old woman that gave me a beat-down on the tennis court a few years ago.  She was just lucky I didn’t recognize her at the dinner, ’cause it would have been go-time.  She didn’t look nearly as imposing without the tennis racket in her hand, I almost surely could have taken her.

Saturday, Martin & Brice came over for a final practice-run on the smoker before our competition in St. Joe next weekend.  It turned out to be a relatively decent day weather-wise…  We can only hope it will be at least that nice next weekend.  In a new twist on the practice technique, this time I set about documenting the entire process of my brisket in pictures.  Something new to put on the website if nothing else, I figured.  So, all morning I painstakingly photographed every step, from taking the brisket out of the ‘fridge, to trimming it, seasoning it, lighting the smoker, etc.   Somewhere along the way though, I realized that I had inexplicably been hitting the on/off button on the camera all morning instead of the “picture” button.  Wow.  It was early, but not THAT early.  Yeah, can’t really explain that foul-up, but I have no pictures at any rate.  Anyway, that pretty much took up the entire day, and everything came out “OK.”  Got a few more tweaks for the Big Show, but not much.  Martin did a few slabs of babybacks, which were top notch with the exception of some gummy sauce he poured all over them.  My brisket was serviceable, if a bit dry.  Donette even cooked some good chicken wings while the fire was going.

Sunday didn’t bring much excitement.  We stayed up late Saturday (as far as our definition of late anyway) and I guess we were worn out.  We got the yard mowed, played a few dozen games of Sudoku, watched the Royals game, went to lunch at Jalapenos…  And that’s about all I can think of.  We were supposed to cook hamburgers for dinner, but really didn’t feel like it so we saved that for tonight.  What’s so special about cooking hamburgers?  Well, I have decided to go on a quest to cook a premium hamburger at home.  And so, tonight this monumental task gets underway, starting with the grinding of the chuck roast.  Ohhhh, I’m excited.