After arriving and getting set up early Saturday, we spent most of the day saying hello and sharing a beer or three with an endless number of people.  Unfortunately I haven't done that many contests thixs year so it's always good to catch up with teams like the Bastey Boys, Lakeside Smoker, Q Haven, Central Pork West, and so on!

While the main event was Sunday's KCBS turn-ins (pork, brisket, chicken ribs), the contest also featured and Iron Chef category on Saturday night and a sauce contest Sunday.  This was the first "Iron Chef" category I've done and although we had some ideas in mind, it was very much a cr#pshoot.  At 5:30 we recieved our ingredients, a protein (pork tenderloin), starch (sweet potato) and veggie (Zucchini) then we got to work for the 9pm turn-in.

After brainstorming, we settled on triple pork tenderloin (tenderloin stuffed with pork sausage wrapped in bacon) with sweet potato "risotto" and zucchini florets.  While we didn't get called in the category, the thrill of cooking on the fly was worth the effort!

Saturday night featured more visits with folks, more beers and a whole lot of cooking!  On Sunday, we did all of the turn-ins (noon for chicken, 12:30 ribs, 1pm pork shoulder, 1:30 brisket and 2pm sauce.  We then got to relax a bit before packing up then on to awards.

While our shoulder and ribs were a bit off this weekend, we did manage second place in brisket and 4th in chicken (after completely revamping my recipe last week) and fifth overall!  But even better were the numerous calls for my firends on the BBQ Brethren site, including an amazing Grand Champion win by Steve of R2BQ, aka Sledneck!  A much deserved victory.  Here's a picture of Colin collecting our award for chicken.