March 2006
New Kingsford Charcoal briquette
I have been having issues with charcoal briquettes lately. I usually pick up double pack of Kingsford charcoal briquettes while I am at Costco picking up some meat to BBQ. On a recent trip I come to find out that my local Costco only carries the Kingsford Match-Light Instant Light Charcoal. I’m not a big fan of the Instant Light so I had to press on. All that I wanted was my regular Kingsford briquettes.
Plan-two was Smart & Final, I had to go there anyway to pick up some BBQ supplies. I found a double bag of what seemed like the old favorite with one significant difference… it had ridges, or what Kingsford refers to as “Sure Fire Grooves.” What the heck is a Sure Fire Groove? I wasn’t exactly sure, but after further research I come to find out that these grooves are a standard feature across all of Kingsford charcoal products.
Tasty Q Barbeque
A while back had the pleasure of escorting Kevin, a freelance writer for Variety Magazine, to a couple of BBQ joints around Los Angeles. He was on a BBQ odyssey of his own in this great city and I was fortunate enough to accompany him to a couple of his pit stops. He offered me free BBQ in exchange for an open dialogue on this subject. How could I resist?
It was a Tuesday evening and he had decided that we should try Tasty Q on Crenshaw. This was a restaurant that I had never been to, so I was totally down with the idea. We weathered the evening traffic and found ourselves confronted with an affliction common to many BBQ restaurants… irregular hours. For some unspecified reason they are closed on Tuesdays, this wasn’t the best start a BBQ adventure but fortunately we were resourceful. We resorted to an on-the-fly plan B, Bad to da Bone BBQ on Century Blvd., but that will be the subject of another post. We knew that eventually we would have to return to Tasty Q, so we rescheduled for a lunch meeting.
(more…)
Photos from BBQ Practice
BBQ practice was great… we finally got the entire team together and Ziggy too. Sylvie was kind enough to open her home to us and we barbecued all day. It was a truly beautiful sight to see, except for my chicken. We were chewing the fat so much that I got a wee-bit distracted, and the next thing you know the chicken was a little well-done. As you can see from the photos we are tuning up our turn-in boxes for the competition. Take a close look at some of the photos and you might catch a glimpse of blogger or two.
BBQ Practice tomorrow
Putting some finishing touches on some sauce and getting my brine ready for tomorrow’s BBQ practice with Four-Q. As the say, “practice makes perfect.” I am going to have to get up early and pack the truck, hopefully it wont be raining. It will be our first gathering… I have met Big Mista and Sylvie, but have yet to meet Professor Salt. Looking forward to it… I should have some pictures posted tomorrow.
Working on my BBQ presentation
My BBQ team, Four-Q, has bestowed upon me the responsibility for BBQ’n the chicken in next months BBQ competition… man, we are in big trouble. So I have been tweaking my recipe around for the last few weeks trying to get it dialed in. I should have a final recipe ready to post shortly after the competition. If you want to see the recipe that I am working with check out my previous post on BBQ chicken. Along with getting points for flavor you also get scored for appearance. So, these photos reflect the fruits of my labor thus far.
We have a BBQ team name
…and we have a logo. Our BBQ team name is Four-Q, as you may know. And, as every BBQ team needs, we now have a logo. Drum roll please…
Remember to come check us out over at the Autry on April 8th for our inaugural BBQ competition.
BBQ, learned behavior or genetics?
There is a short but interesting article in The Sydney Morning Herald, which suggests that barbecueing is instinctual behavior and not learned. It is definitely food for thought. I’m not sure who’s right but you can bet that this debate will continue on for years.
Happy Birthday BBQ Blog!
Today marks the official one-year birthday of BBQ Junkie. I am not sure what the dog-year equivalent is to blog-years, but it should definitely be more than a one-to-one ratio. I suppose it is a good time to reflect on the past year and possibly list some accomplishments and list some goals for the upcoming year.
In the accomplishment department, I became an official Kansas City Barbecue Society member and BBQ judge. I also joined the California BBQ Association and have judged a couple of their events. I have joined together with a couple of other bloggers to form the first ever all-blogging BBQ team. We will compete officially at the Autry BBQ competition in April. I have met many great people that share in my barbecue, blog and food addictions and you all have made this past year a most memorable one.
As far as goals are concerned I am looking forward to redesigning this site this year. I am keeping true to my New Year resolutions… except for the one dealing with posting more frequently and the one dealing with losing the holiday weight. I will get to those soon. February was a busy month for me and it seems that if I BBQ more often I don’t have as much time to post on this blog. This is a dilemma that will continue plague me in the upcoming year.
Thank you all for a wonderful year.
BBQ Junkie-out.
Our BBQ team name
I have met up with most of our BBQ team members… minus Professor Salt. We are all busy working out our BBQ stategy. We have settled in on a team name, Four-Q. It’s about the FOUR of us getting together and Q’n. And, it also explains the reason that we are entering this competition… FOR the Q.