BBQ in the Boros Recap
Sadly I did not place in the NY Daily News / Fairway BBQ of the Boros, but it was the first time I've ever grilled on a grate the size of my couch, in a parking lot with a highway above me and a river 100 yards away. My wife was kind enough to come to this event and shot a bunch of pictures of me grilling at the event and being interviewed in front of the judges. A full recap of the event is below.
I arrived at 10am, picked up my $100 card to fairway and proceeded to buy all the ingredients for my kickin' chicken recipe, which I discovered when you are buying everything from scratch costs $75. Wow! And now I have a second set of solid barbecue spices in my cabinets which I think is good, and my wife thinks is a royal pain in the ass. They provided grills and charcoal, but when I saw it was Match Light, I ran back into the store to pick up some Royal Oak. Luckily my generous grilling neighbor (who is apparently opening a bbq joint on Flatbush) brought a chimney starter so I was up and running in no time. Then it was off to trimming the meat, making the rub, and slow grilling the chicken under a make-shift foil cover, and some apple wood chips thrown on the coals. I cooked the sauce right over the coals, and the chicken really turned out very well in my opinion... probably one of the best executions of this version of barbecued chicken I've made. I felt good about my entry.
Unfortunately the organizers had a tough time with timing the judging of the event, and as such it was a total fiasco when it came time to judge. They originally gave each borough group (5 people) a time slot, but then an hour before turn-in they said they wanted to push it forward 30 minutes. So cooks start rushing, then a women walks around and gives you a number (smart), and then 20 minutes later a man walks around and says forget the number, just start lining up (not smart). So we ended up with a loooong line of people each carrying five plates of foil wrapped foods, nudging, bumping, trying to get ahead before their meals turned cold. And then we waited while the event's emcee interviewed each of the five judges individually, for each entry. Which was interesting when it was your turn, but agonizingly slow while it wasn't. That's 125 interviews for the afternoon. Endless! These guys needed to hire a KCBS judge as a consultant to get a better system down!
Regardless, I had one judge report my chicken was "as good as barbecued chicken gets," and another judge look my in the eye and say "wow, this is good. real good." Two other judges thought is was smokey and very good barbecued chicken, though one judge "doesn't really care for barbecued chicken." The last judge thought the meat was dry, which is unfortunate as the pieces I tasted before plating were very juicy. He either got a bad piece, or maybe it continued cooking in under that foil in the hot sun while we waited in line.
A woman from brooklyn won the whole thing with some steak and vegtable kabobs that did look pretty great.... and I think it was a smart entry as it's not too heavy in the "barbecue" category, and has a little something for every judge to like. She was a nurse who had just gotten off her shift and came down to grill with her husband and daughter. They keep kosher, so they even brought her own grill grates to the event. But she did borrow my measuring cups and I'm certianly not kosher.. ha! Anyway, it was a pretty cute story and she was totally shocked she won.
I was proud of my entry which is really all you can hope for when competing. I'd do it again for sure, and I'm hugely thankful to all my facebook and twitter friends and family who voted me into it in the first place. Competing around a grill is always a good time!
