Created with a single goal in mind, “to honor those who protect our freedoms, and their loved ones, with the hospitality of the uniquely American meal of BBQ,” BBQ for our Troops founder Del King, through the support of the makers of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce and countless volunteers, has been cooking up competition quality barbecue for troops across the country. We caught up with Del recently to discuss the cause and how the Grilling.com community can lend their support.
First of all, Del, perhaps you can provide the Grilling.com community with a bit of background on BBQ for our Troops?
BBQ For Our Troops is a grass roots group that I started to thank the men and women in uniform for what they do.
What inspired you to create this program?
I am from the Vietnam era when our men and women in uniform were not treated very well and I promised myself that these guys would not go through what I did.
What has been the reaction of the troops being served?
They love it and are very appreciative of the effort.
How many troops have you fed and in how many locations?
I average doing one a month. Some months I do two, while some I don’t do any. The most I have done at one time was 22,000 plates of BBQ. I have done 10,000 to 12,000 people in a day about 15 times.
I normally do a Battalion size unit which with family member and the troops themselves works out to about 800 to 1,000 people at a time.
What does it take to coordinate a BBQ at a base? How many volunteers do you need?
It really depends on the location. Each base is different. Some units just say “yes, come on and set up” while others say we have to contact the base’s Family Readiness folks and you have to jump through their hoops to get the job done. But it is not just dealing with the base. Since we do them across the nation, you need someplace to store or transport the items I have to buy local for each event. I also have to track down vendors to sell it to me at a discount if they can’t donate. As for the number of volunteers, it depends on how many folks we feed and how much we have to cook.
On the average we get 10 to 15 people come to help. I like it when I can get more cookers to come out so I don’t even have to fire my pit up. And this is normally the case but I take it just in case someone doesn’t show up.
What dish to the troops seem to like most?
The one they like the most is the one I don’t get to serve very much — Elgin sausage. The cooks and troops love it. Next to that I would say brisket is liked the most. Many haven’t had slow smoked brisket before and they just love it. I think one of the best compliments I ever received was from a Marine when asked about BBQ sauce. He said “have you tasted this meat? You don’t need any sauce! It tastes great just the way you cooked it.”
Truly inspiring work you are doing, Del. And for anyone interested in lending their support, please visit https://www.bbqforourtroops.com/Home_Page.php and follow the instructions for making a Paypal donation!
Football season is officially underway and we at Grilling.com want to hear where you are and what you’ve got cooking on game day!
Making its debut today, the Grilling.com Game Day Grill Check feature allows tailgaters to check in on our national grilling map for a chance to win one of 14 weekly Carnivore Kits. Inside you’ll find everything you’ll need to take your tailgate game to a new level including premium meats from Snake River Farms, a Kingsford barrel grill, tools, charcoal and more (approximate retail value $500)!
It doesn’t get much easier than that, does it? So get registered, get checked in and get grilling for your chance to win!
The NASCAR series races in to Bristol this weekend and our own Chris Grove from NibbleMeThis.com has the recipe to get race day started right.
Racing at Bristol Motor Speedway has been compared to “flying fighter jets in a gymnasium” because of its short track, steep turns, and high traffic. The Bristol NASCAR race is this weekend so I wanted to come up with an easy and tasty tailgating idea. Since that race involves a lot of rubbing, bumping, and outright crashing, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate item than a panini, where everything is smashed together! To give it a taste of East Tennessee, I revved up this panini with a “hi-octane ‘cue sauce” by simply mixing in a little moonshine (now legal!) with a commercial bbq sauce. I wanted to make sure this was easy enough to do at the track so I made it on a completely portable, 14.5 inch, $30, throw-in-your-trunk Weber Smokey Joe. I’m not kidding! I bought this grill at our grocery store.
Ingredients:
1 10″ loaf of french bread
2 cups cooked chicken
1 to 2 TBSP of BBQ Rub (I used Albukirky Rub tonight)
Set up your grill for medium high heat. Place the foil wrapped brick on the grill and allow it and the grate to preheat for about 10-15 minutes. Whisk together the Apple Pie moonshine and the barbecue sauce. The apple and cinnamon seem to enrich the flavors of the barbecue sauce while the “shine” gives it a twang or kick.
TIP: For tailgating, do this at home and toss it in a cheap squirt bottle.
Grill the onion slices for a few minutes per side until tender.
Grill the pickle slices for about 2 minutes per side. Yes….grill your pickles. No, I’m serious!
Assemble your sandwich as follows: chicken, bbq rub, bacon, hi-octane bbq sauce, cheese, onions, pickles, second round of hi-octane bbq sauce
Cut the sandwich in half. Place on the grill and top with the brick. Grill for 45 seconds or long enough to toast the bottom.
Flip, top with the brick and grill another 45 seconds.
We loved this one. It was a fantastic use of leftovers (bacon and chicken), easy to put together, and did I mention, FAST?
Recently Grilling.com blog partner GrillingWithRich.com hit the road with the two-time Grammy® award winning Zac Brown Band. Below is a rundown of their experience and be sure to check here for details on how you can enter to win your own chance to get up close and personal with the band!!
During the 4th of July weekend, we traveled down to Charlotte, NC to meet up with Executive Chef Rusty Hamlin and the Zac Brown Band during their 2011 tour. The Zac Brown Band has partnered with the makers of Kingsford® charcoal to spotlight ZBB’s favorite Southern recipes, prepared by Southern Ground Executive Chef, Rusty Hamlin, and using only the freshest local ingredients.
Chef Rusty was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the summer of 1974. His first introduction to the kitchen came from his mother, who would place four year old Rusty on the counter, provide him with a spoonful of homemade goodness fresh off the stove, and offer him a dime for each ingredient he could pick out. Eventually his pay was reduced to a nickel as he got better and better at identifying the various components of his family’s cuisine.
Having officially caught the “cooking bug,” Chef Rusty went on to earn degrees in Culinary Arts and Gourmet Nutrition from the Culinary Arts Institute of Louisiana. Two and half years later in 1996, Chef Rusty moved to Atlanta, GA where a co-worker, Wyatt Durrette, invited him to hear an up-and-coming guitar player named Zac Brown. As Chef Rusty puts it “anyone who heard or saw [Zac] perform knew that he had instant star power.”
Fast forward to 2009 when Zac asked Rusty to come on tour with the band and help introduce the Eat & Greets. The idea was simple: to provide Zac Brown fans not only with a great concert, but also with a real southern hospitality experience. During the Eat and Greets fans interact with the band in a casual setting and talk with them about their passion for barbecue and music, while Chef Rusty provides the food experience.
Following a very long drive from Washington D.C. I was able to experience the Eat & Greet first hand and was blown away by coconut marinade pork loin, beef loin tips, mozzarella tomato salad with vinaigrette, bourbon-glazed barbecued asparagus, parsnip puree (for people who aren’t sure what parsnip is – it is a root vegetable related to the carrot), Zac Brown’s own “pocket knife slaw” (a personal recipe from when he was a boy out camping with his dad), and a homemade chocolate cheesecake brownie to finish the meal.
A staple of the Eat and Greets is the use of local ingredients. As soon as they arrive in each city, Chef Rusty ventures off to the local farmers market to create the evening’s menu. Sounds easy right? Not always… Some of the challenges that Rusty encounters during his journeys include: What happens if he can’t find what he is looking for? Or if there is not enough to feed 350 fans? I told him that I call this “Iron Chef style barbecue cooking.”
Another staple of the Eat and Greets is keeping in “mind what you are putting in your body and being responsible and understanding where your food is coming from.” Chef Rusty offered me some tips on how to create a healthy BBQ meal but without losing the unique flavors of BBQ: (1) keep your grill grates clean; (2) use the grill for steaming food by using indirect heat and also using smoke to add some additional flavoring. Lastly you can always “skewer” your protein and add some healthy vegetables to the skewer. Even the skewer can be made interesting by using bamboo or sugar cane.
It has become his goal in life to spread the gospel of the importance of local food not only because healthy eating is important but because he is so dedicated to supporting America’s famers.
While talking about barbecue and his passion for it, one of his fondest childhood memories was always having a bag of Kingsford charcoals outside next to his granddad and his father while they were barbecuing. So it was a “match” made in heaven when Kingsford and the Zac Brown Band and Rusty decided to work together on this year’s Eat and Greets. As hard as life on the road is — from brushing your teeth with bottled water to sleeping on the bus with 9 of your closest friends — he wouldn’t trade it for the world. Cooking and barbecue are his passions and most important to him is the “Zamily” that he has created with his closest friend Zac and the 84 other people who travel with the band from city to city.
To Chef Rusty, barbecue is more than just creating a dish, it is an art form. Just as “a painter draws on a canvas to tell a story or capture a scene, barbecue is also putting together a picture to tell a story through food which you get to actually experience,” and it is important art because “it goes into your body.”
Barbecue is also an art form because you are telling the story of yourself, the people and places that inspire you, and friends and family who share the finished product that you put on the plate. As Zac Brown (and Rusty) would say: ”…it’s funny how it’s the simple things in life that mean the most. Not where you live, what you drive, or the price tag on your clothes. There’s no dollar sign on a peace of mind this I’ve come to know. So if you agree have a drink with me. Raise your glasses for a toast. To a little bit of chicken fried…” or BARBECUED!
The old adage, “The early bird gets the worm,” may hold true for some, but for Chris Early the saying could be tweaked to say “The early bird gets the ‘que.”
Competing in his sixth Great American Barbecue Festival, Chris’s team, Early Bird BBQ, was named the Kingsford Points Chase winner and finished fifth overall.
Chris, his wife Jana and their two sons, Jake and Nick, make up Early Bird BBQ and have been competing since 2005. They first joined forces with Flat Tire BBQ before starting their own team in 2006.
Like many other competitive BBQ’rs, Chris started grilling and barbequing at a young age. His family members were often his guinea pigs for what he refers to as his “unsuccessful experiments.”
Chris started competing after his neighbor Dan invited him to a competition he was competing in at the Kansas Speedway. He was instantly drawn to the sport and borrowed Dan’s smoker so he could compete at the Johnson County Cookoff in Warrensburg, Mo. The team received a call in chicken and ribs and they were immediately hooked. Later that year, they bought their own cooker – a Lang 84.
Chris loves to compete and says that his favorite competition is “the one I’m at, at the time, or the next one.” The team competes in 12-15 contests every year, mostly concentrating on the Kansas City area where the family resides.
Their most memorable win came in June 2008 at the Big Blue BBQ in Marysville, Mo. where the team won their first grand championship. Another memorable contest was the 2006 American Royal. It was Chris’s first time competing at the prestigious contest – and the team finished fifth overall and 11th in brisket.
Chris’s favorite competition category is ribs, which also happens to be his favorite category to eat.
Now that his days of “unsuccessful experiments” on the grill are behind him, Chris offered this nugget of wisdom to Grilling.com readers … “A clean grill is a happy grill.” He says to always clean your grill before each use and suggests brushing it with oil before cooking any meat.
In between BBQ contests, the Earlys do what they can to help out their neighbors. Most recently, the team headed down to tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo. to cook BBQ for the workers and tornado victims.
Catch Chris and the Early Bird BBQ crew at their next competition in Lenexa, Kan. at the great Lenexa BBQ Battle on June 24.
Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, Melissa Cookston of Yazoo’s Delta Q (and winner of MIM 2010) and Lonnie Smith of Bubba Grills face off for the title of Memphis in May 2011 Grand Champion.
Memorial Day weekend is going to get a whole lot hotter as CBS unveils The Ultimate BBQ Showdown. Airing at 2pm ET on Saturday, May 28th, this one hour special pits four seasoned outdoor cooks against one another in a live competition barbecue setting.
Joining the battle for bragging rights, the Kingsford Cup and a whole lot of cash are the “winning-est man in BBQ,” Myron Mixon; the professor himself, Tuffy Stone; Neil “My friends call me Bigmista” Strawder; and the guy who put Bubba in Bub-Ba-Q, Bubba Latimer. Who’ll rise above the smoke and flames? You’ll have to tune in to see! In the meantime, check out some greate grilling tips from the competitors by clicking here.
ABOUT THE COMPETITORS
Tuffy Stone, Cool Smoke
Sometimes referred to as “The Professor”, Former Marine Tuffy Stone obsesses over the physics and science of wood, smoke, spices, molecular composition of meat…to the point he creates barbeque perfection. Tuffy follows charts and timetables as he creates his unbelievable barbeque. A classically trained French chef, Tuffy mostly cooks with his father George, sometimes with his wife Leslie as well as some of his staff. In October of 1993, Tuffy and Leslie opened A Sharper Palate Catering Company, the caterer of choice for Richmond’s most discerning palate.
In 2004, Tuffy began researching slow cooking methods involving a wood burning fire. With the help of friends and family, the Cool Smoke Team was born. In his very first competition, the team was awarded 2nd in the Pork category, 7th in the brisket category, and has been winning the big prizes ever since. Cool Smoke has won 22 Grand Championships, garnering over 100 awards including dozens of state championships, and was awarded the 2007 Team of the Year by KCBS. Cool Smoke’s most recent accomplishment was taking 1st place in pork shoulder in the 2010 Memphis in May World Championship besting Myron Mixon & Chris Lilly. His custom Jambo pit has been started with Kingsford charcoal since the first time he fired it up!
Tuffy also operates the renowned Q Barbeque restaurants in Richmond and Hampton Virginia. Be sure to stop in while in the area. Be sure to be hungry too. Also visit www.qbarbeque.com and www.coolsmokebarbeque.com to keep up with Tuffy.
Bubba Latimer, Bub-Ba-Q
As far as Bubba’s life goes BBQ pretty much consumes all of it. Bubba and his wife Shannon own two BBQ restaurants in GA, Woodstock and the original in Jasper. He truly loves what he does and something that started as a hobby has turned into a great business. He is not a chef nor does he pretend to be one…he’s just a back yard cook. “We cook as if you are coming over to my house for some good food and drinks”. While we do traditional southern BBQ at our restaurants, we also try to think outside the box. Food is all about experimenting, you never know what we may be cooking up or playing with in our kitchens.
Bubba competed in his first contest in May 2006, which he won. Since then he has done over 130 contests winning 24 Grand Champions, 20 Reserve Grand Champions and won over 400 awards in the 4 different meat categories (chicken, ribs, pork, brisket). They finished the last 2 years ranked the #1 team in the country on the National BBQ Rankings. His proudest win to date would be The Top Of The Lake BBQ Affair in January 2010 at Okeechobee Fl where they won all 4 meat categories against over 50 other teams making it a clean sweep resulting in a Grand Champion. In 2010 he was team of the year for brisket, won the Georgia BBQ Championship series and was Reserve Champion for the Alabama BBQ Trail. Kingsford is his choice brand for starting and cooking on his variety of pits that he uses. “I prefer to use Kingsford charcoal due to the ease of lighting and consistency of the product it produces.”
As far as his cook team goes, Bubba cooks with his wife Shannon. Shannon knows BBQ and isn’t afraid to call out her own husbands mistakes as well as the other teams!
Bubba & Shannon invite you to come out and visit them and have the best BBQ east of the Mississippi. You can also visit them online or shop the store for their championship BBQ rubs and sauces at www.Bub-Ba-Q.com.
Neil “Big Mista” Strawder
His birth name might be Neil Strawder but that’s “Bigmista” to you! Raised in Galveston, TX, Neil says he’s been cooking “ever since he was able to see the top of the stove.” Currently a resident of Long Beach, CA, Neil sells out his BBQ at farmers markets all over Southern CA and was voted the Best BBQ in Los Angeles two years in a row.
Bigmista is your fan favorite backyard griller with six People’s Choice Awards. He wins the taste buds of the everyday BBQ fan at competitions nationwide. Neil is a charcoal junky if you’ve ever met one! Kingsford is his brand of choice and uses it in both of his pits…his larger competition pit as well as his trusty Weber Kettle that accompanies him to every competition, which will come into play when he learns he’s cooking chicken. Bigmista’s is putting California on the map for BBQ. He’s “that guy” you drive by and can smell his BBQ a mile before and after you reach him forcing you to pull over and indulge in the great American pastime.
Neil has no doubt that he will knock Myron off of his perch and sell the judges on his authentic signature backyard BBQ! For more on Big Mista, check out www.BigMista.com.
Myron Mixon, Jack’s Old South
Myron is a BBQ legend and considered “the winning-est man in BBQ”. He serves as chief cook of Jack’s Old South Competition Bar-B-Que Team, which he started in 1996. His legendary status has led him to write, Smoking with Myron Mixon: The Winningest Man in BBQ!
His team has won more than 180 grand championships resulting in over 1700 total trophies, 30 state championships, Team of the Year 8 times, and 11 national championships. They have also taken three first place whole hogs at the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbeque Competition. Additionally, they have been the Grand Champion at the World Championship in Memphis three times. They have also taken first place in the Whole Hog category at the World Championship in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2007.
Mastering the art of Bar-B-Que’ing has lead to the development of his own line of Jack’s Old South Grills and Smokers, as well as being the instructor for the Bar-B-Que Cooking School where he proudly displays the students who have gone on to win championships after plunking down $750 a head to be taught by him. A bag of Kingsford charcoal and Kingsford lighter fluid is what starts his pits every single time!
Memphis In May 2011 was full of unforgettable memories. A new (temporary) venue, a record tying third world championship victory by Chris Lilly and the Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q team, and a Kingsford Point Chase victory by first time MIM competitor Randy Twyford. Here’s an in depth look at the latest Points Chase winner courtesy of the Kansas City Barbeque Society.
For a first-time Memphis in May competitor, Randy Twyford made more than an impression, scoring fifth overall in ribs and topping all other Kingsford Points Chase competitors.
The Jacksonville, Ill. resident began grilling when he was a child. After his mother took a night job, Randy and his father took on the responsibility of preparing dinner. Being the men that they are, their dinner often revolved around a grill.
That led to a love of BBQ and grilling and one night while researching recipes and techniques on the Internet, Randy stumbled upon some information regarding competitive barbeque. He was intrigued by the idea of competing because it looked like something fun that the family could do together.
Randy and his wife Marla have been competing since 2004. Originally, their team was named after the family farm – Ulcer Acres. Randy soon realized the name Ulcer Acres BBQ wouldn’t exactly instill confidence in their barbeque and the name was changed to Twyford BBQ.
The team’s first win came just two years after they started competing at the Kentucky Big Rivers BBQ in Bardwell, Ky. “It was our second year of cooking and we found ourselves in the middle of the Who’s Who of BBQ,” said Randy.
They’ve been hooked ever since, competing two or three times per month. Their favorite contest is Praise the Lard in Murphysboro, Ill., which features both Memphis Barbecue Network and the Kansas City Barbeque Society styles of competition.
Randy offered Grilling.com readers one secret to his championship ribs – about three hours into the cooking process, wrap your ribs in foil to let them simmer in a mixture of ingredients that impart some extra flavor into the ribs.
In addition to competing, Randy also co-owns Twyford BBQ & Catering in Jacksonville, Ill.
This week, the Kingsford Point Chase finds us in Louisville, KY for the inaugural Run for the Ribs contest and we’ve got the complete recap courtesy of our good friends at the Kansas City Barbecue Society.
From fast cars to low and slow barbeque, it’s been a fun and wild ride for Andrew Armstrong.
Born and raised just a few miles from the Jim Beam distillery (the inspiration for his team’s name – Bourbon Barrel BBQ) in Clermont, KY, Andrew earned his barbeque chops the good old fashioned way – by making mistakes and figuring out how to correct them. It’s that perseverance that lead him to a third place finish and a win in the Kingsford Points Chase at the Inaugural Run for the Ribs in Louisville, KY, less than one year after entering his first contest.
Andrew’s first passion was car racing, but after the birth of his son, a lack of time and money led him to find a new (and arguably, more exciting) hobby. Like any red-blooded American male would, he turned to the sport of barbeque.
He purchased a cheap grill from a local hardware store with an offset firebox on the side. Without the slightest clue about how to prepare professional barbeque, Andrew marched down to his local grocer in search of the quintessential barbeque meat – brisket. In his haste to get grilling, Andrew picked up the first package labeled “brisket” – a corned beef brisket.
His first venture into preparing competition barbeque produced a less than winning result – but that didn’t stop Andrew. He worked to perfect his craft and ultimately mastered the art of preparing true (and uncured!) competition brisket. It’s now his favorite category – he took home first place in brisket in Louisville.
Andrew and Bourbon Barrel BBQ have seen quite a few successes in their first year of competition barbeque – despite one fiery setback. In just their second competition, the team literally set the barbeque world ablaze. In the early hours of the morning, Andrew finished putting their pork and brisket entries on the cooker and he thought he’d closed the cooker door before heading in for the night. Twenty minutes later another team knocked on the door – turns out he hadn’t closed the cooker door and his pit was now sporting 4-foot flames. Luckily no one was hurt and the fire was quickly contained – and Bourbon Barrel BBQ’s brisket and pork still took home second place honors.
Bourbon Barrel BBQ has come a long way since Andrew’s first venture into the world of barbeque. It’s safe to say if this year is anything like the last, low and slow barbeque will provide him with just as many high-octane thrills as racing did – if not more!
Getting the chance to competing against some of the best teams in the country is perk-enough for many, but throw in some great country music and you’ve got one heck of an event.
Now imagine winning that same competition – and the Kingsford Points Chase.
For “Dangerous Dave” Malone, that dream became a reality when his team, All Sauced Up, took home the Grand Championship at the 2011 Stagecoach Music Festival BBQ Championship in Indio, Calif.
All Sauced Up consists of Dave, his wife Mary Beth and their nine-year old son, Ryan. The family team is based in Valencia, Calif. and has been competing for three years.
Dave, an avid griller and BBQ’r, took an interest in competitive barbeque after watching the contests on the Food Network. He entered the sport of barbeque the same way many others do, as a judge. Dave enjoyed being around the teams and wanted to immerse himself fully into the sport so he decided to take up the cooking side – and he hasn’t looked back since.
The team competes in about 12 contests each year and coincidentally (or not), his favorite event of the season is the Stagecoach Music Festival BBQ Championship. Having competed there three times, it’s safe to say he’s earned the famed Grand Champion gold record.
In addition to winning the Grand Championship and Kingsford Points Chase at Stagecoach, All Sauced Up also finished second in pork, chicken and brisket (which also happens to be Dave’s favorite category). The family team also took home third place in ribs.
Like any true backyard griller, Dave loves to fire up the grill even when he’s not competing. His favorite recipe is a marinated tri-tip with BBQ sauce, which he prepares with Worcestershire sauce and a rub (he says you can use your “favorite rub”). The tri-tip is then grilled indirectly on a Weber kettle for one hour – flipping once – and then sliced across the grain after letting the meat rest.
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Mike
David
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Dave
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Chris
Larry
Please welcome our new Editor for the Grilling.com community, Clint Cantwell. With a large online following and a passion for all things barbecue and grilling, Clint is the founder of the award-winning Smoke In Da Eye competition cooking team.
