Day: May 19, 2017

Today was the first day of the official BBQ competition.  Before heading off to the festival I decided to use the hotel room scale to make sure that I was in good shape to start some serious eating.  This is my kind of scale (see below).

After the weigh-in it was off to Tom Lee Park for the BBQ Festival.  Upon arrival we were greeted with a warning of what cannot be brought into the park.

After checking in at the judges tent we got our assignments (Patrice was assigned to Tomato Sauce and Vinegar Sauce and I was given Mustard Sauce and Hot Wings).  Patrice was a little disappointed that she was only given sauces to judge but her disappointment was short-lived because they needed some extra judges for hot wings.   The first two days of judging are for the so-called accessories, the main event (pork) isn’t until Saturday.

Judging was lots of fun and we made some new friends and connected with some old ones like Lance from “Tastin Round Town” (www.tastinroundtown.com).  Lance is the guy who got us involved in all this craziness.  He is one of the few people in the world who can out talk me.  We loved his tour and strongly recommend you plan to visit the city with him when you are in Memphis.

Although the judging was fun it was not without injury.  I managed to get some BBQ sauce on my shorts.  Since I didn’t pack a lot of back ups we decided to head to the Bass Pro Shop at the Pyramid to see if we could pick up some shorts.  Patrice recommended I look for some dark red shorts so the sauce won’t show (she can be painfully practical sometimes).  The Bass Pro Shop at the Pyramid is a store like no other.  It is located in a building that used to house the Memphis Grizzlies and Memphis University basketball teams (seating 20,142 fans) until 2004 when they both moved to the FedEx Forum. Obviously the place is huge.   The building is said the be the 10th largest pyramid in the world.  It has shopping, restaurants, a hotel, bowling alley, shooting range and an archery range.  There are numerous large boats on the showroom floor.  They have lagoons that serve as an aquarium with a variety of fish and three alligators.

After leaving the Bass Pro Shop we decided to try to walk-off some calories since we were less than a mile from the hotel.  We received an unexpected bonus when we saw a raccoon outside the shop (see below).

 

Since we were deprived of BBQ we headed over to a restaurant recommended by Lance. I wasn’t with Patrice when they were discussing the place so I asked “Do you think we need to make reservations?”  Apparently they don’t take reservations.  So we took a chance and headed over and this is what we found.

The owner, Desiree, was celebrating her 80th birthday.  She is called GG by her family because she has 3 great-grandchildren.  I told her that we also call my mom GG because she too has 3 great-grandchildren.  I told her that our GG recently celebrated her 101st birthday.  Desiree was very impressed.  We enjoyed a superb meal (BBQ ribs and chicken wings, BBQ spaghetti with a chaser of a piece of sweet potato pie and banana pudding) and it was a great way to end the night.

Life as a judge can be so challenging.