Memphis in May BBQ Festival 2019 Day #1 “BBQ Heaven Here We Come” May 16, 2019

Yes, fans, it’s time for the Memphis in May BBQ Festival and Patrice and I are ready to be judges again. First some history, in 2015 while visiting Memphis, Patrice found a BBQ food tour. That’s where we met our friend Lance who was the owner of Tastinroundtown. Lance has since sold the company, but at that time he was the tour guide extraordinaire. He showed us some fine BBQ establishments and explained to us how to become judges. The following year (2016) we became judges and have been coming back ever since.

This year is very special because we brought our daughter Erica, and tomorrow we will be joined by our other daughter Lindsay and her boyfriend, Robby.

Patrice and I have been judges since 2016 but we received the official Memphis in May BBQ certification in 2018. We take our work very seriously. Today we were reviewing some of the information we received during training. For example “A whole hog entry is defined by Memphis in May as an entire hog whose dressed weight is 85 pounds or more prior to the optional removal of the head, feet, and skin.” My apologies to my darling niece Leslie who is probably cringing after reading that definition.

We then decided to head down to the Festival. It was late in the day and the judging had ended. Today they judged mostly sauces, not a big interest of mine. Erica noted that at 6:00 pm they were going to have the “Miss Piggy Idol Contest” and asked me what it was. I told her I had no idea and that I had never attended it before. I further said that it most likely involved people drinking too much alcohol and displaying women in an inappropriate manner or somehow disrespecting them. This did not dissuade her, so off we went.

I was pleasantly surprised that the contest was not as awful as I had anticipated. There were 5 teams competing. Each team dressed in costumes with a pig styling. They performed songs and danced. The songs were famous melodies with original lyrics (again with a Memphis in May theme). The teams were, for the most, part quite good. And as expected most of them were inappropriate

Notice the crotch protector

Time to rest now tomorrow is a big day.