Memphis in May BBQ Festival 2019 Day #3 “I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing!” May 18, 2019

Last night we had a wonderful dinner at Flight. We ate there last year with our friend’s Gary and Smooch and couldn’t wait to go back. The restaurant offers either samples of dishes (which they call a flight) or you can have a main course if you prefer. Of course we had both.

We also had two flights of desserts any one of which would have been enough for all five of us. Instead we shared 6! I thought I took pictures but I guess I was in too much of a hurry to sample lava cake, chocolate chip cake, brownie ala mode, apple cobbler, bananas Foster and pecan pie.

Here we are before eating.

Today was the finals of the BBQ judging. On arrival Patrice found out that she was going to do “on site” judging of shoulder while I didn’t have a morning assignment. I lamented to Patrice and our friend, John, that I was hoping to get a shoulder assignment but maybe next year would be my lucky year. Shortly before the shoulder judging was about to begin, John was frantically waving for me to join him at the judge’s desk. Apparently a judge was a no show and they asked if I could fill in. I happily accepted.

With the “on site” judging you go to the team’s cooking area. The head cook introduces you to the team, shows you their cooker and explains their methods. Finally you get to sit down and enjoy BBQ that you never see in any restaurant in Los Angeles. I couldn’t help myself. The “worst” of the three entries was spectacular.

I returned to the judge’s tent at noon, knowing that at 1:30 I would be judging ribs. I learned this would be “blind” judging where I would be presented with 6 boxes and if something didn’t taste great I could bypass it. Lucky for me there were two that stood out and I had only small tastes of the other 4.

After all the judging was completed we went to visit some of the contestants we had judged. As always they greeted us like royalty. They offered us more food but I couldn’t eat another bite. In fact I had to go back to the hotel to cool off and digest what I had eaten.

Patrice caught a shot of me back at the hotel.

Tomorrow we head for home. Not a moment too soon. I t I spent another day in this town I think I’d explode.

We just got an email from American Airlines that our flight tomorrow morning has been cancelled. Could be an interesting 24 hours.