What wonderful weather for mid-March today (March 18, 2017). Temps hit 90°F with clear blue skies in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I was happy to come away with a first place win in the “Main Dish” category. Serving up BBQ Pulled Pork, to take home a trophy Plaque and a free annual pass to Nevada State Parks for the year. That pass will certainly have some mileage put on it.
A group of us have competed in this annual cook-off for 3 or 4 years now. We saw attendance go way up this year. I came with 144 sandwich buns to serve the pulled pork on. (12lbs of Pulled Pork). I remember buying the buns and thinking I was practicing “over kill”. When I saw the eating line start to form I started cutting buns in half. Right before show time I started changing to 1/4 bun per serving. I as well as many of the other cooks were wiped out.
The unofficial report I got this evening from someone connected with the fort put the headcount at 300. A far cry from the 25-50 we had seen in previous years.
The 10lbs of coleslaw that never made it to the end. It was just a bonus side dish to go with the BBQ. Gone before the line finished passing the first time.
I also entered the dessert category with a double batch Cherry Chocolate Cake. It didn’t even place with all the competition and great cooks. Though it too was wiped out and only crumbs left.
Hopefully others that attended email me their photos for use on this site. Also the winners for each category and the dish they served up. Its tough when you cook, to find the time to take some photos or even sample all the great food.
I didn’t even have the time to enjoy the live music and fiddle players that were just out of ear shot. Below is a portion of the cook set-ups.
Thanks goes out to Kathleen & Dave LeBlanc for serving up a Mountain Man breakfast for us early birds that were setting up at 7:30am.
Also thanks to those at the Fort that put this all together, then their task to get their park back to normal for the next business day. There is lots of behind the scenes work and effort going into this event people never see.