Transformer BBQ

So this past weekend Transformer BBQ traveled up to Windsor Vermont for our 5th New England BBQ Championship. This is one of the best contests of the year for many reasons, and this year was no exception. The brief version of the weekend is that the simple approach worked for us… Finishing as Reserve Grand Champion (2nd overall for non-BBQ competitors who may be reading)… for both the BBQ as well as the grilling contests. One of our goals each year it to bring home a tap handle trophy (top three in a category, top two overall, or 1st in a grilling category)… this year we were able to bring home 4. We left very happy, and excited for the next contest, and for Harpoon again next year.

I decided after this weekend I needed to compile a list of things teams should consider when coming to Harpoon, actually this should/does apply to most contests. If you can’t handle some of these common sense things… then maybe cooking at home is just a better fit for you.

1) WEAR A SHIRT ALL WEEKEND; ALL WEEKEND… no exceptions, I don’t care if its 130 degrees outside. Seeing people around their own food not wearing a shirt… grosses me out. It should gross you out. What is more disturbing? People vending food they have cooked shirtless, or are even actually vending while not wearing a shirt. also.. a side question: who would buy food from someone who doesn’t wear a shirt????? Oh… wearing an apron while not wearing a shirt is just as gross, just in case you didn’t know that either.

2) If you are going to show up and be in a bad mood, actually spend a lot of energy to walk around and bad mouth the event (which you may have attended for 5+ years), do the rest of us a favor. Stay home. There are a few people who spend so much energy talking down about every single thing about an event… I just wonder why they bother to leave their house. One of the allstars in this group came over this weekend to ask some members of my team with some help with box presentations. In particular a presentation that this same person has spend countless online posts also calling “cheating”… not because it actually is cheating… but because it makes food look better, but unfortunately takes more time to do. So as this person is leaving my site, another woman was standing and looking at our trophy set up– she says “are you with these guys” to which miss allstar says “god no, I would never carry dust collectors to a contest”… the observer says “well, its a pretty impressive display don’t you think?” to which the allstar says “no, not really… go down a few teams if you want to see something impressive”. Really? Really? Really? Indeed. Like I said… Oooowhenn… stay home.

3) Vending at Harpoon: Harpoon is unique in that it allows vending of food to the public. Certain spots lend themselves to better access to the crowds, and the crowds expect those teams to have food during the weekend. I understand that vending takes a lot of work, our team puts a lot of time into it, but I also understand that a lot of teams just don’t want to get involved in it. My suggestion here is that if vending isn’t your thing, or you don’t think you can vend a whole day… just request a spot thats more appropriate. Or don’t… just my opinion.

BBQ contests are a fun way to spend a weekend to to hang out with friends, both new and old. Just remember that there are a lot of people in somewhat of a confined space… common sense should play some part in your activities. Be clean, be positive, be aware for your surroundings and how you effect other teams… taking a few minutes to think about these things can make you a better neighbor.

So… you disagree? think my list is ridiculous? Think my contest set up is annoying? Tell me in the comments… won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.

With a few days at the Cape, I haven’t been able to fully escape the kitchen. I have spent much of my time working on some of the logistics for some of the catering jobs we have coming up, as well as making plans for Harpoon this weekend.

Catering has been going well for us this summer, and each week thing have been getting busier. We certainly appreciate the referral business we have received from friends, family, as well as people who have been to the restaurant or to other catering jobs. I say this because I learned a lesson this week– get a deposit. Long story short, I had someone back out of a job three days before… and since they were a referral from a friend, I didn’t ask for a deposit. It won’t happen again… lesson learned.

This coming weekend we have the New England BBQ Championships hosted by the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor VT. Our team has been feast or famine at this event in the past. Usually doing well in the Sunday Grilling event, the location of our first win actually, but we have usually posted less than stellar performances during the BBQ contest. That being said we have put up individually good items… pork, brisket, chicken have all yielded top 5 calls, and a small collection of the coveted tap handles. But have yet to pull it all together.

This weekend we are going with a simple approach to our bbq turn ins. Simple combinations, avoiding some of the complicated preparations we have been sliding towards in past years. There has always been a predetermined ’system’ for each item we turn in, but I think that we have been overthinking some things… trying to incorporate to many things hasn’t put us as the last team name to be called during bbq. We shall see how simple does this weekend, hopefully better results than out lackluster performances the past two years.

So, I am going to try to start posting again, and I’ll pretend for now that I will at least try to put something up on Tuesdays. Sort of makes sense that I would have things to post about, now that I spend a lot of my time dealing with catering, BBQ, and the restaurant.

This past weekend we had an event at the Blue Hills Brewery. We had met these guys a few months back when were were on South Shore Radio talking about BBQ, and they were on the same show talking about their beer. This past weekend was their 2nd Summerfest, which was held near the brewery in Canton.

We spent the day selling BBQ, enjoying good local beer, and not minding the day outside, rather than in the summer kitchen temps that we’ve had the last few weeks.

For Transformer BBQ it has been a relaxing summer, only competing in two contests, but really not stressing too much. It made planning a lot easier, and our results were still pretty consistent. We are all looking forward to competing again at Harpoon under the Transformer team name, (We were New England BBQ & Catering @ NH, and Cape Cod), and hopefully we can put together a solid weekend.

Till next week??

The winter has been very busy for many many reasons, so this blog has gone quiet. Here are a few updates for the time being.

So, the cooker was finally sold. Its going to a competition team that’s widely known around the country… so you’ll be seeing it out on the road once more.

Since the last post Steve Farrin from I Smell Smoke!!! and I have started a catering company. New England BBQ & Catering… and we also serve food 6 days a week at the Red Rose Cafe in Weymouth MA. For more info… check us out on Facebook.

If you’re in the market for a Cooker, click the tab above.

Check back later this week… One of our cookers is going to be looking for a new home.

(this isn’t a picture of the cooker… its just a photo I like from the collection)

This picture was up a long time ago, its one of my favorites of the food we’ve cooked.  Somewhere along the line we stopped taking pictures of the food we’ve turned in… some of that had to do with the camera being stolen… and some of it with the fact that we don’t always have time during turn ins when its just Julie and I.

I think thats one thing I’ll take from my week with Lakeside Smokers… there is no penalty for turning in food at the beginning of the window.

The original Transformer BBQ site caught a virus… while the data wasn’t lost… basically all the site formatting is gone.

I’m going to work on getting the important stuff back into some form… but the site was basically lost to the virus.  I guess its what I get for not paying much attention, hopefully the revamped site comes back in a somewhat different but improved format.

And hopefully Verizon doesn’t run out of phones before I pick up a Droid in the morning… it will be nice to have a camera I can use to update the blog from contests.

If you need to get in touch Brendan@TransformerBBQ.com