For four grueling days in sweltering weather, our team pulled together and we won The People’s Choice award on both Saturday and Sunday at the Stagecoach Music Festival BBQ contest. Only 3 of “the Q’s” could make it so we teamed up Brian Z. of Big Country BBQ to for Four Q Country and tackle this massive undertaking. We also had help from my father-in-law Glen, Sylvie’s Husband Greg, Professor Salt’s friend Janette and even a surprise visit from MrsMista!
Everyone worked their butts off and the crowd showed their appreciation for our hospitality and great food. And in the midst of all of this we were filmed for a short documentary piece that will appear on the www.america.gov website in a few weeks. We enjoyed having the film crew their with us. They even joined in to help us sell BBQ. Thanks Janine and Brian!
This was truly a great weekend and I want to say again how proud I am of Four Q Country!
The Four Q BBQ Team is currently preparing for what will probably be the biggest BBQ contest in California this year. The Stagecoach Country Music Festival is hosting 3 (that’s right THREE) BBQ contests in one weekend. $30,000 in cash and prizes is up for grabs and we want a chunk of it.
Friday afternoon will be a wide open contest where the cooks will be preparing chili, salsa, wings and any BBQ item we choose.
Saturday will be a KCBS sanctioned event and will be for the bulk of the prizes. Everyone will prepare chicken, ribs, pork butt or shoulder and beef brisket.
Sunday is also a KCBS contest and we will prepare the same meats.
The trick is that this will also be a people’s choice event. We will be serving samples to the crowd during the contest. So in addition to preparing out turn ins, we also have to prepare mass quatities to serve to the public.
This will be a long hard weekend but I think it will be a lot of fun. If you are going out to the Music Festival, please be sure to drop in!
The Four Q BBQ Team won it’s third People’s Choice award at the WIshland Que’n for Kids competition last weekend. We also took 4th overall. This was a great contest at a great venue. Now it’s time to get ready for Stagecoach!
MrsMista and I spent Saturday afternoon with Sylvie from Soul Fusion Kitchen and her husband G rolling tamales. Sylvie had all of the ingredients prepared including two smoked pork butts for the meat filling. We used a variety of different fillings and they were all good. So were the drinks. We had Sasquatch beer, pomegranate wine, champagne, martinis and even some Georgia moon corn whiskey. It was a great with great food and great company.
If you would like see more pictures just follow this link to my photobucket site:
The City of Hawthorne officially celebrates the kick-off of the holiday season with our 7th Annual Hawthorne Hometown Holiday Parade.
The parade begins at 138th and Hawthorne Blvd. and travels north along Hawthorne to El Segundo. The route turns west to Grevillea Ave., and then north to the City Hall at 4455 W. 126th st.
1st Annual BBQ/Chili Cookoff:
The BBQ/Chili cookoff will be held immediately following the Hometown Holiday Parade at the City Hall.
Four Q BBQ will be participating in both the BBQ and Chili cookoffs. This promises to be a great time and I hope that you will come out and join us!
I helped cater a wedding with my friend Steph from Simply Marvelous BBQ in Ventura, CA last weekend. We had a great time cooking and serving together and the wedding party loved the food. Steph asked me to make one of the side dishes but to keep it simple. I went with Pineapple coleslaw because it is a simple and tasty treat.
Here are the ingredients:
1 bag pre-shredded cabbage
1 can pineapple chunks
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup brown sugar
Pour the juice from pineapple chunks into a bowl. Add the vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar. Mix and set aside.
Chop up the pineapple into small bits and put in a large bowl with the cabbage. Pour in the dressing and toss well. Eat.
I’ve been running back and forth to the hospital to see my new baby girl Morgan so I haven’t reall had time to cook. However since this was a long weekend I got up early today to do some BBQing.
I was rummaging around in the freezer and found brisket point from a previous cook so I decided to make some Burnt Ends. Burnt ends are basically parts of the brisket that have been sauced, reseasoned and put back in the smoker.
I started by cutting my point into chunks.
Then I added some BBQ sauce and some of my rub
After that I put them in the smoker for about 3 hours at 225. This is what I ended up with…
Sorry I haven’t written much lately. I have been busy with the new woman in my life!
Say hello to Morgan Patrice Strawder! She was born yesterday, July23rd (our anniversary) at 5:36am. She was 2lbs, 9 oz and 15 inches long. She is in intensive care and breathing on her own. She will be in the hospital for a coupla months. MrsMista had a c-section and will be home in a coupla days.
