Rib-off the 13th Day 2

Read Day one First!!! Click here to read it.

Hey everyone, today is the second day of rib-off the 13th, on the 13th of August. The big joke was that this was this one guys year because he has entered every year and has never won. We would have gone much later into the night, but it is raining triennially so it ended early.

Let me start off with the first thing that happened today. One of the contestants and founding fathers is friends with a priest. So to start the day, we always have mass. It's definitely not an ordinary mass, but it has all the necessities; communion, readings, and everything except songs. It's a Catholic mass.

There are rules so that everyone has a fair chance while still being like everyone else. We all use the same ribs from the same provider, so that no one has an unfair advantage meat wise. And the ribs have to be on a heat producing grill 30 minutes prior to selecting a rib for judging. Beyond that, anything goes. Well what we do is smoke them. Smoking the ribs is one of the ways we make our ribs so amazing. We do some other tricks and secrets, but secrets is the key word there. While my neighbors don't read my blog, to my knowledge, so I can't reveal my secrets. All you will know is that we smoke them, have a special sauce, and a special rub. One more secret, but telling you anything about it would be to much.

This is kind of a big thing, as 10 people cook and other neighbors pay to get in and eat. We all cook ribs to our own specifications, and while we get them, there is some ribbing that happens. Pun slightly intended. I mentioned this last blog, but I'll repeat it if you didn't hear it or just forgot. It has a lot of testosterone, so us men like to give each other a hard time. A bunch of "here's the winner" and "you won't repeat there is only one." There is only one person to win it 2 years in a row. I liked predicting that we were going to repeat, and then threepeat. Really fun time. Our set up was originally grills in our driveway and party in our neighbors where they have the canopies. But due to rain fear, we all move over to the neighbors and set ups easy ups over the grills. Of course after that it stopped and cleared up, but hey it was fun. But getting the grills to the house is a bit of a big deal. Initially when we all lined up, we did a thing called the parade of grills. Everyone lines up and we walk our grills to the host's house. And we all deck out our grills with flags we want. Mainly people use college flags. Then after the grills are all set up it's social time. It's all in good fun and socializing with neighbors.

Well come 5:30 and time to put the best rib on the plait. Dad and I found the best slab, and I found the best rib on that slab. I put the finishing touches on the rib, and set it on the plait. In psychology terms, this is a double blind study. The plaits have a number on the bottom of it, and there are only 3 or 4 people that know who the numbers are. Even us cooks don't know the numbers, only some girls who have been the keepers of the numbers for years know who each number belongs to. We put our best rib on the plait, and then the number keepers take them up to the judges table, just to prevent any knowledge of who the rib belongs to. Well it was judgement time, and our judge made his decision. Last couple of years the judge has been hammered, but because of some issues last year, and because we didn't want to put our judge through that, he was sober. He made a decision and........................................................................................................................................................
We didn't win:(

But that's OK, winning means hosting and hosting means cleaning and cleaning is bad. We received some heckling and the only repeat guy bragged about how he was and will be the only back to back. We handed off the pig flag to the new winner and gave him the pig gifts. It was a beer stein with a big design on it and an apron with the same design. It was all in good fun. I said that with this stuff with you next year, you'll repeat for sure. With the transfer of the flag, we all walk the flag from the old winner's house to the new winner's house. It's all in good fun. Some people wanted my brother and I to play our instruments like we have in previous years, but quite frankly I don't enjoy doing it and haven't really since I first got my trombone back in 5th grade. I liked it then but that's because it was new and I was enthusiastic, but afterwards it wasn't all that fun. I did it 2 years ago some but haven't since. Well this year I had an excuse, I was holding the flag. Can't play trombone with 1 hand.

It is a lot of ribs. With everyone cooking ribs, you want to try all of them. In getting everyone's ribs, I had a big plait full. Lot's of meat. Vegetairian night mare. They were all amazing. If I were judging I would have picked this one rib, but because I was just getting all of them and not paying atention to who's was who's. all I was able to do was know my own. And I got some special ones saved away on my ribs. I like the ends. They have the most flavor and carmalized sause and are my favorite. Yummmmmmmm.

Well we got rained out right at the end, and now it's just some of the hard core fans out in the rain under the awnings. There's one more day, tomorrow when we take everything down, but I'm not sure I will blog about that since it's pretty boring. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu bye.