Aftermath; Minnesota in May

Well...not all the way to the top but we made some great discoveries. First we have a great team that enjoys to cook together. I think this was one of our favorite contest cooking - everything seemed to flow, every one contributing, suggesting, helping in our final product that found us developing a new hot and fast chicken recipe, (6th), a new bbq sauce and rib recipe (4th) and a new presentation for our pork (21st) - which we thought was great and unfortunately obviously misinterpreted by the judges. That's right everything was great until we hit an obstruction called...brisket. A greater pile of shoe leather has never been found than the two briskets we met at turn in time that had just a few minutes earlier shown such great promise. We had been practiced all spring hot and fast briskets with great results at home on our stump stretch but with the same technique on our classics they became dried out pure and simple. The hot and fast temps had removed all the fat but obviously had not allowed enough time for the meat to render its connective tissue. The first difficult cut was all it took to reveal our culinary shortcomings. Back to the drawing board. The Dells now cancelled, will have to wait until next year, a practice cook instead is planned this weekend. Back to the drawing board...