Ever wanted to become a certified judge at a barbecue contest and taste some of the best que in the world? There are several opportunities in California this year, and the next class is in Sacramento. Sign up here.

Kansas City Barbecue Society Members $ 65.00 (members please bring your KCBS card for identification)
Non-KCBS Members $ 100 includes one year membership to the KCBS

Date: Saturday, April 10, 2010
Time: 9:00am – 3:00pm
Location: Saint Ignatius Church 3235 Arden Way, Sacramento, CA 95825-2014
Contact: Scott Gomes
scottgomesbbq AT sbcglobal DOT net
(530)559-5274

Champion BBQ pitmaster Chris Lilly of Alabama’s Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q team will be golfing at next week’s Bob Hope Classic celebrity tournament in La Quinta, CA. This year’s Hope Classic lineup includes Snake Plisskin, Agent Dale Cooper, Detective Kevin Bernard, and Subliminal Man, to name just a few. Personally, I hope my friend Chris plays circles around Dr. Phil.

Chris dropped me a note to say,

“It’s great to hear from you and I would love for a bunch of my California friends to drop by and see me!! Yes it is true. I will be playing in the BHC and cooking all week as well.
To pull this off I am bringing my right hand man, Ken Hess, to help with the pits during the week. Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q will have pulled pork sandwiches available all week for the public Wednesday-Sunday during the tournament. I will also be doing a short cooking school on Sunday at about 9:00 or 9:30am at Hope Square…samples available. [ed - Hope Square is located between the Nicklaus Private Course and the Palmer Private Course, directly behind the practice facilities at PGA West]“

For those who can’t make it to the Palm Springs area, you can watch the tournament all week on the Golf Channel. Lilly’s legendary pork shoulder just won’t taste as good on the telly.

January 18- 24, 2010 La Quinta, CA
Bob Hope Classic

What we call “winter” in Southern California is a few months of partly cloudy sky and the occasional spritz of rain. The rest of the country would call it Spring, and what better way to bring in Spring that a BBQ contest?

So I’m off to Palm Desert to cook at the season-opening Groundhog  BBQ & Chili Cookoff. In addition to International Barbecue Cookers Asssocation (IBCA) sanctioned judging, there will be a People’s Choice contest, where the public buys tickets, and samples BBQ from the contestants. If you’re in the area this weekend, stop by and buy some sample tickets.

It so happens that my team, Four Q BBQ, remains the undefeated People’s Choice Champion of Southern California through 2007 and 2008. We have a big bullseye on our backs, and other championship teams will be out to steal the title away from us. Wish us luck, all!

…  a great food country. Cooks from every other nation bring their proud food traditions, and submit them before the collective “eeeew, what’s that?” of a squeamish American public.

… a place where our most delicious native culinary tradition, slow smoked barbecue, is celebrated in backyards and contests from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

… a country where my rainbow coalition of a BBQ team was chosen to represent America’s other, other favorite national pastime (after baseball, and invading sovereign nations) for a short video documentary by the US State Department. Check it out here:

This was shot at the 2008 Stagecoach country music festival. If you didn’t know better, it looks like they held a  concert to play second fiddle to an enormous barbecue contest, instead of the other way around. Thanks to Big Country for joining forces with the Four Q team for this contest (hence “Four Q Country”), our friends Glen and Janette for their hard work at this event, Janine and Brian for a fantastic video production, and Thom Emery and Ben Lobenstein for their work to make this contest successful.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!