Eric Blum, our famous Camp Schlep lo these many years, is a member of a competitive BBQ team. Last month his team - they call themselves "Pigs on the Run" - were taking part in the N.J. State Championship known as the "Bridgeton King Pig." Eric emailed several FV friends to ask for help at the event. Says Matt Buczek: "Of course, who could pass up such an opportunity?"What Matt and the other FV'ers knew as BBQ'ing was in fact grilling, as they were soon to learn. Armed with meat that had been on the smoker for 18 hours, our team competed in these categories: Pork, Brisket, Ribs, and Chicken. After a hard day's toil, the team placed first in Pork, Brisket and Chicken (we came in 5th in ribs) and were crowned overall grand champions! Again here's Matt: "Yup, I am adding 'Champion BBQer' to my resume."
Present were Eric Blum, Bill Baker, Jim Gibbons, Jeff Daly, Brian Butler, Matt Buczek, Kelly Zingone.
You can see in one of the photos the champions' trophy, a four-foot tall carved wooden pig.
It was a great day for all of us, the master BBQ'er, Eric Blum, writes. It was so much fun getting together with FV alumni once again. Our pitmaster John Atkins was a little leary many months ago when he decided to do this competion and asked if I could get anyone to help. My first response was of course I can, so I made some quick phone calls to Bill Baker, Jeff Daly, and Bobby Eddings gave them the details and they took care of the rest. When I let John know that a bunch of people from Frost Valley would be coming on saturday to help, he again was a little nervous-however he was not suprised since he has been hearing about camp for many years from me while we work together in the O.R.. When the crew finally arrived on Saturday morning our team had been cooking all night long and they just jumped right in and helped with whatever scut work that needed to be done. Jeff, Matt. and Bill formed "the wedge" for each turn in. At the completion of the turn in's John our pitmaster spent sometime explaining to everyone what real BBQ was and how he cooks it-this of course was done while everyone was eating the "left overs", which the common theme from FVer's was "This is the best I've ever eaten".
And: During the awards ceremony Brian Butler was a bit upset that our ribs came in 5th-and he could be heard yelling "Pigs on the Run" through out the ceremony.
And best of all: John said that he is willing to bring the Rig up to the valley and do a BBQ cook out as a fund raiser. After more consultation between Jeff, John and myself this is something that we are going to be working on for the not to distant future-February maybe.
