1) NEBS BOD - Thank you once again to all the NEBS members who voted for me. I'm here to represent YOU, so please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, concerns, ideas, etc. The February NEBS BOD meeting was this week, and although it was longer than normal, I believe we are talking about some really exciting things. I think some real positive changes are coming for NEBS members.
2) Shoeshoe - Due to a recent trip, I haven't been able to practice as much as I wanted to. That will change this weekend. I plan to get 2 of the 4 categories (wings and fatty) nailed down for good this weekend, and I probably have a couple more steak cooks to do before that is set. I'm still floundering with chef's choice. I keep changing my mind about what we should cook. Any judges out there care to share some good ideas? :)
3) Peter's Pond, Rockin' Ribfest, and other KCBS contests - They will be here before you know it! We've decided to cook both Peter's Pond and Merrimack this year. We've never done back-to-back contests, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Between now and then, I need to do some more cooking. I was able to do a few things during the holidays, but I feel like we aren't ready for prime time yet. In a week, we are having friends over so I'll practice pork. That's the category I feel most comfortable with, so I think we can nail it down with one more cook. Three pork butts for four people...I hope everyone is hungry! I usually only cook two butts for competitions, but I want to try something different this time which requires cooking three. Looks like another WSM will be needed in the near future! After pork we will concentrate on our horrible chicken. I tried something different a few weeks ago. I learned a few things we can use that I'm very excited about, but the skin was still horrible. I really don't want to go back to scraping, but it looks like that's our destiny.
