Another year has passed at the Houston Rodeo Cookoff and another attendance record was shattered.  221,229 people attended the cookoff this year making it the best year ever for attendance.  Although cool and windy on Friday, the weather was very nice for this years event.   I think we fed at least 1,500 guests this year on a serving line that lasted for 2 1/2 hours Thursday and Friday, and all day Saturday. What a great your for the HLSR Cookoff.  More than 1.5 million dollars was raised for youth and education in Texas just from the cookoff.  We were happy to do our part and bring in our share of guests to contribute to that amount.

The barbecue was great as usual and I contribute that to the excellent pre-cook we had this year for brisket and the great help we had to prepare the on-site items.   XTC cooked on all new equipment this year from Pitmaker here in Houston.  I am confident in the competition performance of the Pitmaker Vault but was sceptical of the warming capacity for all of our serving line food.  Friday night was the first test of that challenge and I was very impressed with the performance of the vaults.  We could heat 10 chafing dish trays in each Vault like a convection oven. I also like the fact that we don’t have to carry and store 3 pallets of wood that use to be required for our big pit.  We now have more space in the cooks area. Thanks to Pitmaker for building the new pit and allowing us to win “Most Unique Pit” this year at the show which is an honor only 37 pits have in the history of the cookoff. Although confident in our turn ins this year we were disappointed in our score in the BBQ judging.  I am proud of all 3 of our turn in meats and realize that this BBQ cookoff is very big and odds aren’t in your favor.  I am proud that we can all say we did our best and look forward to next year. Congratulations to Billy Jolly and the rest of our neighbors on Just N Time for your Champion Chicken.  You have a great team and you deserved it.  See you at Strawberry Festival.

Setup was a breeze this year thanks to all the help from our many friends.  We started Wednesday morning at 8am and I think everything was done by 1.  Thank you EAC and Miller for the JLG lift that you brought us to hang banners in the tent and the forklift you brought out to help Crown Royal.  I am still looking for my bottle of Crown out of that deal. lol. Remember us next year please.  Tear down was a snap and we were out of there at 10:30am on Sunday thanks to the dozen or so helpers.

I had a blast this year and I look forward to the next event we will compete in.  For now,  I’m just glad to not hear “Do you have any passes?” for another year.—Steve o