Something other than a rant...
I figured it was time I wrote something that wasn't prompted by some idiotic - or less than thoughtful - behaviour that I've seen. That said...
We do plenty of crazy things on this farm. Particularly in the sheds. There is all kinds of crazy creativity goes on in there - in the 'man cave' - but I tell you what, it sometimes just ends up being the kind of crazy that is REALLY GOOD!
Since before we left Sydney, Harvey has always been interested in Smoking Food. Our plan was originally to have a cold smoker set up for curing our own meats - hams, bacon, etc... One day I hope that will still happen (it's the Italian in me - I do love my cured meats) but in the mean time, we've found BBQ Smoking.
Harvey - being the creative genius that he is, and knowing that we have very little disposable income for buying new toys - decided to create his very own Smoker, built out of 'stuff' - you know, recycled stuff - metal lying around the farm, found at the scrap yards etc. From this scrap he's created these amazing smokers - and we have shared some amazing meals with our friends, as well as taken them to our local markets to show them off and let people taste how good the food is that comes out of them.
I'm always so impressed with his way of just making stuff happen. (Sometimes his lack of making stuff happen drives me crazy, but that's another blog post for another day. Or perhaps not, if I want to stay married. ;-) )
From creating these BBQ Smokers in the shed, researching them to the Nth degree to make sure they'll do what they are supposed to do, Harvey then signed us up for our first BBQ Competition - Smokin' the Valley - Low and Slow BBQ Festival at Wingham - last weekend. He picked three mates to be on his team who he knew would a) love it and b) have more than a vague clue - and so it went. Although we put the paperwork in months ago, our lives were so hectic that everything for the event was last minute. It felt crazy. I wondered what the hell we were doing. I'm sure everyone on the team - at one point or another - possibly felt like we were out of our depth.
Then we got there - met up with our mates - and really just went back to Plan A - let's have a great time with our mates, have a few drinks, smoke some yummy food and see how this competition thing goes.
We kinda had a plan for the cooking - we had rubs prepared and all kinds of stuff. We (luckily) had a caravan full of all the things we'd forgotten to pack to cook with. Cooking started at 4pm and from there on - the game faces came out. This was serious stuff.
Low and Slow - and starting at only 4pm - means all-nighters getting food ready to be judged at 9:30am. The boys (Harv, Todd, Brendon and Pete) did an amazing job - all bar one time when no one was keeping those home fires burning... oops!
Personally, I don't really know what happened between 1:30am and 6:45am - other than dull murmurs I could hear through my ear plugs, and one of my monkey children stepping on my head to get out of bed to do a 3am dunny run.
But when I got up, I could tell this was serious. The Chef (Pete) had his serious competition face on, Todd was deep in thought and even our class clown (Brendon) had a new expression. The Apprentice (Harvey) was in deep discussions about the Brisket that had 'stalled' during the night, and how to recover it.
It was at this point that I thought "Oh shit, we really are amateurs..." What were we thinking? But as the early morning wore on, the stories from other teams started filtering through about the 'cold snap' that hit at about 4am and how some had even given up on presenting their efforts.
Given that our goal for the weekend was "don't come last" - we were advised that as long as we presented every category (Grass Fed Brisket - our staller!!; Chicken; Pork; and Grain Fed Brisket) we wouldn't be, so the boys soldiered on to get each dish prepared.
Every 40 minutes from 9:30am onwards, we presented a dish that the boys had spent a lot of time making sure were the best we could do.
Our last meat to present was our Grain Fed Brisket - and we all knew it was the best we'd done for the day. The right cooking time, the right amount of resting time and a great piece of meat is a good recipe in BBQ Smoking.
We then proceeded to pack up and tidy up - listening to the dulcet tones of Shannon Noll - part of the Wingham Akoostik Fesitval line up. As he was singing, we were told that the presentation was happening and that we should be there. And this is why...
This was us going up for the second time - to collect our "Grand Champion - Brisket Challenge" - the highest scoring team over the two types of Brisket that were cooked. We'd already been up for 1st Place in the Grain Fed Brisket category, and you could have knocked us over with a feather that time - let alone this one. Good old Fletcher (the announcer) was pretty surprised too!
So - other than having another brag (so, sue me) - what's the point of all this?
To just say this...
Have a go!
That thing that you keep thinking about? Whatever it is... New job, new business idea, new home, different place to live... Whatever it is, it might just work. It might be brilliant. It might just turn out to be one of the best things you've ever done. It might be just a good bit of fun. It might be terrible. It might be bloody hard work. But so what. It may be worth it. Give it a go.
What have you got to lose?
Here endeth the motivational speech...
And now a word from our sponsors...
Actually, we didn't have any, but we couldn't have done it without this AWESOME team. Thanks to them all, and the extra support from the other competition crews - what a great bunch!
The Amazing "Oaky Smokies" team - Heather, Harvey, Brendon, Pete, Belinda & Todd.
