Poop 2010 Vol 19: the Big "Cook Off'

Welcome back to another poop. Hopefully I'll get this one written and published before all of my readers see the last one and decide I'm too big an asshole to support anymore. Probably not, and seeing as how I still stand by the last poop, we might as well just move on. Much to the chagrin to my wife, we must once again, discuss sports, but how can we not since the last week of my life has been dedicated to tailgating...as if that were a bad thing. Other than that, there's not much to discuss so, I'll see if I can't come up with some good, nonsensical load of crap. Should be fun!

Weekly Words Of Wisdom
I Wouldn't Move To Starkville For $180,000 Either
Possibly the most awesome, and truthful shirt ever. (If you find out where I can get one, please, please tell me.

The "Cook Off"
This weekend was the big Tony Chachere's Tailgating "Cook Off" that I've been bugging you about for the last few months. Oh, let's just be honest, I wasn't bugging you so much as shamelessly whoring myself out to anyone and everyone I could, on every medium at my disposal. I felt dirty and cheap, but all of that was nicely washed away by the fact that my e-skanking earned me a hotel room, parking pass, 4 tickets to the Magnolia Bowl, and a Big Green Egg. Now some of you may be wondering why I keep referring to this thing as 'the "Cook Off"' and not "the Cook Off." Well, it's because I assume that the term, "cook off" typically describes a culinary competition, and for anything to be a competition, there must be winners and losers. Not the case with what went down Saturday. We cooked and had our work taped for TV in nice little segments to be aired sometime this week (when I know the details, you will hear about them), and the winner will be chosen with yet, another God forsaken, online vote. At least this vote is only a few days (ending Nov 30th at 5 pm). I don't care a whole lot about the winner of this deal since I already got the best prizes out there, but damnit, I can't let my culinary masterpiece lose to the hotdog-meat wad thing. I have my pride at stake here, people!

After a long Thursday of cooking ducks, roux, and stock followed by a long Friday made even longer by stupidly staying out 'til after midnight and going for Cane's (what can I say? I have an addiction), we got up and started on our way to the tailgate. As we approached Stadium Drive, I asked if we should try to talk our way through the police baricade and drop our stuff at the curb. Ashley insisted that the cops would never let us through so we just went to park. I carefully loaded our stuff and began the half mile haul to the site. After my gosh damned tire on the cooler went flat a block away from the car leaving me to lug what felt like a dead horse the rest of the way, and ashley's flat bed dolly spilled over numerous times, we made it to the Tony's set up where our two cooking couterparts were standing next to their stuff and their cars. *balls*

Halfway through our introductions to the other cooks, one of the CSS guys called me from the parking lot to ask if we wanted help hauling our junk. *double balls* This same CSS guy showed up at the site a few minutes later and proceded to inadvertently rip on the State guy's incredibly weak recipe and we all struggled not to look amused and shocked. Well, technically the State guy was from Southern Miss. I'm not sure if that's truly a consolation to State fans or an even bigger slap in the face since that's the best thing they could come up with, but hey, at least they were in it. That's not bad for a school located in a place that Sports Illustrated and ESPN routinely call, "the most aptly named city in America."

The cooking got started well after the predetermined time, which was no real problem for us since Tony's gave us free access to their beer cooler and I had plenty of bloody mary mix to keep me busy. That and our cooking assistant, Chris had shown up (after driving up to the site with little resistance from the guards. *triple balls*) with hot boudin. Once things got underway, they filmed everyone prepping and starting to cook while talking their way through the general process. I really felt like the last two years of bullshitting with BBQ judges helped me here, but if I end up sounding like a douche, I reserve the right to remind all of you peons, just who was on TV and who is sitting at home...not on TV. So, there.

My dad took over the decorations for our table (which were provided by CSS and Tony's) and he did a good job; such a good job in fact that the CSS guy said, "somebody spent some time in retail." It was a nice compliment, but unfortunately, his set up was so good that they decided to use our table to film everyone's little promo leaving us with the problem of having to vacate our cooking station twice for them to film. *balls, once again!*

In the end, we cooked a great tasting gumbo, everyone had a good time, and I didn't have to mess with bringing a bunch of food back thanks to the multitude of folks lining up for samples while nearby vendors bitched that nobody wanted to buy their stuff. Sorry fellas, but I guess you better make some better stuff. Unfortunately, I didn't save any gumbo for the in laws like I was supposed to, but on the bright side, I did give them 4 brand new Tony's gumbo bowls so I'm off the hook for now.

In the interest of science, I tasted each of the other contestants' dishes, and I can objectively say, that mine was the best. The pork shoulder was good, and I personally liked it, but as a guy who has been involved with Memphis in May for 4 years, twice as a head chef, there was just something about it that I don't think would set well in a BBQ competition. I just don't think the glaze meshed as well with the pork as other glazes, say, brown sugar might. It was certainly imaginative, and unique, but I would be lying if I thought it was better than the gumbo. The Wiener-Meat Ball Sammich (in the true starkviller vernacular) was....uh...what can i say? It tasted like a red wiener crammed in a meat ball, cooked to death on a grill and smothered in ketchup. Just being honest. I now know from tasting, that State must have taken the number 3 spot after Auburn got busted for buying votes.

The cooking ended, we all had a lot of fun, and as for the game...Ole Miss greatly exposed LSU's supposed dominant defense, and our Defense played better than I expected. Sure we were a sieve in most of the time, but we did manage to hold LSU to some short FGs which was good. What was bad was that we had a stupid penalty for diving into the endzone and we kicked the ball out of bounds to give up a short field. Both of these came after we took a lead late in the game. Were it not for those two stupid plays we very well could have won a shocking upset over LSU and kept the magnolia bowl trophy in Oxford where it belongs. Still, despite a few dumb plays and bad D, we continued to support my belief that we play better in Baton Rouge than we do in our own stadium, and now we absolutely must beat State. it's all we have left, and that has to be the easiest shot at beating a ranked team anyone has ever had.

Well, Y'all go vote some more and help me claim victory over LSU and Souther Miss, er, I mean State and help a desperate Rebel win something this season since football has been epically bad. When's baseball start?

I may come back and add something later, but in the interest of having something to post this week, I'm gonna just toss this one out to the great interweb now.

Y'all have a good, safe week and a great Thanksgiving.