Feb 26 - World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest

Synonymous with "Texas" are "Rodeo" and "BBQ". As fate would have it, Jason lives across the street (literally) from Reliant Stadium, where the 2005 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was taking place. And conveniently the whole fanfare kicks off with the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest. Essentially, you enter into the middle of something akin to a county fair, complete with cheesy carnival rides, deep fried anything (the new one here was deep fried Oreo cookies!), funnel cakes (yumm!), and plenty of games to win little stuffed animals. In the middle of all that are 400 separate competitors, each with their own themed circus tent, set up with a full mobile kitchen, BBQ/smoker and a ton of food & drink.

Somehow, Eric managed to join one of the BBQ teams (named the Cowboy Yacht Club - note the "CYC" at the entrance to their tent)

The teams each entered some of their BBQ in the competition and spent the rest of the weekend cooking for friends & family that came to their tent by invitation only. Luckily, Eric hooked us up with invitations to his tent. Otherwise, people just kinda roam around smelling all kinds of great BBQ that they can't get their hands on because they don't have an 'inside' connection. And somehow it seems there's thousands of people who do that.

On the menu in Eric's tent: beef brisket, beef sausage, pork, chicken, beans, cole slaw and little red potatoes. As an after thought, they did have a bowl of iceberg lettuce at the very end of the buffet line. Nobody was even going near it. Definitely a vegetarian's nightmare!

Jason's quite proud of the fact that he grew up and currently lives in Houston, and has NEVER owned a cowboy hat or boots. (we made him put Eric's hat on)

Eric didn't get his hat and boots until he moved AWAY from Texas.



We were happy with the margaritas and beer until Eric pulled out some of the wine he brought. That definitely beat the beer selection of Budweiser or MGD.