A lot of you have met or talked to me, some of you have read the things that I write but we have never met. So, who is this guy?
I live in Guthrie Oklahoma. I was also born here and it is beginning to look like I am going to die here since I am almost 60 and haven't left yet.
Like a lot of you, I have loved to grill and smoke meat for most of my life. It all is just a hobby that got out of control. In my earlier years I cooked at home just for my experimentation and to share with my family. As time progressed, friends learned what I was doing and they always asked me to cook something for them when I fired up the cooker. I didn't mind because it was FREE MEAT right? Eventually my cooker was full every time I cooked. I got the bright idea of getting a bigger cooker. All that happened was more friends told their friends and I upsized my cooker several times to keep up.
What really accelerated things? BBQ Pitmasters appeared on https://www.tlc.com/. I watched those shows and tried to find tips and tricks to make me better at what I was already doing. One day while watching the shows I made the remark to my wife, "That cooking is a lot of work, I want to be the guy sitting at the table judging the stuff." I had no idea who the judges were or where they came from. One day my wife was reading the newspaper and she showed me an article where they were having a judging class at https://go.okstate.edu/. I told her to call whoever or whatever it took to get me in that school. She got me enrolled.
I found out through that class that KCBS https://www.kcbs.us/ existed. KCBS is to BBQ what Nascar is to car racing. They are a worldwide organization that promotes bbq, governs contests and a lot of other things that forward bbq cooking.
Once that I received my certification, I began to go to a lot of the pro contests and judge them. My wife always went with me so the next year she got her certification. Cooking and judging contests was our hobby for a lot of years. We both eventually met the qualifications and passed the test to become Master BBQ Judges. Through that experience we met a lot of the BBQ greats such as David Bouska https://butcherbbq.com/. David is a great guy that gives and gives to the sport and has a room full of trophies that he is walking on to prove he knows his stuff.
Danielle Bennett https://www.divaq.ca/ of Diva Q. When she rolls up, this girl puts on a show!
Big Moe Cason https://moecasonbbq.com/ the man has bbq sauce in his veins.
Johnny Trigg, the king of ribs and the list just keeps going.
These people just kept inspiring me and giving me the drive to keep trying to take my cooking to the next level. Eventually the public started to convince me to open a restaurant. To me, owning a restaurant is like owning a milk cow. You are connected to the same time same place everyday and I already had a job and didn't need another one.
Eventually I did have a bbq trailer built and we did events and festivals every weekend for years. This went on until I made my wife, daughters and sons in law sick of bbq. I eventually sold it so we could get our life back. When I sold it, I sold my pit with it.
I called my friend Stace Nickell at https://www.hbtsmokers.com/ and had him build me another pit. I barely got to use it until a guy came along and wanted to buy it. After we went through that scenario a half dozen times, I talked to Stace and told him we may be onto something here ant that is how Blowin' Smoke Cookers was born and it gets bigger every year.
Even if you are not looking for a pit and just want to talk bbq, stop by. We can trade stories. Don't stop unless you have the time because once I start talking 'Q it's hard to get me shut down.
Happy New Year Everyone!