Tailgating with the Grillin Fools

I have tailgated before but it was always just meeting up with people who tailgate with my own bag chair and cooler. Last Sat I had tickets to the Missouri/Illinois game played in St. Louis. Myself and my fellow grilling fools decided to do a little promotional work and grill a boat load of food to give away to promote the web site.

Not much in terms of grilling tips or recipes in this post but it is sort of a picture diary of what it takes to prep 15 slabs of ribs, 300 Atomic Buffalo turds, 20 pounds of chicken, 5 apple stuffed fatties and 50 crostinis, and then haul all the equipment down to cook it, suffer through 4 hours of heavy showers, meet and greet hundreds in the rain and when it cleared, going to the game and settling back with a beer afterward...

It wasn't cheap but it was a friggin blast!!!

Now THAT, friends & neighbors, looks like a lot of fun. There are a lot of us here who wish we could have joined you. The rain just gave you some additional memories you laugh about later. Way to go! Post in advance the next time you are going to do something like that. Maybe some of the NCT foodies can stop by.

Wow! Rain or not you had a fantastic time. I added up all the meat you cooked and it came to an even ton. Way to go.

JoeV said:

Now THAT, friends & neighbors, looks like a lot of fun. There are a lot of us here who wish we could have joined you. The rain just gave you some additional memories you laugh about later. Way to go! Post in advance the next time you are going to do something like that. Maybe some of the NCT foodies can stop by.

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I posted on the blog that we were doing it on Friday. Not much notice. It was sort of up in the air till about Monday if we were going to do it or not. We are considering doing it on Nov. 22nd for the only Rams late game of the year. But that's up in the air at this time...

buzzard767 said:

Wow! Rain or not you had a fantastic time. I added up all the meat you cooked and it came to an even ton. Way to go.

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It felt like it. It was pretty nuts. I got to the lot at 8 and did not sit down until I sat in my seat at the game at about 3:00. It felt so good to sit. Particularly after 8 hours the day before prepping food. Being as flat footed as I am standing for long periods is the suck.

And it was so wet that when I got to the game I took my shoes off to let my socks dry out a bit as they were soaked through to above my ankles.

That is an amazing amount of ABTs to prepare.

chowhound said:

That is an amazing amount of ABTs to prepare.

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That sucked worse than the rain. Took hours. It was myself and my cousin at first and then he had to leave and it was me and dad. We basically prepped food from 2 pm on Friday to about 8 and then I went home and made fatties because the two grocery stores in my dad's town didn't sell maple sausage. So I was on from 2 till 10, then the next day we were all on from 8 till 3. And the next day my wife invited her fam over for Chicken and Dumplins. One small prob. She had never made them before and I got roped into helping. That last thing I wanted to do was stand over a counter looking down. My neck bothered me till yesterday.

IF we do this again, it's gonna be a friggin train of about 5 people. One slicer, one person to scrape out the white flesh and seeds, one to stuff the cream cheese, one to put the lil smokie in and one to wrap in bacon.

GrillinFool said:

IF we do this again, it's gonna be a friggin train of about 5 people. One slicer, one person to scrape out the white flesh and seeds, one to stuff the cream cheese, one to put the lil smokie in and one to wrap in bacon.

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That's the way I would want to do it. Assembly line style. My back is hurtin' just thinking about the time at the counter.
Where did you get all those jalapenos? Did you have a store special order in some extra for you? Can you order direct from some source?

nice job grillin fool ...

GrillinFool said:

And it was so wet that when I got to the game I took my shoes off to let my socks dry out a bit as they were soaked through to above my ankles.

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That is half the reason I gave up competition barbecuing. The other half is killer humid heat.

Great photos, GF! You were so good to take all those pictures when you were so busy!

Have you ever used disposable grill toppers? They say "disposable", but I re-use them a million times. They are either round or rectangular, and I use them for all kinds of little items I grill or smoke.

You can make your ABT's ahead of time, place them on the toppers and stack them. Easier than transporting them singly from a tray to the grill and back.

Here are a couple of pictures of stuff on the grill toppers.

Lee

Cherry-smoked bacon



Peppers and onions ready for smoking (Ask A Butcher's Smoked Chili)

chowhound said:

That's the way I would want to do it. Assembly line style. My back is hurtin' just thinking about the time at the counter.
Where did you get all those jalapenos? Did you have a store special order in some extra for you? Can you order direct from some source?

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My dad and his partners own a bunch of Save-A-Lot grocery stores. In a store here in St. Louis near a heavy hispanic area they carry them. They are gigantic. And get this. $.99/pound. Everybody else is $3/pound.

QSis said:

That is half the reason I gave up competition barbecuing. The other half is killer humid heat.

Great photos, GF! You were so good to take all those pictures when you were so busy!

Have you ever used disposable grill toppers? They say "disposable", but I re-use them a million times. They are either round or rectangular, and I use them for all kinds of little items I grill or smoke.

You can make your ABT's ahead of time, place them on the toppers and stack them. Easier than transporting them singly from a tray to the grill and back.

Here are a couple of pictures of stuff on the grill toppers.

Lee

Cherry-smoked bacon

Peppers and onions ready for smoking (Ask A Butcher's Smoked Chili)

Click to expand...

The pics are blocked at work.

We just threw the ABT's into gallon ziplocks. About 50 per bag. Then put them on the grill one at a time. Pulled them off into a disposable tray and handed them out.