The Deck Was Stacked

This weekend we cooked in St. Joe Texas.
This sleepy town is only 1.1 square miles with under a thousand folks living there. Nice little quiet place stuck on HW82 heading West resting right on the edge of the Red River Valley.
The DQ is the only place open where you can get a cup of coffee early in the morning. When the door opens banging against the cow bell, a hush falls on the crowd. All the old timers drinking coffee turn and look to see who you are and if they know you. While paused at the door and with every eye on me, I checked my fly to make sure it was up.  

We had a great time this weekend. The weather could not have been better. 2 1/4 inches of rain fell and the green has already started coming back. The smell of fall is in the air and along with all the animals, our step has a little more kick in it. I hid my shivers and goose bumps as I mocked the wife because she was wearing a jacket. Just last week were were still in the upper 90s. This morning, a cool 58.

Something magical was going to happen at the cook off, I could feel it. I couldn’t wait to get there, get set

up and start cooking. Once there we started to realize the deck was stacked against us.
In this little town, a long way from nowhere, there was;
The current World Champion, three past World Champions, the Louisiana State Champion, The Intercontinental/Canadian Champion, The Mexico Champion and about seven of the top ten in the USA.  I should have just turned around and went home, but I looked at it this way, If I’m going to get beat, I wanted to be beat by the best.

We even got to meet a fellow blogger. My new friend over at Your Crazy Uncle Bubba drove up to meet us and have a good time. He and his wife got to judge the winning table of chili and see what all that was about. It’s always good to meet like minded folks and even though we have never met, it was almost like we already known one another.
As most of you already know, put a couple of beers in me and I start talking. I normally don’t say much and most of the time a little stand offish. I just wondered what went through my new friend’s mind when after our introductions I said, “I thought you were younger than you are.” Yea that’s probably not the best way to start off a new friendship and the wife is right, she can’t take me anywhere. But he laughed it off and we moved on.
Anyway, super nice folks and being we live close I hope to see them again, maybe have them come out to the Mini Farm for some BBQ. I can cook it better then chili any day. (So I keep telling myself)

The cook off results,
My beans made the top ten again and my chili didn’t. Out of 35 cooks and 20 of those being champions of some sort or another, I got beat by the best. I say the best because the wife was right up there with them. She got 8th place among the best in the world and I am really proud of her. 
Girlfriend is holding her own (and she wasn’t even going to cook either)

That’s all I got for now, I got some bad news to share next post, Doom and Gloom kinda crap.
Don’t forget to stop by my buddy’s blog on the way out.

See ya,
MDR