Memphis in May

Well, the applications are out and we are getting ready to gear up for the big show. Memphis in May, The super Bowl of Swine, The Big Dance....you get the picture. This is the time we work up to every year. It is a tremendous amount of work to put together but I love every minute of it.

We have a great group of guys and a great group of sponsors. It is mine and Dave's job to not only make sure we compete at a world class level but also to make sure that each and every one of our team members walk away from the event saying, "that is the best damn party I have ever been to"...... I am proud to say that in past years, we have had new members say that they expected a good time but this far exceeded their expectations. WOW......Those are the type of comments that make the hard work well worth while.

Our team has really come of age the last several years. Instead of having to tell people what they should be doing, now we have team members asking, "how can I contribute and what can I do to help". I think that is a result of letting everyone know that they have a steak in making the weekend a success and that each of them contribute to the good time in their own way. With 35+ members, not everyone can be involved in the cooking or wants to be. It takes members that can landscape, do dishes, set up tables, decorate, run a sound system, welcome guests and many other tasks to make a great team. Our members come from every walk of life but down in Memphis they are a unified group.....Peg Leg Porkers.... and I am grateful that they have chosen to be a part of our team....


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Uncle Bruce

I know, it has been a long time since an update. I have had a lot going on but that is no excuse. Since my last posting, my uncle Bruce passed away. As many of you may know, I lost my father on July 16th. This was his youngest brother Bruce and he died of cancer as well.

Bruce and I were very close. When my father and I were not seeing eye to eye and subsequently not speaking (for 4 years), Bruce really stepped in and spent a lot of time with me. We used to reload ammo in my grandmother's basement and then go out to Lyle Ogle's family farm and spend the weekend shooting with Lyle and John Interbitson. Bruce introduced me to BBQ at a young age and taught me a great deal about the art. He competed in the very first Memphis in May cook off and was a big inspiration for my getting involved in competition BBQ. Over the last three years, he came down to the booth and really became a fixture of the team, sitting in the back of the booth and telling his great stories. Bruce will be missed by me and by many who had the benefit of knowing him. There will always be an empty chair in the back of the Peg Leg Porker booth for Bruce........

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The Church BBQ

Well, the church BBQ went great. With some help from the other members of the Men's club and team members Dudney, Dave and Dresch, everything was dynamite. My two boys stayed with me and camped out. Dresch and his son William also stayed until about 5:00 AM. Having my firebox man there was a huge help. We cooked 56 Butts and 50 racks of ribs.

Overall, I stayed up from about 9:30 AM until 12:30 PM on Saturday. Needless to say, I was exhausted. I am sure that Dresch was too. We drank some beers and bourbon and ate some oysters. The highlight was when Dave braved the coyotes at Radnor to ride his bike over to the church at about 7:00 Am in the morning. He then topped it off by drinking a big bourbon drink. It was BBQ at it's finest. Only Episcopalians can have such a good time at a church BBQ.

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20 Boys for 4 hours

My two boys, Carey and Connley have birthdays 2 weeks apart and today we celebrated both birthdays with a capture the flag party at the house. They brought home 10 boys each and we had them from 3 to 7.......Delaniah and I are exhausted. We never could have done it without the help of my good friend and fellow teammate, Greg Hamilton. Thanks Greg.

Boys 10 and under can be a handful....Multiply that by 20 and you can have chaos. Thank goodness everyone was well behaved and we got by with minor to no injuries.

Happy Birthday Carey IV and Connley.....you are the next generation of Peg Leg Porkers. Tomorrow we cook for 500 at the church BBQ.

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The Church BBQ

Well, this weekend is my Church BBQ. It is always a great time and I really enjoy the fellowship of all of the men in our Men's Club on Friday night while we are cooking. This year we will be cooking about 58 Butts and about 60 Lbs. of Chicken. That will feed a few hundred. On Friday night we will cook 3 cases of Baby Backs..........Ohhh Boy.

The actual BBQ is Saturday Oct. 13th. It is Church of the Advent on Franklin Road in Nashville, TN. There are games for the kids and live music. People generally come in and out between 11:30 and 4:00. We will be selling to go packs for all of the football fans that need to get their fix and go watch a game.

This week, I uploaded some new photos to the website and Mike added a video from a few weeks ago. It looks great. We are about to add the storefront and will begin selling merchandise. Things seem to be really coming together. I am meeting with a food broker this afternoon to talk more about distribution.

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KCBS Competition

Well, we competed in a KCBS competition this weekend at Opryland. We had a great time but unfortunately did not do well at all. That is just how it goes sometimes. It is easy to look back and think of all of the things you did wrong after the fact but sometimes, you just don't do well for a number of reasons. That is the way it goes. I don't typically try to over think it. I just make a note of where I think we made mistakes and try to do those things differently next time.

We are used to competing in Memphis in May competitions and the KCBS is very different. For starters, you turn in Chicken, Ribs, Shoulder and Brisket as opposed to just turning in pork shoulder when we do Memphis. It is a chore trying to make sure that everything is on schedule and done right. It can be done but it just takes some practice and good timing. If we are going to do any more KCBS cooks, I would like to go to KCBS judging school and learn the complete judging criteria. That helped tremendously with Memphis in May.

All in all it was a good experience. We had a small crew and I think everyone had a good time. Mike Causey brewed some great beer, Terry Atkins made some great wings and Brian Hamilton made some great chicken. Dave and I were there as well as Cory Guerenno, Pat Martin, Frank Platt, Shane Smith and Patrick Julian.

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Promoting a brand

Well, I spoke with a broker yesterday about Peg Leg Porker and how to get my products out there more in the marketplace. Launching and promoting a brand is a long road that has many moving parts. I am small and expensive and so I would be classified as a specialty item. That makes it hard to get on the big retailers shelves. My product is also expensive to produce so that makes things difficult.

The broker suggested that I join the Tennessee Specialty Food Association. They have done some good work helping companies like mine get products out there in the mainstream. I think that I will do that. They also work with the department of agriculture on the Pick Tennessee Products campaign which can help me. One of the problems is time. I work a fulltime job that is very demanding and have a wife and children that are also demanding, in a good way.

Next week the team and I will be getting ready for the competition at Opryland. It should be fun. We will be doing a KCBS cook and having it here in Nashville will make things easier. I will post some pictures and let you know how it goes.

Carey B

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Let's Get this Blog Moving

Well,It has obviously been a long time since I have posted to this blog. A lot has happened in the past few months.

I was a guest blogger on Pat Martin's Blog Page. He asked me to write about my experience at the Food & Wine Magazine's Classic at Aspen. (I will post a copy on this blog)

My father passed away on July 16th after suffering for over 10 years from Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer. We knew it was coming but it was not easy.

I have been seriously considering opening a restaurant and have been working on all of those details with my future business partner.

We got the Peg Leg Porker site up and running. (Still in it's early stages) but Mike Causey and Skyscraper Media have done a tremendous job in capturing my vision for the site.

I have been traveling a lot for work and that has kept me from getting as much done in these last few months as I would like. I recently spoke with a broker about getting my sauces and rubs out into more retail locations. Right now I just sell on Lobels.com . That has been great but I need to get it out on the national retail scene. That will involve brokers, distributors and more time. I believe that it is a great brand and can do well if I start putting more focus on the marketing.

I made some great contacts in Aspen and it was fun being out there with Evan, David and the Lobel's crew. Evan made the front page of the Aspen Times and they specifically mentioned the Waygu Brisket that I prepared. It seemed to be the hit of the show.

Check out the new site http://www.peglegporker.com/ . Also, the next appearance of the Peg Leg Porkers (our competition team) will be on Sept. 28th at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville. They are having a KCBS sanctioned contest and we will be competing. The last time we did a KCBS contest was the first appearance of the Peg Leg Porkers. Hopefully, we will do a better job this year then we did back then. They tried to kick us out more than once that year.

Savor the Flavor,

Carey Bringle - Peg Leg

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Guest Blog About Aspen Food and Wine on Pat Martin's Site

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Guest blogger Carey "Peg Leg Porker" Bringle: Aspen Food & Wine Festival
My good buddy Carey Bringle (Peg Leg Porker) was asked by the Lobel boys to cook & attend the prestigious "Aspen Food & Wine" festival. This week I asked Carey to guest blog about the experience. By the way......look at the dadgum fat marble in those 3" thick (yes you read that right!) Wagyu dry aged New York strips. Also Carey is pictured with food/wine celebrity Andrea Immer.Hey Folks, It's Carey Bringle, The Peg Leg Porker......I am honored that Pat asked me to guest Blog today about my experience at the Food & Wine Magazine, Classic at Aspen.

Let me start off by explaining the reason that I was there. Three or four years ago, Evan Lobel asked me if I could smoke some Waygu Brisket for the Classic at Aspen food Show and ship it out there for them to serve at the Grand Tastings. I did this cook as a personal favor but let me tell you, it was nerve racking. Evan wanted them to be just right. He would be serving them next to his father and their reputation was on the line. It was the first time that they had done this show and it was very high profile. I cooked about 36 Brisket that year and from Evan's account, they were a real crowd pleaser. He called me from the booth and said "Carey, your a F$%^*&* hero, we have a line around the booth and this stuff is the hit of the show." I was glad to hear it because for the previous week, Evan had called me several times to remind me how important this was. I think I lost 10lbs. that week worrying about how they turned out and waiting for his call to let me know. The next year, I cooked again and they asked me if I would like to come out to the show as their guest for the work I had done. I cooked the brisket but I turned them down on the trip because frankly, I had been traveling a lot, just finished Memphis in May and was plain worn out.

Last year they didn't do the show and one of their key competitors, Allen Brothers, started displaying there. That did not set well with Evan. They made an executive decision that this year, they would be back and show the world why they are the Best Damn Steaks and Mail Order Gourmet Food Company in America. I had regretted not going the year I had been invited so this year, we made a deal that a ticket to the show and a plane ride would be my payment for Smoking the Brisket. The amount.........650 Lbs. of Waygu. That is a lot of Brisket.

My father lives in Carbondale and is very ill. He has been suffering from Multiple Meyeloma for over 10 years. This would also be a great chance to spend some more time with he and Susan and see him for Father's Day. I started cooking Brisket on the Vertical Smoker at 5:30 AM on Friday, June 8th. That night, Dave Johnson and Pat came over to help and have a few. Dave was cooking on the horizontal for a catering Gig and Pat was just coming to help and lend moral support. We had a great time shooting the shit and throwing back a few. I cooked almost non stop until Sunday morning. 50 Brisket in total. I was worn out. Pat and Dave can both tell you, cooking a ton of meat can wear you out but when you see people enjoying it and hear their comments, it is a great feeling.

I arrived in CO on Thursday. My sister was with me and we spent some time with Dad and Susan that night. Friday, I got up, we had some breakfast at the Village Smithy in Carbondale and I headed to Aspen (about 25 miles away). I got there about 1:00 and they had just finished the first Grand Tasting. Evan and David said that it was a huge hit. There was not another tasting until 4:30 so I went to a Mixology Seminar given by Tony Abou-Ganim. He has a show on Fine Living teaching the art of cocktail making. Let me say that any seminar where they hand you a drink on your way in and then make you drinks all the way through is my kind of class.

I went to the Grand Tasting at 4:30 and it was great. The Lobel's were serving Braised Short ribs at that tasting. They seemed to be a pretty big hit but I really wanted to see the Brisket being served. We hung around after the tasting and went to dinner at an Italian restaurant in town. We would start again in the morning. The Aspen Times had come by that afternoon and spoken with Evan. We were all anxious to see what they would write. On Saturday morning, I woke up and drove to Aspen first thing. The Grand tasting started at 11:30 and I wanted to see how the brisket would be received. David came in to the tent holding the Aspen Times......Jackpot.......Evan was featured on the front page with a headline of "Lobel's, Butchering the Competition" .....In your face Allen Brothers.....It talked about the brisket and needless to say, at the Grand tasting, the table was mobbed. The log jam in front of our table wasn't helped by the fact that Mario Batali was signing Crocs at the table across from us. Between the two booths, you couldn't make it through that part of the tent. I'll have to say that it was pretty exciting seeing all those people go crazy over the food that I cooked.

That afternoon, I met Mario Batali, Jacques Pepin, Andrea Immer and Bradford Thompson. Wow, what a treat. The last thing that I did that afternoon was meet Evan, David and Jamie (owner of Smoke Restaurant in El Jebel, the caterer that Lobel's hired to help them in Aspen) at Jamie's house to see them cooking the Waygu strip steaks that they would serve that afternoon at the 3:45 Grand Tasting. What a sight to see, 147 Lbs. of Waygu strips at a retail value of $150 a piece....beautiful.....I told them that I was going to have dinner with my family and probably wouldn't be back on Sunday. Evan told me top pick out the best steak and take it for me and my Dad to share for Fathers day. We cooked it that night and it was great....

I spent Sunday with Dad and Susan. We enjoyed the day and the incredible view that their new house has of Mt. Sopris. I was leaving Monday morning and it was going to be hard to say goodbye. The weekend was great. I am thankful to have been able to participate in such a celebrated event, enjoyed spending time with my good friends Evan and David and even more thankful to have been able to spend a little more time with my Dad. This is a Fathers day weekend that I know I will never forget.....


Lobel's: Butchering the competition...............Brisket a hit in Grand Tasting tent
www.aspentimes.com/article/20070616/NEWS/106160061&SearchID=73284675093471

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A first for PegLeg

This is my first Blog posting. I have just set up the Peg Leg Porker Blog to link to the Peg Leg Porker Website and be an outlet for my friends and teammates to communicate.

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