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Some would say I am just a lucky bastard and I would tend to agree when it comes to the roads trips that I will be taking this year!
I got back yesterday from a trip to Des Moines in Iowa where I took part in the Cornfed cooking class run by Ryan Newstrom from Big T’z Q Cruz and Joe Beland from Tippy Canoe two of the most successful teams from the 2012 season coming in 5th and 6th overall out of over 6,000 teams. They must be doing something right and I wanted to find out exactly what it was!
One thing I have learnt on my recent “short” trips to the states is fly out on a Thursday rather than Friday, you are more likely to be traveling on an empty plane and the luxury of an empty seat next to you is a real winner!
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As usual I stopped for a plate of wings in Detroit airport, my saviour after suffering the food on the plane, although admittedly this wasn’t as bad as the bowl of pepper mush form the last flight.
The flight from Detroit to Des Moines was about 1 hour 30 mins on the smallest plane I had been in, apart from the chipmunk at school, but it always amazes me that the seats for the internal flights no matter the size of the plane have more leg room than the international flights?!?!?
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Got to the hotel and unpacked my 6 items of clothing, well I was only there for 2 nights! It was time to go shopping. It was great to finally meet Bret from Hawgeyes BBQ Store, I had been ordering from them for a few years and it was good to be able to physically browse the shelves rather than virtually online. I had two suitcases for the journey home and had every intention of filling them both up!
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The cornfed class was superb, and I would recommend it to anyone looking at taking part in a competition in the States. There were a lot of similarities between recent classes and I think all those that compete will agree its exceptionally close out there so its all about consistency. I am obviously not going to give out any details of the class but I get the feeling that with Ed and Emma from Bunch of Swines attending the class there will be a fairly consistent series of results in the UK in 2013. No Pressure guys!
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Having already tried a few of the techniques, they don’t translate exactly across the pond due to the meat availability over here. The first event of the BBQ season Mayhem in May is nearly upon us and it will be interesting to see what improvements teams have made over the winter period. I am also very much looking forward to the Grassroots competition trainees dominating prize giving!!!