Harvard Fall Festival
Harvard MA
September 12-13, 2015

Trebuchets and barbecue, what could be better?

The grilling categories today were boneless chicken, shrimp, fatties and dessert.  When turning in the chicken, we took a wrong turn and got in late - our first DQ!  Oh well, it happens to some of the best, and now it's happened to us.  If you turn in your box late, it can't be judged so that ruined any chance of getting a good overall score today.  The chicken was juicy, too.  Cris is so good at shrimp.  It came in 8th place.  I thought the fatties were delicious.  I stuffed jalapenos with cheese and wrapped them in sausage and wrapped that in bacon and smoked the works.  They have become our new favorite appetizer when friends come over.  We also made smores cheese cakes that were pretty and delicious!

If you've never visited us while we're competing, I invite you to do so.  Here is what it looks like.  Sleeping tent in the background, shade tent and smokers.  To the right, out of the picture, is our prep tent and tables.

We've taken to playing a new game while we work called YouTube Roulette. One of us picks a song, and we play it on YouTube.  Then we have to pick a song that gets listed in the suggestions below the video.  It's amazing what paths that can take you down!

We thought we handed in some pretty good stuff for KCBS this time, but the judges didn't agree.  We're determined to judge a few times next year to get a better sense of what other competitors are putting out as products because we're stymied as to how to get over this bump.

The season ended on a high note:  look what we brought home!  The Pit Fiends were 3rd Place Tailgating Team of the Year!  I couldn't believe it.  We are very proud and are determined to uphold this or better for next year, too!

Harvard Fall Festival
Harvard, MA
September 14-15, 2013

The grilling competition categories were boneless chicken, shrimp, wrapped in bacon and dessert. 

We learned something about people’s choice.  One of the categories was sliders.  Chuck put together this pretty little thing:

Which was well-liked, but we didn’t make enough.  Note to selves: make two steamer pans of it next time.  They will be happy to replenish your supply.

This was our teriyaki chicken.  It tasted good, but was a little over done at the edges.  Also, our garnish still holds a lot to be desired.  Not pretty at all.

For the wrapped in bacon category, we actually made a bacon lattice for the bottom of the container.  Then we made bacon fatties: sausage stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon and sliced. 

I don’t think the judges liked that you couldn’t see the bacon because it was around the edges.

I forgot to take a picture of our shrimp box, but here it is.  It is the same crab-stuffed, bacon-wrapped shrimp we made at Brookline.

Lastly, Cris made bananas foster chimichangas.  Good gracious, but they were delicious.  Only a scoop of vanilla ice cream could have improved them.  

In the KCBS competition, we were judged poorly.  The judges didn’t respond well to the legs, although I thought they looked and tasted great.  The ribs over-cooked and then didn’t slice well.  The plate was sticky and sloppy.  We tried handing in the pork in multiple ways: pulled, burnt ends and sliced.  Again, the judges were underwhelmed.  My brisket consistently turns out dry.  This year we had a fiasco.  I had filled my water pan with sand to help hold the heat.  In the middle of the night, the temp shot way up.  In my 2am blur, I forgot about the sand and dumped water into the water pan.  It immediately made steam, coating the brisket with a fine layer of sand.  I almost didn’t hand it in.  Oddly, I got some of my best scores to date.  Go figure.

Our efforts this weekend paid off.  We took 2nd place in shrimp, 5th place in dessert and 3rd place over all in the grilling competition.  We also took 2nd place in people’s choice sliders.  See? We should have made more.

Harvard Fall Festival
Harvard, MA
September 15-16, 2012

Guess what we have for this competition – A banner! And t-shirts!  Leah’s sister designed the logo for us.  We love it!  We feel so much more official. 

We had horrible rain again, this time for set up.  Ugh!  Rain is really un-fun.

This was our first grilling competition.  The categories were shrimp, wings, sausage and dessert.  Our shrimp came in 7th!  We are so excited.  Our dessert was crepes.  Yes, we made crepes on the grill.  They were yummy, but didn’t impress the judges.

Harvard has interesting people’s choice categories: sausage, chili, wings and pork. 

In KCBS, our ribs came in 14th out of 44 and our pork came in 17th out of 44.  Not too bad.  

Harvard Fall Festival
Harvard, MA
Sept 17-18 , 2011


This was our first KCBS competition.  What a whirl wind!  Four categories turned in at half hour intervals.  It was intense, but we got everything turned in.  Everything cooked a little dark, and our appearance scores reflected that.  We took a big risk with the chicken and used the drumsticks.  The judges were not amused.  Still, we came in middle of the pack which isn’t too bad.