Whilst Austin’s Walmarts had served us well it was time to leave the vibrant city and continue our journey East towards Houston.

Speeding along the I-10 we suddenly remembered the advice of our Guadalupe companions Becky and Tom – “Whilst you’re in Texas you have to go to a cook off” – and with that the search began for a cook off we could get to before we left Texas for Louisiana.

5 minutes of Googling later and the 14th Annual Texas State Championship IBCA Cook off in the small town of Rosenberg was on our radar. Could we just turn up and walk in? Would we be able to find somewhere to stay? Risks we were willing to take in the pursuit of delicious BBQ’d meats.

Back on the road excited for what we’d find in Rosenberg, Alenka noticed the billboards had taken a bit of an Eastern European turn, advertising Kolaches, a Czecho-Slovak pastry. We were in Texas’s Czech belt, of all places, and soon enough we’d pulled up at a roadside bakery to check out (pun intended) if these Kolaches were the real deal. “Jak se maš?” the huge lettering across the top enquired.

Skeptical at first, Alenka’s eyes lit up at the sight of genuine Czech cuisine; not only were there Kolaches but they were selling Klobasniky, poppy seed rolls, cured meats, the list goes on. She might even have said the Kolaches were better than those in Slovak shops, I probably misheard though…

On to the cook off.

We arrived, parked up in a pretty deserted car park and, starting to feel dubious about our great idea, walked over to what we thought was the cook off. Our anxiety disappeared immediately on walking through the gates, as no sooner had we set foot inside than we had been met by Ted and Jim who took it upon themselves to look after us that weekend. Before we knew it they’d put beers in our hands and started to show us around, introducing us to their friends, family and other competitors.

Cook-offs are both a serious business and big community events it seems. Some competitors come with the aim of winning points, these accrue across many events and can eventually lead to cash prizes in the tens of thousands of dollars. Others take part for the fun of it. A weekend of cooking great food, drinking gallons of beer, and socialising with friends and family, who wouldn’t want to do that?!

Our cook-off was being run by the Rosenberg Masonic Lodge (#881). For the last 14 years they’ve held the event to raise funds to provide college (a.k.a. university) scholarships to students from local schools. There looked to be about 30-40 teams competing and, as we got introduced to more and more people, it was clear it every team had a connection to the Lodge and it was really just one big family.

We met Andy who immediately welcomed us with some large measures of Russian Standard Gold and then we found our surrogate team for the weekend, 5 lads collectively known as Rub N’ Tug, who were equally keen to welcome us with food and more beer!

This cook off had 5 categories to compete in: beans, fajitas, chicken, ribs, and of course brisket. Fajitas were the only category being judged on the day we’d arrived and we jumped at the chance to help judge when invited to.

We tasted and graded 17-18 entries of fajita meat in quick succession. The rules stipulated that entries could only contain the fajita meat, no tortilla, no garnish, and though it was top notch beef we were eating, it was a bit strange without the rest of the fajita components wrapped around it. Still, it was much better than anything we’d cooked on our little propane stove in the last few weeks.

As a storm rolled in and night fell, Rub N’ Tug started to prep their briskets for entry the next day. They’d start smoking them at midnight, or maybe an hour or two later, depending on the weight, and take shifts to stoke the fire and keep the temperature up in the smoker throughout the night.

Leaving the boys to drink the night away we headed to bed. Beans, chicken, ribs, brisket and no doubt a copious amount of beer was in store for tomorrow, we couldn’t wait!