LAKE PLACID - Today will be the third and final day of barbecue and bands at the Olympic Oval.
The Lake Placid I Love Barbecue Festival, now in its sixth year, will feature a performance by the Emmy-award-winning zydeco musician Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural Jr. from 5 to 6:30 p.m. today. Musicians Lowell Bailey, Split Rock, Big Slyde and Uncle Jam are playing at 1, 2, 3, and 4 p.m. respectively.
Today will also feature the Kansas City Barbecue Society competition and several awards ceremonies. There were already a number of competitions, musical performances and events Saturday and Sunday.
Admission is $6, and this includes entry and seeing the bands; food costs extra. Proceeds benefit the Thomas Shipman Youth Center. Children under 10 are let in free.
The total number of teams was down a bit this year - 35 as opposed to 41 in 2010 - but the crowd looked about as thick to the casual observer as it was last year, when 7,000 people came over the festival's three days, according to Dmitry Feld, the festival's founder and organizer, and president of the Youth Center board.
The festival attracts teams from as far away as Georgia and Illinois, plus two teams from Ontario, Canada this year. The majority are from New England and upstate New York.
"I just like doing this," said Mark Kenney, pit master of the team NY Phat Daddy's. "Lots of good people in this crowd."
Kenney has been coming to the Lake Placid festival since it started six years ago and has entered all but the first one. One of the reasons he comes, he said, is to spend time with his family, who usually accompany him; they couldn't come this year due to work, however.
Feld said he emails the year's participants in August, thanking them for attending and asking that they come back. Kenney said he sees some repeats every year, but also new faces.
"You see a lot of the same people, but no, not always," Kenney said. "You meet different people every time."
Kenney first got interested in barbecue due to a neighbor in Fairfield, in Herkimer County where he lives. He came with Kyle Fuller, a freshman at Mohawk Valley Community College who is studying culinary arts. Fuller is a friend of Kenney's daughter and came for the opportunity to compete in the I Love Barbecue Junior World Championship.
The nine competing teams each entered a chicken, steak and ribs dish, with one starch and one vegetable side, plus a dessert. The competition was Sunday afternoon, and the winner, who hadn't been announced as of press time, will receive a scholarship to study culinary arts at Paul Smith's College. A community group that Kenney founded sponsored Foley and paid for his trip.
The High Peaks Ford Midnight Grilling Bash, one of the adult categories, was Saturday. This competition is according to New England Barbecue Society rules, and each competitor must make a steak, a chicken, a "sausage fatty" (stuffed sausage) and a pizza dish. The contest rules are precise - for example, the components of the sauce on the steak cannot be thicker than an eighth of an inch.
Fourteen teams entered; the overall winner was I Que of Essex Junction, Vt., according to Feld. Kenney came in 10th with the pizza, ninth with the sausage, third with the steak and first with the chicken.
The Kansas City Barbecue Society competitions are today. Competitors will each have to cook a pork butt/shoulder, chicken, ribs and beef brisket entry.
Not everyone enters all of the cooking events, due to the expense, but Kenney said he does, since he only visits two other barbecue festivals every year. As well as Lake Placid's, he goes to the Roc City Rib Fest in Rochester, and the Hudson Valley Rib Fest in New Paltz.
Kenney said he would like to go to more festivals, but costs such as the meat, sauces, travel expenses and maintaining his equipment, limit how many he can attend.
"If I start making a little money, I'll do some more," Kenney said.
Kenney is a native of Hope Valley, R.I. He moved to New York after 20 years in the Army and works for the Herkimer County highway department.
Saturday was hot and sunny. Sunday started out overcast, but it only rained a bit, and the afternoon was sunny and felt even hotter than Saturday.
Some years, the weather hasn't been as cooperative as it was this year. Kenney recalled 2007, when he had a homemade grill consisting of a 300-gallon drum with a fire box welded onto it. It was rainy and cold, and he had to keep the door open to keep the fire going. It wouldn't get about 170 degrees.
"That's the competition, though," Kenney said. "Everybody else was doing it, too."
Kenney has two grills now, a pellet smoker and a charcoal grill. Competitors are only allowed to use wood or wood products in their grilling; propane is allowed to start the grill but has to be shut off as soon as it's going.
A good way to practice and get better, Kenney said, is to have people try what you cook and, if possible, not let them know you cooked it.
"When I first started, I thought everything I cooked tasted great," Kenney said. "But I'm not cooking for me; I'm cooking for six judges up there."
For more information and a complete schedule of activities, visit www.ilbbqf.com.
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Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
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(Editor's note: Kyle Fuller's last name has been corrected.)
