Each year, thousands of amateur cooks put their outdoor cooking skills to the test. They vie for cash, trophies and bragging rights at various barbecue and grilling contests held across the country.

Once confined to the backyard, barbecue (low and slow cooking) and grilling (fast and hot) are now serious business with contests such as Kansas City’s American Royal, attracting more than 500 teams and offering in excess of $50,000 in prize money.

So what sets a grand champion apart from the rest of the pack? Judging criteria varies depending on sanctioning body. Guidelines established by the Kansas City Barbecue Society rate meat on taste, tenderness and appearance. Over two days of smoking, cooks will season, inject and slow cook each of four categories — brisket, pork shoulder, chicken and pork ribs. Meats are then presented to judges in “blind” boxes, each 30 minutes apart, to be hyper-analyzed by a table of certified judges.

And while the actual judging of four categories is complete in two hours, from a competitors’ standpoint the entire process is much longer.

Before even arriving at one’s first contest, competitors need to lock down the essentials — everything from canopies to tables to wash tubs. Several hits to the bank account later, you’re ready to roll. Or are you? You’ll also need to secure perishables and consumables for team members, including water, beer, sodas, steaks for dinner and so on. Next up is the selection of one’s competition meat. On average, teams cook two to four briskets, 16 pieces of chicken (generally thighs), two to four pork butts and four to six racks of pork ribs.

From that smoky smorgasbord, competitors will only turn in the best six portions of each type of meat. When judged, the differences between those six portions and those of another team can be slight, so picking the proper meat from the start can often be the deciding factor between a Grand Champion and an also-ran. The variables are numerous: breed, grade, dry aging or wet aging, weight, flats versus full packers…and that’s just the brisket.

Then contest weekend arrives. Since briskets and pork shoulders will cook for 16 hours or more, teams generally arrive early the day before entries are turned over to the judges. Canopies are set up, mobile kitchens are organized and the prep work begins.

All of the meat must be trimmed of excess fat and to uniform thicknesses, then injected or marinated in top-secret concoctions and rubbed down with special blends of barbecue seasoning before going to the smokers for a slow, smoky overnight cook.

Between the time the meat goes on and the boxes are turned in for judging, any number of things can go wrong. Cooking day is spent anguishing over spikes in cooking temperatures, dealing with sudden bursts of wind and rain, meat refusing to reach temperature fast enough and other unforeseen issues. But in the end it is out of your hands and into the hands of the judges.

Competitors pack up their equipment and head to the awards ceremony to see if all of the hard work was worth it. Sometimes the drive home is spent reveling in victory and other times it’s spent complaining about what went wrong and swearing to never compete again (only to decide the following week to give it one more shot!).

This, for better or worst, is my world — the world of competition barbecue.

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This post originally appeared in the September issue of Foodie News. It was written by Clint Cantwell, founder of Smoke In Da Eye, 2008 New York State barbecue champions. Cantwell is creator of the Web sites smokeindaeye.com and aBBQnation.com. He is on Twitter @SmokeInDaEye.

Olive oil has manifested itself in everything from money to medicine. Its first recorded mention was by Hippocrates, who called it “the great therapeutic." And for more than 6,000 years, the nutritional, aesthetic and medicinal benefits of olive oil have been recognized by the people of the Mediterranean, where 99 percent of all olive oil is produced. Recent research has now provided evidence that a diet rich in olive oil can help sustain human metabolism and keep a constant level of vitamin E in our bodies.

In the U.S., olive oil consumption has increased in popularity. Once considered a “specialty food,” olive oil is pouring into households across the nation – reaching more than $1.4 billion in sales in 2007. What’s more, 70 percent of households use the product. As olive oil consumption rates increase, the flavorful fruit has turned up in a host of unlikely places. From popcorn to potato chips, even French fries, these unique pairings have provided healthful and innovative products consumers can’t seem to resist.

Olive oil’s most probable origin is Ancient Greece. Today there are more than 1,000 olive varieties that exist in the world, with approximately 25 percent residing in Spain. Olive trees begin producing fruit at five or 10 years of age and can live up to 1,500 years. The juice is squeezed from the olive and becomes a paste. The oil is then extracted from that paste using a hydraulic press. It takes approximately 10 pounds of olives to produce just one quart of oil!

The grade of the olive oil is based on extraction method and a variety of attributes, including chemical composition, acidity and flavor. Virgin, for example, means the oil was extracted by physical means only, has an acidity level of less than 2 percent and is judged to have a good taste.

This past year, Land O’Lakes joined the olive oil trend, introducing Butter with Olive Oil – an all-natural butter blend with 45 percent less saturated fat and 50 percent less cholesterol and per serving compared to traditional butter. What’s more, it contains zero grams of trans fat. Through our research, we found that olive oil combines deliciously with the great taste of butter, creating a product that is more spreadable and better for consumers.

It is quite obvious that Americans have added olive oil to their cooking repertoire, but until now, they haven’t been able to take advantage of its benefits when sautéing vegetables, preparing a meal or simply spreading butter on toast. The introduction of this new product has revamped this popular dairy delight’s hallowed place in the American kitchen—making butter a unique and innovative pairing with a worldwide dietary staple.

– This post was written by Peggy Ellingson, Vice President, Super Spreads and Marketing Research for Land O'Lakes, Inc. It was published as a guest column in the September 2009 issue of Foodie News.

Link: http://events.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/dining/reviews/26rest.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Departing New York Times Restaurant Critic Frank Bruni offers great tips for foodies in his last column that appears today in the publication. Here are his tips on what to order from a menu:

"Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.

"Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.

"Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

"Choose among the remaining dishes."

Growth in sales of private-label food products at the expense of name brands is a trend that’s been strong for a few years and continues to gain momentum. Where organics are concerned, the story is slightly different, as the market remains less developed.

There’s little mystery behind private-label organic foods. Lower-cost, private-label organic products allow consumers on stretched budgets to continue buying essentially the same foods they’ve been purchasing for less cash. At right is a look at how this trend is playing out.

+10 percent
Growth in private-label food sales (all types) from 2007 to 2008.

1,800
Number of U.S. private-label foods introduced in the past year.

312
Number of foods sold under retailer Supervalu’s Wild Harvest organic brand, up from 150 about 6 months ago.

$2.99
Retail price for a 16 oz. jar of private-label organic peanut butter at Newflower Market in Tucson, Ariz. At the same store, name brand organic peanut butter retails for $4.79 per jar, about the same as conventional peanut butter.

$1.1 billion
Overall value of organic private-label foods sales during the past year. That’s up 34 percent.

The lynchpin of the famed regional cuisine in Maui, Hawaii, is fresh, local produce, fish, meat and eggs. It is this lush agricultural bounty and the cultural history of Hawaii that have been celebrated by local chefs paired with local farmers, ranchers and fishermen at the Taste Education Tent at the Maui County Agricultural Festival for the past two years.

Taste Education events, coordinated by Maui County Farm Bureau members, have proven to be a smashing success and planning already is under way for additional activities in 2010, according to Warren Watanabe, executive director.

“Events like Taste Education help farmers by providing diversity in their overall marketing strategy (direct, retail, restaurants), assuring business success and demonstrating to consumers the variety and quality of local ag products,” Watanabe, himself a farmer, told Foodie News.

At each Taste Education event, the focus is placed firmly on increasing consumer appreciation for the true flavors of food and for those who produce it. Attendees are encouraged to take their time visiting tasting stations where they meet chefs and producers who serve samples of palate-pleasing foods and beverages that feature Hawaii’s canoe crops (breadfruit, taro, sweet potato), as well as carefully prepared local fish, beef, lamb, eggs, fruits and veggies.

Peter Merriman, chef/owner of acclaimed restaurants on two islands, including Merriman’s Kapalua, helped Watanabe and the Maui County Farm Bureau members organize the inaugural Taste Education event. A creative and award-winning chef in Hawaii, Merriman is revered as a pioneer in developing Hawaii’s regional cuisine. And he continues to work tirelessly to raise awareness of local agriculture and “shorten the distance between table and farm.”

Blessed with numerous climates, Maui soil can grow just about any fruit or vegetable, at least somewhere. And farmers on Maui are fortunate in that they do not have to contend with severe snowstorms or frozen soil. But farming on Maui does pose other challenges, as many island crops yield in abundance only during certain seasons.

Encouraging consumers to eat what is in season and what is grown locally is clearly a heartfelt mission for Watanabe. “Agriculture depends on the pleasure of food. Every day is a good food day on Maui!” he said.