Fiesta in San Antonio is a huge celebration. It is 100 different events over 11 days in late April every year. One of the annual events is the Culture Fest Rib Cook Off hosted by St. Philip’s College. I had entered a few years ago and really enjoyed myself with a 3rd place finish. It took very little convincing to get Bar Cross to enter it this year. We decided to enter both beef and pork ribs and to sell plates. I made a run to Restaurant Depot and picked up 30 slabs of spare ribs and six slabs of beef. We usually never cook beef ribs so we practice on a few racks prior to the cook off and came up with what we would be a good recipe. We have been working on some new recipes so we decided to enter two teams, Bar Cross and Bar Cross Too. We got to St Philip’s around 3:30 and started the fires. The pit was warmed up and cruising about 250º so we loaded up the pit with 30 slabs of pork and 6 slabs of beef that had already been rubbed the day before. About 10:45 we turned in our competition ribs. Team 1 turned in our sweet pork rib recipe and some spicy beef ribs. Team 2 turned in some spicy pork ribs and sweet beef ribs. Soon as we turned in we started selling plates. $5 would get you potato salad, borracho beans and a nice juicy rib. We had a good line of people buying plates when we were called for the awards ceremony. We were busy and did not go so they sent for us again. This time my cousin Fernando went to represent our team. The rest of us continued selling plates. in about 15 minutes we hear Fernando calling. We spot him coming through the crowd with his arms full of trophies. He yells out “We Won It All”. He was not kidding. We won 1st place beef ribs, 1st and 3rd place pork ribs and the Student Choice Award. Not a bad day. From the time we were announced as the winners we had people in our line until 1:30 when we ran out of ribs. Then we started selling sausage plates until they were all gone. So by 3:00 we had won every 1st place and sold out of food. Also we had a chance to try out the pit since we had moved it to the new trailer and made a few changes. It all worked out and we had a great time. St Philip’s did an excellent job hosting the event. We got to meet many of the Fiesta dignitaries, the president of Fiesta, the President and some of the deans from St. Philip’s and King El Rey Feo. We also wound up on TV here in San Antonio. WOAI TV 4 came by for a live shot for their morning show, and David Sears from KSAT 12 dropped in and tried some ribs while filming the trophies. It was great fun for us and we made good money selling plates, we just did not bring enough. But next year we will know and we will bring twice as many ribs.
Team Bar Cross BBQ
Pappy and I slicing ribs
The new trailer
Texas Style Cuisine 