Page 17 - Barbecue News DEC 2020 Digital Issue

He knows
enough teams
and has been in
this business
long enough to
make sure he is
treating a com-
peting team
fairly, and hon-
estly, when he
judges their en-
tries. I have al-
ways respected
and admired him
for how he han-
dles his judging
responsibilities. Kevin and I judged Smoke on the Square in Pen- sacola, on St Patrick’s Day, several years ago, and our donning of the green grew as the day wore on. (photo) We had a ball. Kevin’s Brother, Steve, lives in Colorado, and he regularly judges contests with his brother in Frisco, Colorado. He has judged the Jack Daniels Invitational where he further widened his circle of celebrities. His family of BBQ contacts continues to grow. When he judges a contest, I see him seeking out and visiting with cook teams from all around the country. He continues to expand his BBQ family and he knows many of the top teams in KCBS, has in- terviewed many of them, and will continue to interview even more in the future. He has expanded BBQBeat to include a few Livestreams where he now includes video to supplement his long- standing audio podcasts. He hasn’t done a lot with livestream and continues to focus on the podcasts, but finds the video efforts in- teresting and challenging. Another quality trait Kevin shared with me is that he never goes into an interview blind. He researches his subject, learns as much about them as he can, and strives to never make his program sound like an interview. Most of his folks have already been interviewed numerous times by others. He wants BBQBeat to be different, and interesting, and always does his homework before, to be sure that is what comes out in the end.
One of his more recent and interesting livestreams was with Kevin Edge, who resides in Slough, just outside London. The Brits seem to have an image of plain foods with few seasonings and not a lot of taste. Kevin says that couldn’t be further from the truth. I watched this podcast and was absolutely amazed at what the Eng- lish Kevin was coming up with. In recent years there has been an explosion of BBQ interest in England, reflected in BBQ stores, competitions, products and more. One of his creations was an ab- solutely stunning hamburger, shown on the livestream, not what I expected to see coming from London. Another interesting subject for Kevin was Dan Whitaker, from Portsmouth. He has developed 195 dishes from countries all over the world and these are BBQ dishes, with unique and interesting flavor profiles. Dan is known in the BBQ world as Elky, for his team name Smokin Elk. Some re- ally interesting creations. BBQBeat has another interesting pod- cast with Dag Odegaard and his Texas wife Angela Taliaferro and their BBQ Shop in Norway. Tomaso Castiglioni and his team BBQ4All Defenders brough the Italian perspective to BBQBeat. Then Ben Arnot provided a very interesting podcast from the Gold Coast of Australia and reflection on his team, Smoking Hot Con- fessions. A recent livestream that I particularly enjoyed reviewed BBQ in Brazil. Brent Little, a Memphis resident, lived in Sao Paulo for a while and brought his BBQ expertise with him. He met and joined up with Bruno Panhoca and Adriano Pedro to first learn Brazilian BBQ and then to introduce them to the Memphis style
DECEMBER 2020
BBQ. These gentle- men then came and competed in Memphis in May. He has further pur- sued the Texas style BBQ, in a lot of depth. Certainly, a lot of interest in the Memphis style, the KC style, and the Carolinas. So nothing in BBQ is outside of his sights, and he con- tinues to keep
coming up with interesting and entertaining programs on the BBQBeat.
Kevin is also a strong supporter of Operation BBQ Relief, an or- ganization that goes to areas that have experienced a tragedy, usually weather related. They provide BBQ meals for the front line folks, working to restore these communities after a tragedy. He has a long time friendship with Alan Nichols (photo), who ably represents them at competition BBQ events. I can’t emphasize how much good this organization does, not only for BBQ, but for people that have experienced tragedy and need all the help we can give them. If you haven’t experienced BBQBeat in either the normal podcast form, or the less frequent livestream, I highly rec- ommend that you join this group and benefit from these very high quality programs.
Honored to be official cutlery of
www.GunterWilhelm.com
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