Last night, two thirds of Team Eatapedia had the great fortune to be able to support our friends, and attend DivaQ's World Championship BBQ Fundraiser at The Charlotte Room in downtown Toronto. Unfortunately, Mike Hynes could not get away from work, so Paul Firlotte and I hit the road early on Saturday.
We figured that since we were in the area, we would have to hit the "World's Largest BBQ Store", Ontario Gas & BBQ. We hit Ontario Gas at about 11:00, and spent a good hour wandering and lusting over all the awesome cookers. Horizons, Traegers, Webers, Kamado, Egg...all the big players had a presence...it was a pretty cool experience. "The Charcoal Room" was pretty impressive, and we managed to snag a couple of bags of charcoal, Firlotte bought some tools, and I bought some "Butt Rub". Next, we spent 90 minutes driving 20 KM to get to our hotel, the Hyatt Regency on King. Turns out that with TIFF and a bunch of other events going on this weekend, well, traffic sucked. But, it was good, we had tons of time, and has a couple of hours to kill anyways.
So, we get to the party at about 5:00 and we were playing pool (Firlotte pwned me all night) and enjoying local libations within minutes. First thing we notice, Ted Reader is also there, chatting with his old friend, Danielle Dimovski, AKA, DivaQ). Cool! Unfortunately, he wasn't around for long, so didn't get the chance to suck up, I mean, say "Hello!" to him. Vlado was busy working the event, so we didn't want to be a pain...afterall, the more we leave him alone, the hurrier we eat! We briefly considered setting up a perimeter to ensure no one else slowed him down either. Danielle was free to gab and we took full advantage. It's always great to talk with Danielle, she puts up with our humour and can go toe-to-toe with the best of them. Perhaps she has just been desensitized after spending so much time with those Pork Ninjas, Jason Rees and Jamie Parisi. ;-) Together, as Team DivaQ, they will be attending the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbeque, and the fundraiser was meant to help cover some of the many costs associated with hauling that much gear and so many bodies to Lynchburg, TN.
Soon enough though, the grub was served. Prime rib, pulled pork, ribs, chicken legs & thighs, ABTs, mac & cheese, carrot slaw, beans. Now, you know what goes perfectly with a line-up like that? Four words: All. You. Can. Eat. It was incredible. The pork was the Omega 3 fantastic pork from Willowgrove Hill Farms. The pulled pork was simply the best I have ever had. The pork was seasoned to perfection, and if my pants hadn't started complaining, I'd still be eating it. Dessert was Chocolate-Covered Pig Candy and brownies...there may have been something else, but I blacked out from pork overload from 7:00 - 7:03, so I don't remember.
Insert more pool here, and mingling with the many guests, trying not to get kicked out, basically. We met a wide range of great people, and everyone was out for a great time. There was a silent auction, and Firlotte and I ended up winning all kinds of stuff there, and as door prizes. DivaQ swag, some great rubs from Burnt Finger BBQ, Big Sid's BBQ, and 17th St, BBQ. How about an autographed edition of "BBQ Makes Everything Better", signed by Aaron Chronister and Jason Day, authors and team-mates of Professional cook team, "Burnt Finger BBQ". Some 17th St BBQ rubs. Firlotte got an armload of stuff too, so yeah, we basically cleaned up.
All in all, we had a great time! We met some many wonderful people, it's hard to name them all (the beer did not help). Wilfred Reinke, aka "The Oshawa Ogre" and his friend, Joe Simeunovich were especially memorable. A lot of solid BBQ experience between these two fellows, and I regretted not having hooked up with them sooner. Check out Fred's blog, it's a great, and weirdly familiar, read. :-) Hanging out and getting whupped at pool by the Pork Ninjas was a great time...those guys are mental and made us laugh petty hard. We met 3 of their friends, Jason, Tall Polite Guy and That Girl who Was With Jason. Sorry their names didn't stick, but they were also very nice and fun to hang with. There was also That Nice Couple Who Ate While We Played Pool And Annoyed Them. Very nice folk, I think they were working the door when we got there. Jessie, the girl who sold us about $400 worth of 50/50 tickets...no wonder we won so much. Thanks to everyone there, the night was a huge success! Special thanks to Danielle and her team, for going out of their way to make us feel like welcome, and for putting on one helluva party!
The Oshawa Ogre's post about the Fundraiser
DivaQ's post about the Fundraiser
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