This episode features an insightful discussion on the evolution of barbecue competitions, prominently led by our esteemed guest, Ray Lampe, also known as Dr. Barbecue. We delve into the notable transformations within the realm of competitive barbecue, emphasizing how these changes have influenced both techniques and the overall culinary landscape. Ray shares his extensive experience, recounting the inception of barbecue contests and the pivotal shifts he has witnessed over the decades, particularly in terms of meat selection and preparation methods. The conversation also touches upon the increasing emphasis on high-quality ingredients and the financial investments required to compete successfully in today's barbecue arena. Throughout this episode, we explore how the barbecue community continues to adapt and innovate, reflecting broader trends in culinary artistry.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. oregoncrab.org
2. heritagesteel.us
3. gunterwilhelm.com
4. jtbarbecuenation.com
5. paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Painted Hills Natural Beef
2. Weston Kia
3. Heritage Steel
4. Gunter Wilhelm
5. Smart Chicken
6. Snake River Farms
7. Compart
8. Dirac

It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.

Now, from the Turnito Burnett studios In Portland, here's J.T.

This is an encore.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the nation.

That's the barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with my co pilot here, Leanne Whippen, and the usual cast of suspects hanging around the studio here at the Turn It, Don't Burn it studios in Portland.

We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Beef the way nature intended.

Today we got a little music from you for you, I should say, not from you, unless you're a member of the Danish National Symphony, because I went with movie themes today.

But speaking of movie stars, we've got Ray Lampy.

Dr. Barbecue is with us today.

Ray's back on the show.

And if you're watching the video of this later on Broken Screen is a new handle for my co pilot, Leanne.

Her.

Her cat got busted and so did her laptop.

So we'll just leave it at that.

How's that?

Well, Ray, welcome to the show, bud.

Good to see you guys.

It's always a pleasure.

You, too.

Yeah, it's very good.

So I wanted to talk today, kind of start off with talking about barbecue competitions.

Ray, how have barbecue comps changed since you've become involved with them, which has been a number of years now, but they've.

They've.

I don't know if they've grown or they've gone backwards.

You got to tell us.

So what's going on with the comps?

Well, this summer will be 40 years since I did my first barbecue contest.

So I pretty.

I mean, that was pretty much the beginning of time.

So I really think I've seen all of it.

You know, it was.

It's interesting to me.

I said this to somebody over the weekend because I went out and cooked one this weekend for the first time in a long time.

And.

And I said to somebody, you know, back in the day, we were being the test pilots when I started.

You could.

Literally.

My first KCBS trophy is in my office here.

It wasn't chicken.

So you could cook a duck, you could cook a quail.

And I cooked turkey that day.

So, you know, so much of it, we were trying things out.

Gary Wells was a pretty good friend of mine, and Gary and Carolyn were trying to.

We didn't know, it was all so new.

You know, I remember when they made a rule about pork shoulder or pork butt.

And before that, it was pork.

You could have cooked pork tenderloin.

Now to cook off, guys could spread, could specify.

A contest I used to go to in Illinois, and I mean, I'm Talking the early 90s, he liked to cook bone in pork loin, so he made that category his thing, and that's what you had to cook if you went there.

But in other places, guys were cooking tenderloins and loins and shoulders and pork chops, and you name it, whatever you wanted.

So it's just.

It all had to get tightened up, and that was good.

It needed to happen.

But then it just kind of.

It took a bad turn from there.

For me, one of the things that happened, we used to cook all parts of the chicken then, you know, cook a whole chicken, cut it up, and put it in the box.

Well, somewhere along the way, we realized that, and I say we because there was a lot of us doing it.

We realized that thighs were a whole lot better choice because it was nice and juicy.

You really couldn't screw them up.

It was a nice, big, fat place to bite it on the side.

The judge knew where to bite it, so he didn't bite the pointy, dry end of a breast or something.

And things like that started to happen.

And little by little, the judges, without this being a rule or any kind of specification, started to catch on to that.

So if you did turn in a leg or a breast or something, I'm pretty sure the judges looked at it as though you didn't know what you were doing.

So this must be some rookie cook.

And.

And it's taken now a turn to the far worse, where the whole money muscle thing and all that, and, you know, it's really evolved to something that I don't see anybody out there anymore being a test pilot.

They're all doing what the other guy did.

It's more monkey see, monkey do.

I mean, you know, the defense of that is you go to a barbecue contest with the intention of winning, so you better do what gives you the best chance of winning, and that is not getting creative and.

And trying to do something out of the box.

You got to stay in the lane, and.

And that's what you do.

So it's amazing.

And, well, I could go on for an hour talking about the changes.

I've seen some good, some bad, but, man, it's evolved a long way, and, you know, I can't be mad about it.

And Leanne and I both have the same place in our lives.

I wouldn't be doing what I am today, which is a really fun life, if it wasn't for KCBS and barbecue contests becoming such a big deal.

It has, it has played right into my hand, so I can't be mad about it.

But there's sure a lot of things that have changed along the way.

Well, a couple of those things I wanted to touch on the changes in technique and if you will, style.

When you, and you mentioned this a couple of minutes ago, Ray, when you first started in you and you started cooking briskets, did you do the whole packer at that time?

Did you take the money muscle off?

I mean, now everything.

It's like orthopedic surgery to get.

You know what, that's a very good point.

That's.

I, that's a good analogy because there is a lot of separation of the muscles.

It's not the way it used to be.

People are separating the point from the flat and it's all to achieve, you know, the best possible product by temperature.

Obviously, you know, some pieces of meat take longer than others, but doesn't.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Ray.

When it was interesting, I did that thing.

So no, we, if we could get our hands on a packer brisket, they weren't that easy to come by back then.

Certainly not a big one.

But if you could get your hands on one, I mean, back in the day, guys would show up to cook offs with corned beefs because they didn't know any better and they couldn't find a real brisket yeah, we would never think of parting it out.

You might start at some point.

We started to trim them and, and take all the in between the two muscles kind of thing out and, and you know, kind of leave it together.

And now then guys did start to split them or split them part of the way through the cook.

But now they all do this thing and I've seen it online and I tried to emulate it this weekend where you trim basically all the fat off.

I, when I taught a lot of classes when I was still winning, I was really the first guy that was still winning contests and teaching tell all classes.

The only other guy who was doing it was Paul.

Kirk and Paul hadn't been winning for a while.

So I would tell everybody, listen, this little center of the brisket right here, this part, that's where your six to eight slices are going to come from.

You don't really have to worry about the whole rest of that 15 pound brisket.

Well now this thing has evolved to where they just basically grind up the whole rest of it and only, they only cook that little part out of the middle.

And, and I tried to do that this weekend and I made a mess of it.

And I respect them for doing it because I don't know how to cook a brisket with all the fat thrown in the garbage can.

I, I like to have that fat hanging on there.

Leanne was giving me a hard time before it and she was right because it, it sucked.

I shouldn't have done that.

So the original rule of, of why pork was four or four and a half or around five or whatever the rule originally was was because guys would literally come to town and I did it and I gave guys a ride to the store and buy their pork butt at the supermarket, whatever supermarket was in town.

That just how.

That's what we did.

We didn't have.

You couldn't order your pork for $100 from some guy.

You went to the grocery store and got it and, and basically they would never have a big nine pound butt in there.

It would have like they had cut some pork steaks off of it.

So four or five pounds was basically what you could find at the grocery store.

It's funny to say that now, but literally I saw that happen many times.

Brisket.

You usually had to bring your brisket with you because weren't sure you could get one.

There's a great story about Byron Chisholm.

I don't know if you ever have Byron on.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Byron went to cook off in Ireland or England or Denmark or somewhere over there in Europe and he took a frozen brisket in his suitcase from, from Florida because he wasn't sure if he could get one when he wanted over there.

And he actually flew over there with the thing in his suitc.

Well, I've talked to a lot of people on this show and when, you know, it's interesting to me because now they say, well, you know, pick a category, it doesn't matter.

But such and such a company sends me 10 and I pick out the two I want or the three I want.

And I don't know what they do with the rest of them, but this has all gotten so specific and so meet the standard of the individual that I find it pretty, pretty fascinating in one way.

But in another way I think, like if people are just starting, they probably.

Can'T do that well, that's for sure.

And they don't really know what to do.

One thing you said there is the standard of the individual.

I think it's the standard of whatever somehow we decided was the correct thing.

You know, it's not.

And then they all just emulate it.

I, I my chicken this week, I cooked the heck out of it in butter, basically.

You know, just poached chicken thighs like you're supposed to do.

And I thought it was pretty good.

And I got one guy wrote me a comment card that the skin was not bite through.

And I don't know, the one I ate sure was, but, but whatever.

My true skin is one of these things that was made up by judges.

This is not in the rule book by any stretch.

When you smoke a piece of chicken, you know what happens.

The skin gets all chewy.

Right.

You know, I don't necessarily eat it, but I'm not mad at the cook and I don't think he made a mistake because a piece of smoked chicken is rubbery skin.

We've, you know, and that's the kind of thing that became the standard somehow some way.

And it's unfortunate because it wasn't decided by cooks, it wasn't decided by the board, it wasn't decided by anybody, you know, any kind of rules committee or anything.

It just became the judges wanting to be, I always joke, you know, you want to be a big shot barbecue person, well, buy a cooker.

Don't, don't take the judging class and start showing up and talking about what a big shot you are.

Get you a cooker and get out there and cook some barbecue and, you know, make a name for yourself that way.

But that's just not how it works these days, the combination of the two.

The cooks appreciate it because they want to meet that standard that the judges expect.

I just wish it would have either been rewarded creativity more, which is out the window, or we would have stopped it and said, no, this isn't the rate.

The way this works, you can do it however you want.

You shouldn't judged down if the skin is not bite through, for example.

But, you know, here we are.

We're way too far past.

We're going to take a break here on Barbecue Nation.

We're going to be back with Dr. Barbecue, Ray Lampe and Ms. Leanne Whippen and myself right after this.

Ready for a new ride.

Choose from over a thousand vehicles at Westin Kia.

Like a new Kia Sportage, Soul Forte, K4 Sorento Telluride or Carnival Gas electric or hybrid, Oregon's all time leader in Kia sales.

Reported by K Corp.

Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.

I want to tell you about something really cool.

Heritage steel cookware.

I just got mine.

I do a lot of cooking and it's got five ply construction.

Stay cool handles.

It's titanium strengthened.

It's got all the great stuff.

Just go to HeritageSteel us and find out more.

You'll it.

I guarantee it.

This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation on JT Today, we're talking with Ray Lampy and of course, Leanne is.

If you're watching the video, you won't see Leanne, but you will hear her golden voice here.

Get a word in on me.

I seem to be dominating the conversation.

I'll try.

Which is.

It's nice, though.

I mean, everything that you're saying is very true.

And, and we kind of come from the same period of barbecue, so I can relate to it heavily.

Right.

These days, leanne lives about 20 minutes for me and we get to hang out all the time.

Yeah, it's great.

I see the pictures and I've quoted, I've tweeted on them a couple like, you guys are having too much fun together and all that stuff.

A couple things here, little business things we have to take care of.

We are on Facebook, of course, and Twitter and literally 30 other platforms.

And if you want to email us, you can just do jtbarbecunation jt.com and that, or you can send it.

Leanne's got same one, but her says Leanne, not jt, of course.

So anyway, if you want to ask us questions, you can just go to the website barbecue nation, jt.com and there's a thing there.

You can send us a question or a comment, and if we like you, we might answer it.

If we don't like you, so be it.

I want to talk about the quality of the products used.

You said in the last segment, Ray, that, you know, you used to go get your pork butts at the grocery store, and yet that I don't, I don't compete in barbecue.

I've judged some.

I've competed in other cooking stuff, but I spent a lot of my life competing in another industry.

So for the last 20 years, since I've been doing this stuff, I don't.

I just never felt the urge to, to compete.

But the, the quality I'm looking at, these guys, I'm having them on the show and they're spending 250$300 on a Wagyu brisket or whatever it is, and they've got specialty pork coming in.

They one guy last year, and I'm going to say this wrong, I was talking to him, but he had happy chickens or something, some name like that.

They identified with the chickens and it all had to be with free range and all that kind of crap.

Was it smart chicken?

Smart chickens.

And I, my comment was, I never knew a smart chicken.

I grew up on a farm and we didn't have smart chickens, so it was something new to me.

But I'd like to get your take and Leanne's take on the quality of products that it really requires to compete these days.

Go ahead, Leanne.

You talk for a while.

All right, well, brisket, it's a given.

You've got to go with primer wagyu.

I mean, you have to make that investment.

A lot of people can't afford to do two.

So the only good thing about it is you focus on one and you don't lose your focus with a couple pieces of meat.

You know, pork.

I'm a huge compart, you know, Dirac fan, of course, but yeah, and you'll notice a lot of these brands on social media with all the teams that are winning are using the same brands.

And, and you have to, if you're going to win.

And I believe that in cooking, in just general, you have to start with a good piece of meat.

So I, I don't see anything wrong with it.

Yeah, no, I agree with all of that.

The, the problem with brisket is, like, for the restaurant, we tried some high end wagyu brisket, and then we had some certified Angus beef, which is just good quality choice beef.

And we, we didn't like the wagyu for a normal brisket, you know, for eating brisket, because the whole point of brisket is it's this tough cut with all the collagen, and if you cook it right and break it down, it's got this really amazing texture.

Wagyu's not like that.

It's got all that marbling in there.

So it's, you just got to cook a little different.

I mean, I, I, I'm not saying it's wrong for the competition, but it's, you know, here's a recurring theme.

None of this is actually real barbecue, you know, real barbecue.

The whole point was we get the crappy piece of meat that nobody else wanted and we turn it into something good.

Well, right.

Not a $250 Wagyu brisket is not that.

Although I'll tell you this, it goes back a long time ago.

Chris Lilly and I were going out to Seattle to Rick Nog was a guy who.

Rick was a big supporter of barbecue out there.

And Rick was having a party at his house for the weekend and he invited me and Chris Lilly to go out there and do some demos and, and cook.

And then we could cook in the contest while we were there.

And they were just starting to get things from Snake River Farms.

This is probably 15, close to 20 years ago.

And they said, we'll get you guys brisket.

I was cooking the briskets and Chris was cooking pork shoulder.

We'll get you that stuff.

And it was cheap, I believe we paid 99 cents a pound for the brisket.

The Snake river farm brisket and the shoulder I think was free.

And when it showed up, the brisket would look like one of those Africa stones that the world's strongest men carry was this gigantic thing.

And I had a whittle on it for a long time to get it down to a regular sized brisket because they didn't really know what to do with it.

All the money at that time was in the loins and a certain amount of ground and they just didn't know what to do with the rest of those high dollar cows.

And the same with the pork.

They cut the middle out and they were sending them to Japan.

Those, those like seven bone pork loin roasts.

And, and the belly probably had some value in the ham, but the front shoulder they had nothing to do with.

So literally, Chris got the front quarter of the hall of the hog.

It had like three ribs on it.

We were joking.

Oh my God.

You were calling it the antelope shoulder because it had the whole.

Didn't have a foot, but it had a whole arm on it.

And Chris had to spe trimming this thing down to be a regular sized pork shoulder.

He left it like a Memphis style shoulder.

But I mean, we laughed like crazy.

But that, that was the state of it at that point.

Think about that.

I mean, you know, when the shoulder was free and the brisket was 99 cents a pound.

Now those two pieces, if you ordered that stuff up from Snake river now, it would look a whole lot better when it showed up.

Yeah, but it would cost you a whole lot of money.

So, you know, the evolution has just been crazy.

I and God bless them for marketing it properly and the cooks for figuring out how to cook it.

But buying that $300 brisket and injecting it with phosphates.

From a culinary point of view, that's just ridiculous.

I can tell you I'm lucky enough to spend a lot of time with some high end chefs in my life.

And when I try to explain to them.

I once had this conversation at the ACF conference.

It was like the truth about real barbecue competition.

And they were all curious and the room was full and I started telling them what we were doing and they thought I was lying to them.

I was like, yeah, that's exactly what they do.

They buy a high end A9 brisket and pump the with phosphates.

And it's just ridiculous.

So, you know, that kind of thing is just kind of mind boggling to me.

And the other.

So we had some pork this weekend.

We ordered some fancy pork butts and they show up in our mark prime.

Well, if you know anything much about meat, you know, there's really no such thing.

I guess it's not illegal to call it that.

But if you know anything about meat, prime pork does not exist.

Pork.

Pork, you know, prime is a, is a designation that the USDA puts on beef, but they don't do it on pork.

But guys are buying it.

And I'm not saying it's not good.

The compart stuff is great.

I love it, but boy, it sure changes the game when you've got to buy.

I don't know how much meat.

Do you how much you spend on meat?

5, $600 for one contest.

You'll be able to do a whole contest for that, right?

We're gonna, we're gonna take a break.

We're gonna be back with Ray Lampy, Dr. Barbecue, the author of about 4,000 books, by the way.

We'll talk about those coming up.

And Ms. Leanne Whippen is with us today, although you can't see her.

And we'll be back here on the Nation on the USA Radio Network.

Hey, everybody, it's JT and I have eaten.

If you've ever looked at me, you know that.

But I have eaten seafood all over the world, and I can tell you there's no place better than here in Orlando, Oregon, and our Dungeness crab.

If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon Crab commission.

Check it out.

This is an encore.

Hey.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen.

Today we're talking with Dr. Barbecue Ray Lampe.

You are listening to this on the USA Radio networks, our new home there.

That's kind of cool.

We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Beef you can be proud to serve your friends and family.

That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.

And also David Malik and his crew up there at Gunter.

Wilhelm knives.

Great cost efficiency, balance.

I like them.

They fit my hand really good.

So check them out online@gunterwilhelm.com you covered this a little bit.

Ray and Leanne and I have talked about this.

The basic knowledge required to go to a barbecue competition today versus when you started.

It's a huge difference.

Like you said, you guys got together and you were cooking and you were kind of going along as you, as you did.

And I know it was brand new in those days so you're trying to figure stuff out.

But it's almost today and we've had people say this on the show, you know, if they don't show up with a, I used to say 25,000.

Now it's more like $40,000 pickup and a trailer and you know, $50,000 worth of smokers.

They, you know, you can't get through the door on some of them.

I don't think you've priced pickups lately, Jake.

I used, always used.

For me, 40k is not going to get you too far.

When you, especially when you look at these trailers guys have got it is something else.

I, well one of the things, just let's cut it right to this.

There was very few store bought cookers when I started.

The only guys that were making, building and selling cookers was Joe Davidson, Oklahoma Joe's and Dave Close and there was a couple other little guys around doing something but not much really.

You had to build your own cooker or find somebody to build it for you.

You know, it just wasn't a thing when now you walk through, cook off unless you.

There's I don't know if we saw any homemade cookers anywhere near us this weekend, Leanne.

It was all store bought cookers and beautiful pieces and they all work great and, but they're expensive too.

And I mean there's, there's just no such thing as, as you see a few homemade cookers but you don't see those guys up there collecting awards very often.

I will say there's a trend to barrel cookers right now which is a little bit more affordable.

Yeah but that went from building your own to there's a bunch of guys.

Guys now selling them and they're so nice.

We were admiring the ones right across from us this weekend.

They put those paint jobs on them.

I mean, no doubt even those things now are, are high end and fancy, but.

And that's not even starting on the.

The trailers.

It's just unbelievable.

I sold my trailer the other day and I had it at the cook off.

It's 14 by 7.

I had it built out the way I wanted.

It's a really nice trailer.

It's nothing.

It looks so out of place at this point compared to the other stuff at the Cook.

I mean, it doesn't have a bathroom, it doesn't have a shower, it doesn't have living quarters, doesn't have the cooker mounted on a deck.

I mean, I'm so.

It is in 13 years.

It completely obsolete.

Yeah, I've.

You know, we were doing a live radio thing a couple years ago and I was one of the guys out there doing stuff and this guy was selling trailers and he said, I want to show you this trailer.

He said, I think it would be great for your barbecue stuff.

And I said, well, listen, I don't compete.

And I'm just about wrapped up my catering stuff.

And it was like you said, you got in there, you had all these build outs.

He had a ramp and he had a deck.

You could put a hot tub on that damn deck and put a couple deck chairs and have a Mai tai if you wanted.

It was a phenomenal trailer, but I think, I think the asking price was 50 and it was a show special, you know, for that.

And I was like, you're out of my league, pal.

So.

But if I ever get back into it, I am going to buy one of those like a lot of them have where they're cooker and most of them, they're usually jambos, but they have other kinds of cookers on there as well.

But it's mounted on the trailer.

That's it.

It never moves.

So all you do is you roll up and you take a couple bungees off of it probably.

And.

And when you're done, you take it to the car wash and spray it down and go home.

No loading and unloading.

And yeah, it's.

I mean, that would be the way to go.

And it was so nice to see those things.

And they again, they got sleeping quarters in the front, a little kitchen area, a little place to sit around.

I mean, that one.

Did you see that big black one that was behind us?

Leanne?

Yeah, it was 40ft.

Yeah.

Three axles.

It was ridiculous.

I mean, but I'm.

They were very.

It looks like a NASCAR trailer.

Yeah, it did, exactly.

They were comfortable as could be at the cook off, that's for sure.

They have a Jacuzzi inside or something.

I mean, they had room.

Yeah, they did.

So I remember back, way back in the day, I went up to a cook off in Buffalo.

And speaking of Dave Close, if you've never interviewed Dave Close, you might wanna.

This is what someone used to say about Dave Close.

If you never talked to Dave Close, set aside a couple hours and dial him up because you'll enjoy talking to him.

But Dave, Dave was making money and selling cookers and just having some fun.

So Dave would rent a tent from the local place and rent a hot tub and then hire the girls from Hooters.

Oh yeah.

I mean, he didn't have the big trailer, but it was all on the ground.

But I mean, he would just.

Man, he would throw down.

That's how it was back then.

I always used to say we would show up at a cooler beer and a cooler of meat and drink the cooler of beer and try to cook the cooler of meat and see what happened.

And you know, boy, it sure has evolved past that.

Well, I think, I think one of the things too that you know, and Leanne's been part of this, you've been part of this as far as the television shows and showing the throwdowns with Bobby Flay and all those kinds of different things and Myron's pit masters and all that.

I think that really, really jump started the interest not just in competition, but backyard interest in barbecue.

This last couple of years up here in Oregon where I live, of course part of it was due to the pandemic and stuff, but it was hard to go to a store and find a good grill because they were sold out.

Ricky tick fast.

Now you could go to the big box stores and buy some cheapies and that's fine if that's all you wanted to do.

But it would be really hard to go find an upper level grill or smoker at some of these stores.

But there again, I think we stimulated it through television and of course radio.

That's my gig and all this stuff.

But sometimes I think people can walk in there and they say, well, this is our, our pro model and it's 5,000 bucks of whatever brand it is, you know, and there's a few of them out there and either the husband or the wife who watches the money aspect of the family is grabbing the other One by the elbow and taking them out the door.

You know, she's thinking 5 to 700.

Or he is.

You can still have great fun with barbecue and do that, but it's not, you might not get it done on a competitive level.

Yeah, but we're all like, we're like, you know, we're guys.

No matter what the hobby, if you, if you buy a boat, you know, a 16 footer with a 10 horse motor on it, are you done?

Is that your last boat?

And same thing with cookers, you know, it's just not, not how it works.

No, but it's good and I like to see that.

But.

Okay, here's a, here's kind of a fun question.

How many times have you heard, or read specifically heard, Ray, this is the best.

You fill in the blank that you've ever had.

You know, this is the best brisket you've ever had, this is the best pork, whatever it is.

But how many times have you heard that?

And then on the flip side of that, how many times have you said it's okay?

Well, I, yeah, I'm gonna be 65 this year and I still got even at this age.

I got a lot of living left to do, so.

Sure, I'm not going to declare anything the best I ever had.

You know, how will I ever judge that?

I always joke that, you know, when people ask, you know, what's your favorite thing to cook?

And I always say ribs, because not so much for me, but people are so passionate about barbecued ribs.

Everybody I know can tell you where they ate the best slab of ribs they ever had.

And, and for me, it was at Dreamland Barbecue in Tuscaloosa.

I was leaving town, I went there, I got a slab of ribs and I ate them driving down the highway, winging the bones out the window.

And it was the best labor ribs I ever had.

But everybody can tell you that.

And I always think, you know, when I drive by some funky barbecue restaurant, it's like, well, how can I make that life decision if I don't go in there and eat the ribs now?

I, what if that's the place and I just skipped on by it?

So I have a hard time with that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I've certainly heard it, but I, I never fall for that.

I think, you know, what about tomorrow?

They might find some better ones tomorrow.

That's true.

I gotta, I'll, I'll share a little quick personal story with you on that.

When I was doing the radio stuff in the, in the horse world, in the rodeo world.

Right.

I had done a series of shows in Texas, and I was judging, and we.

Then I had to go on to Oklahoma City to do a show, and my wife and daughter were with us, and we have family in Texas.

Okay.

So they take my daughter and the other kids and they go out to a restaurant and they order ribs or whatever they ordered.

And I know Mercedes, that's my daughter, she ordered some ribs because she loves ribs.

Still does.

And the manager came up, and I can tell you this.

This was at a place called Risky's.

Okay.

Goes up and he goes, well, little lady, he goes, how do you like those ribs?

And she's four.

All right.

She's four.

And she goes, they're okay, but they're not as good as my dad's.

And of course, I wasn't there, but when my wife told me that story, it made me really proud.

But I thought, that poor manager, he's probably never going to talk to a little kid again at that store.

Yeah, you got to be careful talking to little kids, you know, because they're.

They are going to give you the answer.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

They're.

They're straight away that.

I want to switch gears here a little bit.

Ray, on you has your menu at your restaurant, and that's a whole different show.

And I know you and Leanne, I could just say restaurant and let you guys talk for an hour and a half, but what changes have you made to that restaurant?

And are any of those changes affected by what you've done in the past or seeing now in the competition world?

Boy, I don't think any of it has to do with the competition world, Mike.

The one, Our main sauce, our original sauce, is a sauce.

I used to win a lot of contests back in the day, and now it wouldn't get a sniff.

People would think I was crazy for using it.

So that's about the only real connection.

We just salt and pepper our meat.

We got a big, big oiler, big commercial smoker.

Sure.

We just salt and pepper it and cook it.

So the changes have been all the peripheral stuff.

Barbecue really hasn't changed much at all.

I. I think, like you were saying, people want what they want, and they come into the restaurant and they, you know, if you're known for good ribs, they're gonna order your ribs.

If you've got good brisket or poor boy sandwiches or whatever it is, they're gonna go with it.

Okay, we'll come back.

I'll shut up.

Ready for a new ride?

Choose from over a thousand vehicles at Weston Kia.

Like a new Kia Sportage, Soul Forte K4 Sorento Telluride or Carnival Gas electric or hybrid.

Oregon's Altar Time leader in Kia sales.

Warn you KS and any other Kia dealer in Oregon reported by Korp.

Hey, everybody, J.T.

here.

I want to tell you about the Hammer Stall knives.

Hammer Stall combines German steel with beautiful and functioning designs.

They're part of the Heritage Steel group, which also does their pots and pans.

So go to heritagesteel us.

Check out the Hammer all knives.

If you're really into cooking, I think you're really going to like them.

This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm your host, JT along with Leanne Whippen and we're talking with Dr. Barbecue himself, Ray Lampy.

I've conray into sticking around for the after hours, which is always fun.

You can find us on all the platforms.

For the podcast version of the show, go to our website, barbecue nation jt.com there's some nice pictures of some great folks on there.

You can tag the last show on there and listen to it there, or you can go to one of the platforms or you can send Leanne and I messages on there.

So what do you think about that?

I wanted to get your take on this, Ray, and I want to get Leanne's take on it because you've both been so involved at so many levels in this world.

We talk about outdoor cooking and lifestyle.

That's kind of our one of our slug lines here from the show.

But what does that really mean to you?

And let's start with Leanne if we can.

And how has it changed over the years?

I feel like kitchens are moving almost.

People are investing more money in outdoor kitchens than indoor kitchens.

I think people really like the elements of being outside and having the convenience of it and the atmosphere.

So I think there's such a, you know, and obviously because of COVID there's been a huge boom on the outdoor kitchen front and I think it's great.

It's funny you bring this up because I was trying to buy an outdoor kitchen, couple of the components this morning, and the wait is 16 to 20 weeks.

Wow.

I think that tells us how well they're selling.

I'm sure they have all the same problems as everybody else, you know, getting hands on materials and getting labor and everything.

But still, that's certainly a sign of good business.

The big thing I think is, you know, Living here in Florida, you know, obviously it's warm, nice weather all year.

But in Chicago, I was the only guy that was grilling in the neighborhood back in the day, in the winter, you know, now I think it's pretty normal for people.

So I think the outdoor kitchens, I think in Chicago and in the suburbs and neighborhoods are probably not as elaborate as we go down here because we get to use them so much, but I think it's a real thing and, and has spread far beyond what we were, you know, what, what we ever expected, honestly.

I've been, you know, I've been involved in that industry, in the grill industry for a long time.

And, and it's amazing what we've seen happen with some of the companies, some of the products, and even, even the, the, the house made or, or homegrown barbecue sauces and rubs and stuff.

I mean, I was one of the first guys trying to sell rub and way back in the day.

And I gave it up because it was, it was fun.

I made a few bucks.

But I think some, you know, I know some of these guys have really taken it to the next level.

These are legit brands now that are selling a lot of product and, and more than a few of my friends have been able to quit their job to pursue that.

And it's been fun to see.

It's amazing the growth we have seen.

And Leanne and I are both right smack in the middle of it, so you don't necessarily see it all the time.

But you mentioned the TV stuff earlier.

I can tell you when I walk down the street with Leanne, she has a lot of fans.

Yeah, she does.

The stuff we've done over the years, nobody's not, I don't know, it's like.

I think it depends on where we are, Ray.

If we're in St. Pete, you're like the mayor there.

We've both been very lucky with all that.

All that goofing around that somebody was paying attention.

Well, yeah, but you guys have done great with it.

I took a turn at the, at the rubs and the spices.

So this has been 20 years ago now, and I had to make a decision to keep going with the media or do the, you know, secret herbs and spices from Jeff's kitchen.

And I couldn't push it to the level to where I could quit my other stuff.

Right.

And make it full time on the spices, you know, if you will.

So I think that was a wise decision on my point, my part, I mean, but you do see a lot of brands, but you Were talking about, you know, Byron Chisholm a little bit ago.

You know, he's done very well.

His butt rub is everywhere.

But, yeah, if you think back at, you know, when you looked at the shelves, everybody was like buying the sweet baby rays.

And the problem is, for me, there's so many choices.

It becomes very overwhelming.

And, you know, you want to try all these things and then it becomes expensive, you know, whereas, you know, before it was less choices and it was a little bit easier for the consumer.

Now it's just, I mean, you see, it's almost like a dedicated full aisle in the grocery store these days to.

Barbecue on the online stores.

I bought some stuff at one of the big online stores for this cook off and the product, you know, the amount of products they have, it's just unbelievable.

It's too many, frankly.

You know, and not all are going to be successful.

There's a handful like anything else.

The attrition is going to get some of those guys.

They're not going to be as successful.

But, you know, your point, Jeff, you, you've got to be out there.

You know, the guys that are competing, the guys, social media, you know, I don't know when you were doing that, but social media has become the big thing now.

It doesn't matter.

It's.

It's amazing.

I, I lose a lot of work and, and attention to people that I've never heard of, but on social media, they're a huge deal.

And, and I'm not saying that's wrong.

I'm just saying it's the moving target that you, when you get old, you really got to be careful and try to stay up on that sort of thing and learn.

Leanne's going through it.

She's been, they've challenged her to do a whole lot more social media and she's doing great at it, actually.

I'm getting there little by little.

Hard work.

Well, it is.

You know, before we did this show today, I was thinking, okay, because the way this works, if anybody really cares, my, my producer does the original postings of the shows, okay.

And then we're throwing up old shows.

We call it way Wednesday.

And then intermittently in there, we post the after hours.

So that probably kind of takes him a couple hours a week to do that stuff.

And then I jump in, okay, And I do posting on other platforms and stuff.

So I'm guessing, and this is probably very minuscule, but I'm guessing we spend six to eight hours a week posting stuff on social media and it works, you know, we get great response from it.

But anyway, we're running out of time here on the regular show, but like I said, Ray and Leanne and I will be back for after hours.

But, Ray, Dr. Barbecue, as always, we thank you for being with us.

And now that you.

Now that we've got Leanne in our corner here where she can needle you all the time, get you back on.

The show, I just tell her my answers and she can just give them back to you.

Okay?

No, no, no.

It was a pleasure, you guys.

Thanks to you both.

It's great to see you.

Great to see you, too.

We'll be back next week with another edition of Barbecue Nation.

And Leanne will have her broken screen fixed.

Fixed.

And the cat will be in jail.

Anyway, we'll be back next week here on USA Radio Networks.

We thank you for listening and remember our motto here.

Turn it, don't burn it.

Take care, everybody.

Barbecue nation is produced by jtsd, llc productions in association with envision networks and salem media group.

All rights reserved.