2012 St. Louis Home Fires BBQ Bash once again a savory success

The 2012 St. Louis Home Fires BBQ Bash from Sept. 29-30 was, once again, a rousing success for all involved.

The winners include:

• ASAP, Chef’s Choice

• ASAP, Grand Champ

• Charlotte’s Ribs, Best Booth

• Chompers, Best Chili

• Fat Boyz & Porkers BBQ, Iron Chef

• Matt Hampton, Award of Honor

• MOCOs, BBQ Pork

• Patio Pros, Brisket

• Piggys, BBQ Ribs

• Pig’s Worst Nightmare, Margaritas

• Pit Stop BBQ, People’s Choice

• Pleased to Meet You, Bloody Mary

• Smokin’ Joe & Son, Dessert

• Uncle Bob’s, BBQ Pork Steak

• Uncle Gus’, BBQ Chicken

Fat Boyz and Porkers tied in the Iron Chef competition. Contestants were given a basket of mystery ingredients and had to create the best dish, while leaving nothing out.

Stella Moritz, on the Fat Boyz team, said her team was “very excited” for their win.

“First of all, the ingredients were workable; it wasn’t something bizarre that we couldn’t deal with,” Moritz said, “and I just have a lot of years of experience cooking, so that’s basically where it came from.”

Her team’s ingredients included a basket with lamb chops, top sirloin steaks, green beans, spaghetti squash, yellow cocktail tomatoes, apples, ginger root and a bag of potato chips.

“We did a medley of vegetables, and we encrusted the lamb chops with crushed potato chips,” Moritz said. “Then we did a sirloin steak, which was just grilled, but then we added a butter glaze. Then we made applesauce and put the ginger in it.

“This was our first competition, so we really didn’t know what to expect. I had a wonderful team, and they all pitched in. Everybody took a little niche out of the goal and did what they needed to do and brought it together.”

Jim Randall, owner of BBQ ASAP in Ballwin, winner of the Chef’s Choice and Grand Champ, said his team was “very, very pleased with the Bash.”

“The weather was awesome, it was very well organized and we had a tremendous amount of fun participating in the event,” he said.

This is the seventh BBQ Bash that BBQ ASAP has participated in. In 2010, the restaurant earned the Grand Reserve Champion award and 2011, first place.

“So it was really exciting to finally be the bride and not the bridesmaid, and we achieved that by producing a high degree of consistency across all these categories,” Randall said. “It’s just practice, practice, practice, and we’re constantly trying to amp up our recipes and accommodate the changing taste buds and palates of the judges.”