A Hot Hand at the World Food Championships!

The 2016 World Food Championship wrapped up after a week long food fight that saw over 300 contestants vie for a spot at the final table.   Competitors were in nine categories including: seafood, burger, bbq, chili, bacon, steak, sandwich, dessert and recipe.  Each category had 30-50 entrants and the top 10 in each category competed to for a seat at the final table.

Orange Beach, AL was a superb location for this event.  Rumor has it this will become the permanent home of the World Food Championships.  It’s such a family oriented event and there is lots of housing and hotel choices during the off-season at the beach in November and the weather is still quite mild.

The caliber of entries and creativity was darn right intimidating.  We enjoyed hanging around the turn in area just to see the amazing plates.  I hope we get to see a collage of all the entries.

The set up for the cooks was terrific.  Every possible kitchen appliance and tool was available to the chefs including Bull Outdoor grills which saw heavy action in the steak and burger events.  Jeremiah and his brother Cole are perfect example of the type of competitors you find at WFC.  They run a food truck in Nashville and won Nashville’s best burger to qualify for WFC.  After tasting their burger we’ll be looking them on our next trip to Nashville!

Each event was filmed and there will be a TV series put together for later in 2017.  You can see Dustin Sanders of Smokehouse Rats in the background wielding his GrateTool to turn his steaks.

This event brought out all the stars!  It was great to see Moe Cason who was judging.  Moe used GrillGrates on season 1 of Pittmasters many moons ago.  We mostly discussed fishing!  My goal is to take Moe fishing! (and grill our catch)

George Shore of Pitmaker and I were in the right spot when Brad Orrison removed the head of the pig from a well picked carcass.  The SHED BBQ and Blues joint put on a terrific event one evening for the VIP’s.  Somehow Susan and I wandered over!

Things started heating up as the Top 10 were called each night.  Dustin Sanders of Smoke House Rats, a World Champion Steak Cookoff winner in 2015 was 6th and earned the right to grill again for a shot at the final table.

Even the Kids were included at WFC.   Nathan Hays a regular on the kids Q circuit and his sister Amy were invited to compete along with several other young people.  How exciting for them and their families.  Pretty good looking steak there Nathan!

Round one of the Steak competition was won by Kari Luke and her husband Bryan!  And things got better from there!  They went on to win the 2nd round of Steaks and earned a spot at the final table to compete against the other food categories.

And they took FIRST again!  Against the best of the best and some of the most stunning culinary creations their steak beat them all!   Here’s what a $100,000 steak looks like!  Congrats to Kari Luke and Bryan on their amazing win.  AND Congrats to the World Food Championships for putting on such a superb event!

Imagine grilling this 3 times and taking 1st each time!  That’s what Kari Luke did at the World Food Championships.   It’s looking more and more that Food Competition and Cook-offs are the new Nascar!

#GrillGrates #GrillGrateful #WFC2016