Bay Area Barbecue Championship and Quick Food Gal Giveaway
If you love barbecue, you are destined for one smoke-a-licious time at the Bay Area Barbecue Championship on July 16 at the Oakland Coliseum.
Starting at 9:30 a.m., 32 teams will square off in four categories: Chicken, Brisket, Pork and Ribs.
Celebrity judges — including Bay Area Chef Joey Altman and everyone’s favorite retired pilot, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger — will determine the winners. But there also will be a People’s Choice Award for members of the public to cast votes on whose ‘cue they believe clobbers all the rest.
After you’ve had your fill of smoky, charred meat, take a seat inside the Coliseum for the A’s only double-header of the year as they take on the Los Angeles Angels.
General admission tickets are $48 each, which gets you five food/drink coupons for the Barbecue Championship and one plaza outfield seat for the double-header.
VIP tickets are $78 each, which includes the food-drink coupons, plus a field level seat and access to VIP hospitality.
All tickets must be purchased in advance.
The event benefits Alternative Family Services, which provides services for foster children in Northern California.
Contest: I’m happy to be giving away three general admission tickets to the barbecue fest and baseball game (a value of $48 each) to one lucky Food Gal reader. Contest is open only to those who can make it to Oakland on July 16. Since the event is this Saturday, this will be a quick contest. Entries will be accepted only until noon PST July 13. The winner will be announced on July 14.
How to win?
Just tell me about a memorable time you had at a sporting event — either one where you were an onlooker or a participant. Best answer wins the three tickets.
Here’s my own answer to that question:
“For years, I paddled on a dragon boat team in the Bay Area. We were often a motley crew, with 20 of us sitting in pairs down the length of the boat and paddling our lungs out to the beat of a drummer crouched at the front. The key to speed and efficiency is for everyone to be in absolute synchronicity, with every paddle hitting the water at the exact same moment. In fact, there is a singular sensation that occurs when it works perfectly. Propelled by all those arms working together, you suddenly but assuredly feel the boat lift as if it’s effortlessly gliding on the very top of the water rather than slogging through it. In all the years that I paddled, I experienced that feeling only once in a race. It was actually one that we lost, too. But that sweet feeling in which we became one with the boat for those few fleeting minutes was something none of us ever forgot.”
What a fun event! And well done for you and the dragon boat race. I won’t tell hubby or he’ll encourage me to do it and I can’t swim 😛
This sounds like an awesome event! I wish I lived nearer!
Sounds like such a fun event! It doesn’t get any more all-American than baseball and bbq in the summer…love it!
Three skating-related things happened around 1992 that got me really excited about learning how to skate. Actually four, but I’ll get to the last one later.
First, the San Jose Sharks came into existence, which was exciting for a sports-loving Bay Area-native like me. Second, Kristi Yamaguchi won the Olympic figure skating gold medal — another great moment for Bay Area sports fans.
Third, the NHL Hockey video game for Sega Genesis was released. This game is still awesome. I played it like crazy, even getting the lowly Sharks to win the Stanley Cup!
Which brings me to the last skating-related item. I enjoyed playing the hockey video game so much, I wanted to see a real hockey game.
At the time, I was attending college in Eugene, Oregon. It just happened that a semipro ice hockey team played there, so I hopped on the bus to check it out. Now, I always buy a program at sporting events to keep as a souveneir, so I dutifully bought one.
That was a lucky decision, because during the first intermission, the team had a contest to win (if memory serves) an assortment of girl scout cookies by going onto the ice and shooting a goal. But only if they called one’s number stamped inside the game program. And amazingly, my program had one of the numbers.
So in my first-ever hockey game, I got to go onto the ice. I shot a nice, straight shot, but unfortunately for me, the mat I stood on was in front of the goal, and the puck was placed slightly to the right of the goal, so my shot slid wide right. Oh well.
After that, I was inspired to learn how to skate, and actually did skate “with” Kristi Yamaguchi years later when she had a fund-raising 10K skate through Golden Gate Park!
I attended one of the World Series games a few years back when the Giants were playing the Angels. We were sitting about three rows behind Bud Selig. Pete Rose took the field during the pre-game ceremonies and the entire crowd starting chanting “Hall of Fame”. Selig looked annoyed. And then the guy next to me started chucking peanuts at Selig’s head. It was pretty amusing. It was also a great series because my favorite player JT Snow got to be a hero by saving Dusty Baker’s toddler when he ran out to the plate and almost got run down by players. Simply awesome. That’s what baseball is all about.
Oooh wouldn’t it be fab to attend a Barbecue fest? But sadly it is too far for me. And a sporting event experience? Wow…. that’s one I would have to think about. Most sporting events I tend to watch are sitting in front of my tv! And a dragon race? I am duly impressed!
This requires elasticity in the term “sporting event”: Many years ago at a high school on the San Francisco Peninsula, an annual event was taking place–Senior Bow Day. On that day of horrors, any freshman unlucky enough to be caught by a senior at school was honor-bound to do the will of the upperclassman. Getting caught didn’t top most frosh To Do Lists.
On this particular Senior Bow Day, one very small but quick freshman prepared himself to get to his last class before lunch, Social Studies when he spotted one of the biggest men on campus, a real sports hero who lettered in football, baseball and put shot in track on the front stairs waiting to hook up with one of his jock buddies for an off-campus lunch.
Waiting for his chance, poised to go like a sprinter at the blocks, the skinny freshman was immobile, holding his breath until the senior stepped off the front stairs fully turning to look for his pal–then the underclassman took off like a scared rabbit.
You know where this is going–yeah, the senior’s genuine athleticism enabled him to see and snag the frantic freshman before he raced by. He lifted him by his collar then turned him upside down, suspending him by his jeans. before heading to a nearby deli—he turned the freshman upside down suspending him by his jeans and gently shook the 90-lb freshman until forty-three cents rattled to the stairs; the senior righted the freshman and said “Gimme.” The frosh picked up the change and handed it to the senior looking for approval to leave, got it and bolted.
The senior, whose sun-bleached hair was crew-cut, wearing his Block SM, dated (and later married) the head cheer leader at San Mateo High School—his name: Kris Kristofferson.
Guess who the skinny freshman was? Yup. Tis a true tale–about one kid’s thought of a sporting event was to sprint past a BMOC.
Never had I felt so invigorated rather than when I watched my Dad and brother run their first half marathon together. My grandmother, mom and I had ran the 10k earlier in the morning and were now done and watching my Dad & Brother finish the half marathon as they were at about the 8 mile mark. We were planning to cool down from our own race and stand idly by to cheer them on. As they round the corner and finally are in our direct line of view and earshot we immediately hear my brother “singing” my Dad on! We quickly realized that my Dad was struggling and he had 5 miles to go.
The next thing I know my grandmother had grabbed my hand and pulled me into the race with my brother and Dad. “If we can finish this one, so can you”, she told my Dad. For the next 5 miles we all sang along to various Beatle’s songs and songs that my Dad loves while running a half-marathon! Before this race I had never even ran more than 4 miles before so the entire time I was thinking how am I doing this? And singing while doing it?
However we carried on laughing hysterically all the while keeping moving and my Dad seemed to pick up his spirits. It was an out of body experience because my legs were moving but I almost didn’t feel like they were as we were all just laughing, singing and certainly not concentrating on running.
In the end we all finished the race and my Dad ended up finishing with no sweat. We certainly didn’t get very great times in terms of a race but we had such an awesome time! Who would have thought I would be running a half marathon that day? We also may have drove everyone else in the race nuts but it was a family experience like no other! And I finished my first half-marathon. By far one of the most memorable events with my family as well as my most athletic memory!
It sounds quite silly but it was indeed a sight to see!
Contest is now closed. Come back tomorrow to see who won.