Weird Tales of Ramone: Ribfest

treif — adj Judaism ritually unfit to be eaten; not kosher

This story begins with my love of treif.  So, Jews aren't supposed to eat pork.  Pig is considered unclean, and hence, not kosher.  This hasn't stopped my love of pork.

To be completely honest, I don't remember the year I was first invited to be a guest ("celebrity") judge at Ribfest.  It was probably about five years ago, so you'll have to excuse that, but the year really isn't important.  It's the adventure I got myself into that's important!

Before I begin my tale, let me tell you that Mike McKelly loves his family.  And I mention this because it was his love of family that allowed me to be a guest judge at Ribfest.  See, Mike was originally supposed to be the guest/celebrity judge, and I wanted to feast on free ribs and beer so badly, that I kidnapped Mike's youngest daughter (Mike has like 13 kids, so I don't know what her name is) and her ransom, was his spot at Ribfest.  Of course, he obliged, I judged, and his daughter remained unharmed.

OK, that didn't happen.

Before Townsquare Media took over Ribfest, it was done by Community Advocates, and the first night was always WRKR's Best Local Ribs, and it made sense to have a Rocker jock, who happened to love pork, be one of the guest judges.  Plus, who doesn't love a Jew judging a rib contest?  I mean, it's radio gold, right?  Now, the guest judges were myself, Kalamazoo Gazette food critic Bill Wood, someone from MLive, and all the national vendors.  The judging is based on four categories: meat, texture, sauce, and overall taste.  Now, since this was my first time guest judging at Ribfest, I had no idea what I was doing.  I assumed I would just chow down on ribs, score them, and talk about it the next day on the radio.  Apparently, there's a science to being a Ribfest judge.  Of course, nobody told me.

Rib A was brought to me, and let me tell you, it glistened like gold on my paper plate.  Considering the criteria for judging, I ate rib A.  Actually, I took one or two bites, scored, and then devoured the rest.  Rib B was brought shortly after that, and I repeated this process; taste, score, devour.  This was followed by Ribs C, D, and E.  By the time I'm done with Rib E, I was getting pretty full.  It was at this point when I looked over at the other judges and noticed that they were only taking one of two bites per rib to judge.  I looked at my judging sheet and saw that I still had about 10 ribs to go.  Crap.  From Rib F on, I took one bite and scored.  By the time I was on my second to last rib, I was so damned full, I couldn't even eat the rib.  I took a small bite, threw it back on my plate, and scored it.

And if you think I learned my lesson for year two, you're mistaken.  It wasn't until year three when I finally got the hang of judging.  Those ribs are so damn good, you can't just take one bite!