Arizona Bar-B-Que Fest

This past Saturday my family and I headed out to Salt River Fields for the fourth annual Arizona BBQ Festival with two things in mind. The redneck games (yep, I said it) and of course, the BBQ…..and my son wanted to see Metalhead (they had lots of other music too). My husband even gave himself a “redneck haircut” to celebrate the festivities, don’t worry, I took pictures so everyone can see. Can I get a “Yeehaw”? I think I should take a minute here and say that I don’t say “redneck” in a mean prejudice kind of way, but more in a I love my family that has plenty of rednecks in it kind of way. Remember, my family is spread between the Midwest and North Florida :D, that’s where rednecks come from lol. Anyway, my husbands’ haircut and outfit was super awesome, so I threw on my best redneck clothes too all the way up to the blue eyeshadow which looked pretty good in my opinion – wait a minute, is that the country girl in me coming out again :)? When we got there we decided to make an entire circle around the place just to check it out before we committed to doing one thing (unfortunately, we were on a schedule that day and had a ton to do). I had a few places in mind that I wanted to visit BBQ wise and I also wanted to check out “the redneck games”. They had the awesome contests going on. There was the broken lawn mower race – which my husband Xavier got second in, the redneck “horseshoes” played with toilet seats, arm wrestling, watermelon seed spitting, hub cap hurling, bobbing for pigs feet, beer pong, a pie eating contest and cornhole. YES! And guess what, they were giving away….. a remote control grill for the person with the most medals at the end of the contests. Pretty cool huh? Oh, and the rules for the medals were that you were allowed to trade, buy, and take, yes take each others medals. I think the fact that they were serving vodka, Jack Daniels, and beer made the rules all the more interesting. So, we kind of hung out watching the games for awhile (check out the video below) and then we went in search of some BBQ yumminess.  I, being the food nerd  that I am, did some research the night before on the different places that were going to be there and a few had caught my attention. Now, I want to be clear that everything we had was super yummy and that we didn’t get to taste all of the BBQ that was there – there were way too many and we would have exploded, but we did try quite a few. So, are you wandering who was the stand out for us? Well, there were two actually. Little Miss BBQ and Honey Bear’s BBQ. But, if you made me choose, I’d have to go with Little Miss BBQ. This husband and wife team sure can throw down some good food and they have the trophies to prove it! They’re ribs are out of this world, oh – and their jalapeno sausage, if you see them at your local BBQ Festivities, I highly recommend getting in the very long line that is sure to be there, it is worth the wait. As for Honey Bear’s, yes, yes, yes and another giant YES,  go to their restaurant (they have two here in Phoenix) if you’re in the area. They are super yummy too! They have the best logo, it says “You don’t need no teeth to eat our meat”. I just thought that was awesome because as tender as the meat was, you probably don’t need teeth :). Oh, I almost forgot to mention The Bacon Station, I loved these guys just on principal before I even tried them. They were serving bacon, yes just bacon served on top of…..more bacon, and then you had your choice of sauces to top your bacon. Mmmmmm, bacon. We had the chocolate sauce (salty and sweet) and the “redneck” hot sauce which was, well, hot. Actually, too hot for me but I’m a baby when it comes to spicy things, my son and my husband however gobbled it up like nobody’s business YEEEEEEEEHAW! Woe, sorry, it got me again. Let’s see, what else was going on? They had a huge area set up for the kids with bouncy houses, slides, giant hamster balls that they could roll around in and a few carnival type rides to make them dizzy, I got dizzy just watching one of them. They also had a mechanical bull, just in case you were in the mood to prove your manhood (or womanhood) by getting thrown off of something violently, cooking demonstrations, and a flavored vodka tent. They had lots of booths that were giving away fun stuff like drink koozies and temporary tattoos, another way to get into the spirit. Dude, I totally forgot to mention that Barrel Boy from KNIX 102.5 (country music) was there hosting the redneck games and of course I got my picture with him. He was so, so super nice (in case you were wondering). So, that’s it ya’all. All in all we had a honky-tonkin’, redneckin’, BBQ eatin’ Yeehawin’ fun day. We will definitely be there next year to try some more of the BBQ, who knows, maybe we’ll even win the redneck games and take home a grill…….that is if they’re giving one away next year. We’ll see. OK, one more time - can I get a  YEEEEEEEEEHAW!

Here are a few clips of our day!