My husband and I are "foodies" of the authentic down-home kind. We saw the tail end of a Food Channel programme on TV which showed a south/eastern (?) US location with an annual BBQ competition. We never did get the details but would love to attend an event like this within 2-3 days motorcycling distance of our home here in Toronto, Ont. Canada. Anybody got any ideas?

Lee, Wish I could help you but the 2-3 days m/c ride may cut into my suggestion.

Each year, John Ascuagus Nugget in Sparks (Reno), NV. sponsors a Best In the West BBQ Cook-off.

Thay have a ton of BBQ restaurants from all over the U.S. and as far away as Austrailia, Jamaica, etc.

This occurs for 4 days over Labor Day weekend, Sept.1-4.

They shut down Victorian Square to auto traffic so you have about 5 blocks of BBQ, arts/crafts, music, etc.
And if it gets too hot, smokey, etc, you can go into the casino and cool down, freshen up and gamble if you'd like.

Kal

Memphis in May is what comes to mind, but I'm sure that's more than a 2-3 day motorcycle ride away from you. It's a huge festival with outstanding BBQ. They probably have a website devoted to it if you are interested in more info.

Lexington, NC has a huge festival every year in October. 100,000 people or so. Lots of fun and great food.

Lee, there's a very famous BBQ Festival in Kansas City each year. Don't know the time of year. There was a program about it on our local PBS--KQED in SF on the "Cookoff America" series. Don't know if you could archive it. Also, great fun is the Gilroy Garlic Festival just south of SF near San Jose. It's the last weekend of July each year. BBQ as well as all kinds of garlic dishes. Downside is that the weekend's usually very hot! You can take a train from SF so you could combine it with a trip to a nice tourist destination. Hope that helps.

Lee:

As suggested above, the Food Channel program was "Memphis in May." The festival is huge, with several levels of competition (amateur to restaurant-level).

Judge for yourself, but I disagree with the previous posting--on a traveling bike, two days sounds like ample time to reach Memphis from Toronto.

Early every October (Oct. 7 & 8 this year) there is a barbecue festival called the "Pig and Pepper" in Westford, Massachusetts (about 25 miles northwest of Boston). They have many different entries, both professional and amature, in the barbecue competition (judged by the Kansas City Barbecue Society), lots of great barbecue (of different varieties) to eat sold by vendors, musical performances, arts and crafts for sale, etc. It may not be as big an event as some of the others mentioned earlier, but it is fun, very popular, and it's a lot closer to Toronto, too. It takes place during the fall foliage season, so you should have a beautiful trip if you go, but be sure to reserve accomodations well in advance, as that's high tourist season in New England. You can find out more about the festival at their web site: <http://www.pignpepper.org/PNP/index.html>.

Thanks to all who replied. Looks like we could do Massachusetts as a starter this year and work up to Memphis!!! We'll need time to work off the added poundage in between or the old bike will break down.