Pork In The Park Updates

Salisbury Maryland’s Annual Pork in the Park Festival is Right around the Corner!

Top performers to compete in this Kansas City Barbecue Society Sanctioned Festival

(Salisbury, MD) Wicomico County is looking forward to welcoming you to the fifth annual Pork in the Park Bar-B-Que and Beer Festival to be held at Winterplace Park in Salisbury, MD on April 18-20, 2008. This event has grown in leaps and bounds and now hosts over 84 BBQ competitor teams. Many very accomplished teams will be filling up the rooster, and we are excited to host the 2007 overall top ranked team—Cool Smoke.

Based out of Richmond Virginia, Cool Smoke is fairly new to the world of barbecue competition, having entered their first competition in 2004. Teammate Tuffy Stone, owner of the upscale catering company Sharper Palate (Richmond, VA) was drawn to barbeque and later competition when searching for a new culinary challenge. When recalling his first attempts cooking with a wood burning pit, Stone reminisces, “It was a humbling and exciting experience. Learning to cook with nothing but a wood fire is one of the greatest learning challenges I have faced in the kitchen.”

Stone partnered with Kendall Lamp and George Stone to create Cool Smoke and the trio began on the BBQ circuit at the 2004 KCBS contest in Lynchburg, VA. We are pleased to welcome Cool Smoke back to Pork in the Park, and excited to see how they and the other competitors will perform in this year’s competition.

The festival is three days of great events with entertainment for the whole family. Each competitor team will spend the weekend slicing, seasoning and sizzling chicken, pork and beef in hopes that their cooking earns them a portion of the $17,000 in cash prizes and invaluable bragging rights. Their fate lies in the hand of a team of professionally trained, Kansas City Barbeque Society professional judges. Judging is done in many categories including whole hog, beef, chicken, pork, ribs, anything butt and a special Perdue chicken category.

As part of one of the nation’s largest festivals of this kind, attendees will enjoy live blues entertainment, a variety of cold beverages, motorcycle and classic car displays, arts and crafts. Scrumptious barbecue—some of it cooked by competitors themselves—and other festival food will be available for sale. Additionally, a selection of amusement rides will be on hand for kids.

The festival is open from 4pm to 10pm on Friday, 10am to 10pm on Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday. The Pork in the Park National Bar-B-Que Cook-Off is sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society and sponsored by Wicomico County Recreation, Parks and Tourism as well as Delmarva Power, Clear Channel Outdoor, Clear Channel Radio, Comcast Spotlight, Farmer’s Bank of Willards, French’s, Harley Davidson of Ocean City, Holt Paper Company, Pepsi, Perdue, Saturn of Salisbury and WMDT 47.

For more information and a complete entertainment line-up please visit www.PorkinthePark.org or call 410-548-4914.