The best barbecue sauce, featured at my house, is a mixture of Coca-Cola and ketchup.
No? You have a better recipe? Perhaps you would like to put it on the line, like Gil Ruiz.
Diners at his Depot Cafe and Smokehouse at 3201 McDougall Ave. in Everett may not know they’re ordering award-winning grub the chef prepares as both hobby and career. On spring and summer days off, Ruiz enjoys traveling around the Northwest to compete in barbecue competitions.
“In May of 2005 I entered my first barbecue competition at the ‘Cruzin’ to Colby’ event in Everett,” Ruiz said. “I placed dead last.”
Dazed and confused, he figured he better do some research to improve on the product.
“I had a custom barbecue pit built for me in Texas and had it shipped to the cafe,” he said. “It showed up in July, very exciting. I started cooking like crazy.”
He entered the Montana State Barbecue Championship.
“My oldest son, Peter, and I took three top-10 finishes that weekend out of the four meat categories. The game was on, and we were hooked on competition barbecue.”
The drill goes like this: You cook four categories, pork shoulder, pork ribs, beef brisket and chicken. State championships must have 25 teams or more to make it a “qualifier” for national events. The grand champion of a qualifier may compete in a national championship.
He calls his team “Smokin’ Red Wolf.” In 2006, they won 11 cooking awards.
“This year we walked with a total of 19 awards including a grand championship,” Ruiz, 49, said. “We scored firsts, seconds and really improved our scores.”
Raised in the Bay Area of California, Ruiz aimed to be a rock star, but found working in restaurants actually paid the bills. He’s been so low as to wash dishes at a Sizzler, then had an opportunity to learn the restaurant business from inside an Italian operation.
He was the general manager at Lombardi’s on the Everett waterfront before opening his Depot, which marks its third anniversary Sunday. One regular customer, Barbara Andersen of Snohomish, said she loves a nonbarbecued dish at the Depot: crab cake salad. She also enjoys the pulled-pork sandwich and navy bean soup.
Ruiz commutes to work from a little farm in Gold Bar, where he lives with his wife, Sue, and Sam, 11, and Lilliana, 8, who often join him on trips. The team has yet to win a national qualifier, but the quest is on, he said.
Smokin’ Red Wolf is ranked 433rd nationwide out of 1,033 teams.
Ruiz is tweaking ideas for next season. Everyone has their own ideas and philosophies about barbecue sauces, he said. Though he won’t share any cooking secrets, he hinted at a “fruit component” to his chicken.
“I’ve kept that close to the vest,” he said. “It adds a nice profile to it.”
We toured his sparkling kitchen and I saw big old slabs of meat slow-cooking on a grill out back. My secret was safe. There didn’t seem to be any bottles of ketchup and Coke.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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