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The incredible, inedible green egg
Festival attracts grilling fanatics from near and far
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Gary Smith
Pat Sweeney of Darnestown cuts up beef for fajitas. He was one of the cooks at Saturday’s eighth annual Eggfest in Waldorf.
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And they are crazy about the oval grills that sit in ‘‘nests” and have gained cult-like status among backyard chefs and those who like to eat.
The diehards — hailing from places such as Alaska, New Jersey, Indiana, New York, Virginia, Canada and Maryland — rolled into Waldorf May 4 through 6 for the eighth annual Eggfest in the parking lot of Seasonal Distributors off of Old Washington Road.
‘‘They swap cooking techniques and taste one another’s recipes,” said Dale Kelley, CEO of Seasonal Distributors and known as ‘‘Daaa Mayooor of Waldorf” among Big Green Egg enthusiasts. ‘‘They cook everything ... from bananas to squid.”
‘‘It is a niche product,” said Bobby Cresap, customer service for Big Green Egg’s corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. ‘‘It’s an eclectic group. [Festivals] like these are big ‘show-off fests.’ They show off how far they came, how good they can cook.”
Friendly fire
While some of the cooks at the Eggfest are cooking competitors, the event on Saturday in the parking lot of Kelley’s business was just for fun.
It is a sort of yearly family gathering for those who are regulars on the Big Green Egg online forum.
‘‘I get on it every day,” said Paulette Robinson of Largo, who made crab imperial, peach cobbler and shrimp during the festival. ‘‘Usually more than once a day.
‘‘We are a cult,” said Robinson, who owns four Big Green Egg grills (the extra-large, the large, the small and the mini) and cooks on them at least four times a week.
Her tent was next to that of Ray Lampe, a.k.a. Dr. BBQ, cookbook author and barbecue expert.
‘‘They’re pros,” Robinson said of Lampe and the Dizzy Pig’s Chris Capell. ‘‘I’m just having fun.”
Capell, a graphic designer by training, has been coming to the Waldorf Eggfest for the past eight years.
His company, the Dizzy Pig, is the place for original rubs and spices, and the company’s team has won several competitions, earning invites to American Royal and the Jack Daniels World Championships.
‘‘I really got into cooking and tried to improve every time,” said Capell, who lives in Fairfax, Va. ‘‘It was addicting — cooking for people and making them happy. It is a rewarding business. Helping people make better food makes my day.”
The Big Green Egg is based on a design that dates back 3,000 years in China. The Japanese adopted the design and called it ‘‘kamado,” which translates to oven, stove, heater or fireplace.
Following World War II, servicemen returning home brought along the odd-shaped cookers that kept food moist and tasting like it was meant to.
Eventually, the Big Green Egg — which can retail from $500 to $900, depending on the size — was designed out of ‘‘space age” ceramics, and users call it the ‘‘world’s best.”
The company started Eggtoberfest in Atlanta about 10 years ago, according to Cresap, who goes by the handle Bobby Q when attending festivals throughout the country.
Soon, other Eggfests were cropping up all over the country.
Doctor is in
Lampe knows the country. As a high school student in Chicago, he took a cooking class.
‘‘I knew I’d be able to eat in there and there’d be a bunch of girls and it would be easy,” said the man who would eventually become Dr. BBQ.
In 1982, he and a friend competed in a rib cook-off. They didn’t win, but they had fun. Less than 10 years later, in 1991, Lampe was living in Florida, selling barbecue in parking lots.
‘‘It became an obsession,” he said. It really took off once he and the Big Green Egg found each other. He works for the company, traveling around the country showing off the product and his cooking skills.
‘‘And like with all hobbies, when the Internet started, all of us nutballs could find each other,” Lampe said, cutting into a slab of steak and doling it out to those milling around his tent.
‘‘It’s my life, it’s what I do,” he said of barbecuing. ‘‘It’s the greatest thing in the world. I can’t believe this is a real job.”
AlaskanC
Brent Turvey’s real job is a little more serious. He’s a forensic scientist based in Sitka, Alaska. He and his wife, Melissa (who got her forum handle ‘‘AlaskanC” after Brent asked her the price of the grill and she answered, ‘‘I’ll ask and see”), have been grilling on the Big Green Egg for about two years, bringing fresh Alaskan salmon and halibut to this year’s Eggfest.
‘‘It’s all about the food, and what’s better than that?” Brent Turvey asked.
Turvey credits the Big Green Egg with making its owners better cooks.
It forces operators to take time and prepare food the way it should be prepared.
‘‘We forget about that,” Turvey said. ‘‘We have fast food, the microwave. We forget how good food can be.”
Kelley agreed and is so enamored of the Big Green Egg he takes one in his motor home.
‘‘Once someone has something [cooked] off the grill, they have to have it. Once you cook on this grill,” he said, ‘‘you’ll throw your old grill away.”
E-mail Sara K. Taylor at staylor@somdnews.com.
