Brumley’s final challenge dish was an Asian barbecue-inspired noodle bowl with grilled bacon and shrimp.
By any measure, Bob Brumley is a high achiever. A former research scientist at UW-Madison, he worked on the Human Genome Project and later founded his own biotech company. After retiring, he took his talents from the lab to the kitchen, opening Bob’s BBQ Emporium in the village of Arena.
“I learned to cook through self-preservation,” jokes Brumley, 63, who grew up in eastern Oklahoma. “My dad was always barbecuing and grilling on the weekends, and I just thought that was super cool.”
Located about 40 minutes west of Madison on Hwy. 14, the restaurant (open Friday through Sunday only) has a reputation for great food and a classic menu that’s “strictly barbecue” — ribs, chicken, brisket and pork. At the urging of his customers, Brumley started entering culinary competitions about three years ago and has since racked up more than a dozen local and regional awards. In November, Brumley earned his biggest honor yet, taking third place in the World Bacon Championship in Orange Beach, Alabama.
“It was a great experience,” Brumley says. “The emotional highs and lows run the gamut of elation to frustration.”
Another local chef, AJ Hurst of The Lone Girl Brewing Company in Waunakee, took 5th in the competition.
The World Bacon Championship is part of the World Food Championships, an annual event billed as “the largest competition in food sport.” There are 10 categories, each focusing on a different food; Brumley participated last year in the barbeque competition, placing “a blazing 74th” out of 92 competitors. The four-day event takes place in an arena full of cooking stations with competitors from around the world. Brumley recognized several of his adversaries from cooking shows like Chopped and Top Chef. “It definitely is legit,” he says.
Competitors had to impress the judges with three dishes incorporating bacon. For the first challenge, everyone made a quiche lorraine — a classic egg-and-bacon tart. Brumley used three types of Carr Valley cheese, eggs from his own chickens and bacon that he cured himself using pork belly from Underground Butcher and Conscious Carnivore. “I finished it with maple syrup from my own trees,” he says. “That’s about as local as you get.”
The second challenge was a “signature dish,” for which Brumley prepared bacon-wrapped pork belly over a slaw flavored with cumin and curry, topped with a grilled pineapple ring that had been soaked in rum and sugar. Brumley scored near the top of the pack on his quiche lorraine, but faltered a bit on the pork belly dish. “I made the mistake of slicing the bacon too thick,” he says. Still, his combined score was enough for 9th place going into the final, which takes the top 10 chefs.
For the final test, chefs were asked to infuse their bacon dish with a predetermined ingredient — Lipton Tea, a sponsor of the competition. Brumley chose green tea with citrus — “Not something I’d usually use,” he says — and created an Asian barbecue-inspired noodle bowl with grilled bacon and shrimp.
“When they called 5th and 4th, I thought, I’m done,” Brumley recalls. But then the announcer made a comment about a chef who climbed up in the rankings. “He looked right at me. And when they called my name, I was like one of those crazy people on The Price is Right.”
