By AL KEMP
Midstate Living
08/08/2007
Meet Ron Templeman, family man.
He's got a wife, a grown son, a grown daughter and six grills.
Two of them (his grills, not his family) are "bullet" smokers, and one is a dual-chamber offset smoker. He has a pair of 22 1/2-inch charcoal kettles, one by Weber and the other by Kingsford. A Brinkman Pro Series gas grill rounds out the lineup.
The Middletown resident went through a sort of midlife crisis a few years ago, around the time he turned 55.
He went grill-crazy.
He took his wife Norma to a cook-off. He began watching more and more Food Network. Soon he was going online and looking at pictures of grills. Next thing she knew, he was purchasing his own.
This past April -- it was inevitable, really -- he entered his first competitive grilling event, the Pork in the Park BBQ in Salisbury, Md., sponsored by the Kansas City Barbeque Society.
There were four categories of competition: chicken, ribs, pork and brisket, each judged according to taste, tenderness and texture, and appearance.
Out of 62 teams, Templeman came in 19th overall.
"This is a man who didn't even like to eat ribs a few years ago, and now he's obsessed with them," said his wife, Norma. "Did you know that once, he had a single gas grill?"
"I'm fairly new at the competitive scene. I don't have these big giant smokers like a lot of teams do. I use three, plus one of my kettles," said Templeman, a retired scuba diver with the Philadelphia Police Department who now works as a Realtor.
His grilling team, named Pigheaded Barbecue, includes his son Ron Jr. and son-in-law Mike Sadgwar.
The team turned in a spotty performance in its last competition, the second annual Chesapeake Bay BBQ Cookoff, July 27-28 in Stevensville, Md.
"We did some experimenting with the brisket," Templeman said. "Maybe we shouldn't have."
Undaunted, the guys are now gearing up for the King Pig BBQ in Bridgeton, N.J., on Sept. 14-15.
Then they'll enter the big daddy of regional grilling contests, the 2007 Diamond State Barbecue Championship, on Oct. 19-20 at Dover Downs.
"Dover is the big one," said Templeman. "They hold it right on the infield, and there's just a haze of wood smoke."
Grilling with gas is absolutely forbidden at most contests sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society.
"Only charcoal and wood are allowed," said Templeman. "It's getting back to the roots of barbecue."
Melinda Fantozzi, secretary to the culinary director at Dover Downs, said about 100 teams are expected to show up for the Diamond State Barbecue Championship.
Fantozzi said the size of the cash prizes is still being discussed. Last year's overall grand champion took home $10,000.
Norma Templeman, Ron's wife of 38 years, said that when her husband's obsession first took hold, she held out hope that it was a passing phase.
Now she knows better. She knows it was a false hope.
"He'll stay up all night doing a brisket or pork butt. I try to sit up with him, but I can't do it," said Norma. "I get up the next morning and he's still coming in and out the door."
Norma says she felt a twinge of jealousy when her husband started spending so much time with his grills, but it soon passed.
"When he sees a grill just sitting there and nobody cooking on it, he thinks it's lonely," she said. "I looked to see if any of them had red hair or blonde hair, but they're all brunettes, like me."
Norma said she might not be so tolerant if her husband wasn't still mindful of her needs.
"He does fish on the grill for me. He's smoked scallops for me. He'll do clams for me," she said. "He loves to fool around on a grill. I just like how excited he gets."
Contact Al Kemp at 324-2347 or akemp@midstateliving.com.
