What did you have for lunch Saturday? Soup, sandwich, same old thing?

Not me. I was lucky enough to be one of 36 judges at the 2008 Barbeque Kick-Off Classic competition in Hazelwood. My lunch consisted of samplings of six chicken thighs plus some shredded breast meat, six pork ribs, six pieces of pork shoulder and seven slices of brisket. No, I didn’t eat everything — although I was mighty tempted to polish off a couple of the ribs — but I took good tastes of them all, then judged them according to appearance, taste and texture.

This contest was sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society, and the winner gets invitations to the Kansas City Royal in October and Memphis in May Competitions. Along with the Jack Daniels Invitational, those are the big three cooking contests in the barbecue world.

We judges were all certified by KCBS, which meant we took a day-long class (with samples) to learn exactly what makes barbecue great (or not so good). I took the class in Kansas City years ago, so I was happy that the judges’ orientation ended with an audio recording refreshing us on the rules and criteria. Pork ribs, for instance, are properly cooked when the meat comes cleanly away from the bone with each bite. Meat falling off the bone is overcooked. If you have to pull with your teeth to get a taste — as was the case with one of my samples — it is undercooked.

The teams put a lot of time and money into their entries — the cookings rigs can cost thousands of dollars — and the judging is dead serious. Judges get an entry card and a heavy paper place mat marked with six squares for each category. Once the food arrives, judges cannot speak until everyone at the table is finished and has turned in their judging cards. Once you mark a card, you cannot change it without permission of the KCBS official overseeing the competition.

Nonetheless, judging is tons of fun. We sit at tables of six, and the talk, of course, is about barbecue. I sat with a man from Chicago who sometimes cooks and sometimes judges, a guy from U. City, a fellow from Pacific, a first-time judge from South County, and a schoolteacher from Northern Illinois who spend the week of spring break traveling to several barbecue contests.

If this has you hungry to prepare some barbecue or to witness a contest first hand, check out the KCBS website: www.kcbs.us. You’ll find recipes and a listing of competitions.

And if you prefer your barbecue in a restaurant, please let us know your favorite places.

(And a final note: I’m on vacation this week, so this is my lasting blog posting until I return.)