What was your first great bbq experience?

[MeatMonster]

My first proper overnight cook with a big full packer brisket in my bullet smoker. Lovely summers night, kids and wife in bed, 3am, feet up, beer in hand, great book in the other (The Mongols and the Making of the Modern World, fascinating read thoroughly recommend it) the crackle of the charcoal and wood to keep me company. Really felt like I had graduated to a fully fledged backyard smoker, the end product was really good too for a first timer on a big cook.

[BGWolf]

My parents (like everyone their age) liked everything well done. Veggies where mush and nothing came off dad's grill until it was black. I didn't grill anything decent until I learned to cook everything to temperature, and discovered that I liked my steaks medium rare.

[Cheef]

My first experience at real BBQ was mid '70s. Wichita KS from a little roadside shack in the bad end of town. GOOD ribs.
To be honest though I did grow up on some good to the point of a lost art on smoked turkey, ham, and fish of all kinds out of my Uncles 12'x15' limestone smokehouse. True story--some of the best smoked fish I have ever eaten was Carp that he hung in there. Fall apart and better than any smoked salmon I have ever eaten. My cousins were given the chore of tending that smoke house through the fall and HATED it as it can be a lot of work if done right and my Uncle was a stickler for done right. Cousins would literally smell like smoke for 3 months. Uncle Joe is gone now and one of the cousin is still on the farm. The smoke house is still there but unused as too much work to tend. That old smoke house was built by the WPA I believe it was called. 2'x2'x4' limestone blocks cut and laid. It will probably still be there when the world ends.

[ljk925]

I didn't grow up with a lot of BBQ. Just the occasional burgers and dogs on the grill. I had my first experience with real BBQ was when I was in my early 20's and I went to the Erie Wild Rib Cookoff (Erie, PA's annual ribfest). I had 3 bones from Pigfoot BBQ Cooking Team and I was hooked. I proceeded to get a rib sample from each vendor that day (there were about 6 or 7) and I thought it couldn't get any better. Then I tried the Carolina Rib King's Carolina Gold sauce and I nearly cried. I think I heard cherubs singing. I proceeded to go to the ATM and I brought about $80 worth of ribs, pulled pork and brisket home to the family.

[Yno]

I don't really remember how good it was, but I do remember being wildly impressed. When I was a kid, we went to a BBQ thrown by the ship he was serving on at the time. I realize that the Navy doesn't do a lot of shipboard barbecuing, but lots of the guys sure know their way around a fire. I remember watching some of them injecting a few hundred chicken breasts, and slathering many racks of ribs. It was held at a Navy owned beach, and I know I came home full, sunburned, and happy!