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The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a time-honored extravaganza that consumes the city each year. |
Every January, Houstonians start preparing for the biggest event of the year, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Few events celebrate the pride and spirit of Texas better than this internationally acclaimed rodeo, usually held in late February and early March. Folks who don't normally wear western clothes begin rummaging through their closets for their go-Texan outfits, complete with boots, belts, and hats.
Each year, close to two million people participate in some aspect of the rodeo and livestock show, producing the world's largest livestock exhibition, most popular regular- season rodeo, and a premier entertainment event. For more than two weeks each year, the rodeo upstages just about everything that is going on in Houston. "When you think about Texas, you think about Houston rodeo. The rodeo is to Houston what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans," said Leroy Shafer, assistant general manager.
The goals of the livestock show and rodeo are numerous. The organization has given more than 4,500 scholarships since 1957. Through the rodeo, more than $4 million has been available for education support.
For the general public, the rodeo means affordable family entertainment, good food, and fun. Top entertainers and world-renowned cowboys are invited to the rodeo to ensure a quality show. Each evening the rodeo features such events as bull riding, saddle and bareback bronco riding, team roping, calf roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing, a carnival, commercial exhibits, live entertainment, livestock parades, and auctions. Concert stages at the rodeo feature major superstars.
Barbecue and rodeo go hand in hand. During rodeo days Pitt's and Spitt's of Houston has a hard time keeping up with the demand for its hand-made barbecue pits, considered the Mercedes Benz of barbecue grills, according to Raymond Hartis, a founder of the company. Made from stainless and carbon steel, Pitt's and Spitt's barbecues are considered true Texas smokers.
Hartis and his partners have been selling barbecue pits since 1984. The company offers two designs and a variety of sizes in each design. The towable trailer units are used by catering companies and barbecue cook-off teams. Special features that can be added to the cookers include gas grills, storage cabinets, and even fish fryers.
Bar-B-Que Specialties, on the Southwest Freeway across from Compaq Center, sells a different type of cooker, based on a 3,000-year-old Japanese concept. The Kamado Hibachi roaster offers an alternative method of barbecuing, smoking, grilling, or otherwise cooking meat and poultry. A porcelain pot that comes in three sizes, the Kamado cooks meat in the same manner as traditional metal grills and smokers--with a charcoal fire--but the food cooks quicker without drying out, and the Kamado allows for easier temperature control than the traditional grill. Because of the heat-absorbing qualities of porcelain, the Kamado Hibachi pot retains 70 percent more heat than a metal grill and uses less charcoal. "You can smoke a 16-pound turkey in two and a half hours, and it ends up moist and perfect," said owner John McGraw. "The ceramic surface gives a more earthy and wholesome flavor to your cooking, and there's no metallic or tin flavor."
Bar-B-Que Specialties also carries a distinctive line of barbecue accessories, including temperature gauges, natural lump charcoal, chimney charcoal starters, and the Barbecue Genie, a flashlight with attachable cooking utensils for grilling in the dark.
