PHOTO GALLERY: Pig Pickin' for PCCA Friday Night

begins at 11 a.m. and goes until 4 p.m. on Saturday at in downtown Easley.

On Friday night, several of the vendors sold out of chicken wings, but all that means is that they were really good, according to some cookers.

Rob Bonifay of Charleston wouldn't let a little thing like a double hernia keep him from being at the first barbecue event held by the Pickens County Cancer Association.

Bonifay, along with his team members Mike Bolden and Troy Dion of Jack Leg Barbecue, are hoping to win the event.

"I just had surgery for a double hernia," Bonifay said. "But I didn't want to miss cooking with my team. All us have had family members who are either suffering from cancer or have had cancer in the past."

Bonifay said his team had been taking good care of him from everything to driving him to Easley in a reclined position to carting him from the parking lot on a dolly used for moving appliances.

"He looked like Hannibal Lecter rolling up here," his teammates joked.

These guys cook a little bit of everything — from steak thrown on the wood, to foie gras, lamb chops, chicken and Boston butt.

On Friday night around 8:30 p.m., their team had already run out of the 30 pounds of wings they had prepared.

"People kept coming back, so it must be incredible barbecue," Bonifay said.

The team, which is currently ranked sixth among cookers in the South Carolina Barbecue Association, won for best wings at an event last weekend.

All the meat is cooked in a 1920s refrigerator that has been converted to a smoker. The smoker is fed heat from a wood stove that is wired for an alarm to go off when the fire burns too low. The men keep a fire stoked nearby to burn down the wood before it goes into the stove.

"You never want to see a lot of white smoke coming out of your cooker," Bonifay said. "Too much white smoke means there is acids burning off the wood and charcoals."

The team earns points for each event they participate in and finishing in the top three spots for each of those events helps to improve the teams standings.

When the event closed on Friday evening, the cookers were already working on barbecue for day two of the event.

The Pig Pickin' features live music, food and fellowship. All you can eat barbecue — $10 for adults; $5 for kids 10 and under. Beverages are sold separately.