DAYTON, Ohio — Erica Blaire Roby’s happy place is on her back patio, surrounded by three different grills while cooking up something new on the fourth. It was where she started her barbecue journey, sneaking out at night to try new recipes, when she could find the time.
That’s why even after competitions across the country, cooking alongside world-famous pit masters and a stint on Food Network, Roby said it’s only fitting her next step in barbecue is grilling for her neighbors.
Roby started a series of pop-ups in downtown Dayton to serve up her award-winning barbecue in the hopes of opening a food truck soon.
“We want to really tell the people of Dayton ‘thank you,’” she said.
After the city supported and helped inspire her barbecue journey, Roby said it was about time locals could taste what she’s been able to create.
Barbecue is a relatively new passion for Roby, but food is not. She comes from a long line of cooks and chefs, even working as a sommelier herself, but in recent years, Roby’s been making herself busy a mother of a toddler, and an attorney.
“That’s what pays the bills,” she said.
She said she started getting serious about barbecue in 2019 when her dad told her he wanted to open a barbecue restaurant. If that was going to be a family business, Roby decided she should know how to prepare anything her father needed.
“I told myself I’d teach myself. I’m gonna learn,” she said. “So I started watching all the barbecue TV shows, and then running outside in my backyard and practicing.”
Then Roby said she started looking for teachers and learned Harry Soo, a chef she saw on TV, was offering classes nearby.
“I was so nervous walking up to his house,” she said. “And as soon as I turned the corner, I saw him and we started talking and he put me at ease.”
Roby said she ended up taking his class three times, then he recommended she work with Myron Mixon.
“And I was like, ‘Myron Mixon!’” She said. “He’s like the godfather of grills.”
She traveled to Georgia to learn what she could from him, then he recommended she start trying out her barbecue on the competition circuit.
Roby entered Memphis in May’s World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest and was shocked to earn a spot through the competition’s lottery.
“Then the world shut down,” she said.
It was spring of 2020 and without the opportunity to travel, compete and learn, Roby said she became her own biggest critic.
“Basically in that time I had a year and a half to really start perfecting my craft so when Memphis in May came around again, I was ready for it,” she said.
It was around that point Roby started seriously documenting her barbecue journey on Instagram, attracting the attention of a mysterious messenger.
“They slid into my DMs,” she said with a laugh. “It was this vague message.”
They asked her if she was interested in applying for an unspecified show about barbecue. Roby passed the message onto some of her peers in the barbecue world, and they told her it was legit and she should apply.
Months went by and Roby said she heard nothing. Then in November of 2020, she said she got a call from the Food Network. They wanted her to compete on season two of “BBQ Brawl.”
“I never once thought that I could be on TV,” she said.
Before she could compete though, Roby needed a brand.
“So every barbecue person when you’re about to get out on the competition circuit you have to come out with a name,” she said.
After weeks of trial and error, Roby said she got her inspiration from Dolly Parton.
“‘Blue Smoke’ came on and I was like, ‘Blue Smoke, I like that.’ And then my middle name is Blaire so we’re like, Blue Smoke Blaire, oh my Gosh! That’s the name!”
Blue Smoke Blaire took her title and talents to Star Hill Ranch in Austin, Texas and found herself cooking alongside Bobby Flay competing against a handful of other home cooks looking to stand out on the grill.
Roby said that’s when it began to feel real.
“I saw like 8,000 cameras and it was really a TV set and all of a sudden I realized like, you’re not in Dayton, Ohio anymore.”
Roby said the show tested her ability to think on her feet and forced her to have thick skin every time she approached the judges' table.
“I really listened to what they would say to me, what they would say to the other contestants on the show and then I would go back in my head and think about what dishes I could make,” she said.
The strategy kept her around week after week, until suddenly, Roby was competing in the finals, ultimately winning the title “Master of Cue.”
As she raised a toast to her fellow competitors at the end of the episode, Roby declared: “Dayton, Ohio is on the map!”
While Roby has lived across the country and traveled even further, she considers Dayton home. She spent much of her childhood in the city and came back to attend college at Wright State.
Now living in Dayton once more, Roby said she’s come to respect the food scene in the city, especially the work of the local pit masters.
“Ohio gets such a bad rep in general for barbecue but it’s actually crazy because we have some of the best influences,” she said. “We got the red sauce from Kentucky that comes up from the south. We’ve got the sweet sauce from Kansas City. We get a lot of Tennessee here in Ohio.”
Roby also acknowledges she never would have gotten so far without the influence of Dayton-area pit masters. Now she said it’s time she pays it forward through her food.
While she’s not quite ready to open the restaurant of her father’s dreams, Roby is working to secure the parts to start a food truck, called “Blue Smoke Blaire.” In the meantime, she’s setting up popups on the weekends to get her food out there.
Despite her competitive success, Roby acknowledges she still has a lot of growing to do behind the grill, but now, back home in Dayton, she believes she’s in the right place to move her barbecue journey forward.
“As long as you keep an open heart and maintain being a student and a lover of the craft, you’ll never fail.”