Author Rick Browne cooks up BBQ Fest with ilani

Celebrity chefs including Todd English, Alton Brown, Robert Irvine and Kevin Bludso are headlining ilani’s BBQ Fest this weekend.

The event will kick off at 8 p.m. today with a free performance by the rock band Spin Doctors, famous for their 1990s hits “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and “Two Princes.”

From noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, celebrity chefs will offer cooking demonstrations. Meanwhile, local pit masters Lynnae Oxley of Sugars Barbecue in Ridgefield and Rick Browne, author of “Barbecue America,” will head up judging for a barbecue contest.

Stan Hays — the CEO and co-founder of Operation BBQ Relief, which delivers meals to communities hit by natural disasters — will lead a four-hour class called BBQ Basics on Sunday for local police and firefighters that will culminate in a competition.

Others participating in the BBQ Fest include Food Network regular Aaron May, Food Network’s “Master of ’Cue” champion Erica Blaire Roby, “American Barbecue Showdown” contestant Georgia Chasen and Netflix’s “American Barbeque Showdown” breakout star Rasheed Philips.

“It’s going to be a fun event,” said Browne, a former Columbian photo editor and food reviewer who now lives in Medford, Ore.