Latest Entries
The Burn Buzz - Spicy Food News 2/8/10
Here's my first 2010 edition of the Burn Buzz, where I list hot n' interesting links about spicy food and BBQ that have been floating around on the intertubes lately...
Chick-fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich Coming Nationwide
Locally Made: Bill Hutchison Solves the New Mexico Pepper Debate - Helping to Answer the Question "Red or Green?"
The Great New Mexico Chile War - More on the Red vs. Green debate, plus a mishmash of other subjects.
Building A Better Pepper - Chile pepper farmer Ed Curry and growing chiles in Arizona.
Nestle's Hot Sauce Heats Up - The food company introduces a new hot sauce in Malaysia.
Hot times in the city: Farmers process hot peppers on Saginaw 'assembly line' - Growing chile peppers in Michigan
New celebrity diet pill Capsiplex hits the UK streets - Capsaicin-based diet pill is claimed to burn as many calories as one would burn in 90 minutes of a brisk walk.
Review - Uncle Bruthas ALLSAUCE No. 9 Chile Verde Garlic and Ginger Hot Sauce
I don't think I've had quite a wallop of pure flavor such as this in a long, long time; perhaps not since I reviewed Jake's Mesa Breeze Basil Lime Marinade have I encountered a sauce that possessed bold, amazing taste notes and also was balanced and delicious. The sauce I'm talking about is the wonderful chile verde, garlic & ginger-based Uncle Brutha's ALLSAUCE No 9, one of two condiments (the other sauce being a multiple chile pepper-dominated red sauce) devised by successful music industry sound technician-turned hot sauce maker Brennan Proctor.
Blair's Golden Death Coming Soon/Sauce Manufacturer E-Mail Newsletters
Many of you reading this had received the inaugural issue of Blair's Extreme News yesterday. Blair, of course, has blasted out e-mails to subscriber fans for years. But they've never been sent out on a regular, recurring basis until now (these promise to be weekly).
Now in my personal profession as a web developer, I've been heavily involved with broadcasting e-mail newsletters for whatever employer I happened to be working for at the time. This type of marketing when executed correctly had proven itself to be highly effective - at that time, that is. With the emergence and wide-spread influence of social media, namely Facebook and Twitter, is e-mail marketing as powerful as it once was? I happen to think that it still has a bit of life left in it. Where the medium will be in two or three years, who knows, but I believe it's still a great way of touching base with your customers (both actual and potential).
Hot sauce manufacturers in general haven't pursued this brand of marketing. With limited budgets and limited staff - monthly e-mail newsletters can require at least a part-time person who is well-versed in basic web and graphic design - it's easy to understand why. Many of our favorite sauce makers have a full-time job to contend with in addition to concocting and producing spicy food products, and a lot of them have to reply on co-packers to bottle...
The Hot Sauce/Chilehead Events Calendar
Not much to write about tonight - the evening consisted mostly of helping my boys with their homework, light web surfing on my laptop and catching the season one finale of BBQ Pitmasters on TLC. But I did want to mention that many fiery foods events, hot sauce shows and chile pepper festivals for 2010 are already scheduled. I've compiled most of them on the Hot Sauce/Chilehead Events Calendar. I urge everyone to look it over the list to see if you can take the time out of your busy schedules to attend one of these events. Some of them vary in function and have different focuses, but almost all have good & spicy food and great comraderie with fellow fiery foods fans. Be sure to check out their descriptions and click on the web links for more information.
Oh, and if you know any that I might have omitted, or have any important details I may not have posted, please contact me and let me know the details!
Review - Louisiana Gold Pepper Sauces, Part Two - Wasabi
Here's Round Two of analyzing the new Louisiana Gold Hot Sauce line. In the previous episode, I considered Red to be so-so with a pungent vinegar & salt pairing, and Green to lack heat but still have a delicious flavor. Now up to the plate is Louisiana Gold Wasabi Hot Sauce.
Now this is something I was both very eager and hesitant to test out. This is Bruce Foods' (Louisiana Hot Sauce's parent company) very first wasabi-infused food offering so the curiosity level was high in that regard. You don't see the "big boys" - Louisiana, plus Tabasco, Frank's, Crystal, et al. - exactly diluging the market with wasabi products, and Louisiana Hot Sauce...
February 2010 Chilehead T-Shirt of the Month - Capsaicin Molecule-Scoville Chart
As all chileheads know, capsaicin is the chemical compound found in chile peppers that makes them taste hot. This sweet tee showcases a capsaicin molecule on the front along with the actual chemical formula (C18 H27 NO3).
Okay, so you've seen capsaicin molecule t-shirts elsewhere before. What makes this one different from the others is that it sports an ultra cool Scoville Scale chart of hot chile peppers on the back. Coming or going people will know you're hardcore about your passion for heat...
Help Zane and Zack Help Haiti
Zane & Zack's World Famous Honey Co., makers of some of the finest sweet and spicy products this side of the Equator, are doing their part for Haiti relief by offering an "I Dream of Hot Sauce" bottle up for auction on eBay! Packaged in a gorgeous 1973 Jim Beam "I Dream of Jeannie" bottle, the top is covered in gold and silver wax and the bottle is numbered and signed by the whole Zane & Zack's crew. There are only 25 in existance with several numbers left to choose from.
ALL proceeds from this sale will be donated to World Concern where 94% of each dollar goes directly to help the victims of Haiti's earthquake. Zane & Zack's will also pay for shipping in hopes of raising more money to help all of the victims in this horrible disaster.
PLEASE BE AS GENEROUS AS YOU CAN!
Auction Link: click here.
Revisited for 2010: Hot Wings and Buffalo Wings - Here Are 15 Different Recipes You've Gotta Try
Here's a topic I think is worth revisiting after more than a year (I first blogged about this in February 2008) - some great, mouth-watering recipes for chicken wings. Since Super Bowl is just around the corner, AND being inspired to post a wing-related article by HotSauceDaily.com's Brian Meagher (check out his excellent series "Week of Wings"), I've revisted the "15 Wings Recipes You've Gotta Try" post yet again.
No other food (with the possible exception of chili) can claim to be the staple of any American chilehead's diet quite like the spicy chicken wing. Here are 15 different links to sites with recipes for hot wings (breaded) and buffalo wings (unbreaded) that will increase your wing-making skills and expand your tastes...
Recipe - Scotty's Monster Breakfast Mash
You won't have to wait until the Halloween season to enjoy this scary-good cacophony of basic flavors. What you do need is some leftover fried chicken. It can be whole pieces, chicken strips or even chunks or nuggets (whatever you have on hand), but they should be breaded and fried. If you had cooked up a bunch of bird for the previous night's supper, this is the perfect thing to do with any leftovers...
Review - Lizards on the Bayou Gila Venom Habanero Sauce
Let's give a rundown of Lizard's on the Bayou Gila Venom Habanero Sauce's accolades: it was 2006 ZestFest's Peoples' Preference Hot Sauce Award winner, a 2007 Golden Chile Award, placing 3rd in the Pepper Blend category, and a 2008 1st Place Scovie Award in the Habanero Hot Sauce category. Not a bad list for a sauce, so let's see how it holds up to my humble little palette...
Celebrity Grill Podcast Interviews Scott Roberts
Do you listen to the Celebrity Grill Podcast? Well, I'm honored to be the featured guest on this week's show! It was a lot of fun and I chat with host DM about grilling various kinds of meat, veggies, plus a little about hot sauce.
You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here or on the Celebrity Grill website. The podcast is very informative and JM is a great host who is extremely passionate about backyard grilling, so if you're into that sort of thing be sure to subscribe!
Review - Gameday Eats Hellfire Habanero
GamedayEats.com is website geared towards showcasing recipes of sports fan foods - you know the snacks, dips, wings and meats we all proudly love to stuff our happy little faces with whether watching the game at home or tailgating out in the parking lot by the stadium. Gameday Eats is now trying their hand at making wings sauces. Curt Johnson of the site was kind enough to ship me a jar of their brand new Hellfire Habanero sauce to put through its paces...
Review - Chef Hymie Grande Cascabel Express Barbecue Glaze
Different is good. Well, more specifically, different can be desirable if a sauce recipe is inspired and smacks down artificially-created walls and conventions even if the item isn't necessarily a 5 out of 5 stars on taste.
On this subject, Chef Hymie Grande' (real name Jamie Faitelson) is someone who has got to applauded for his exploratory spirit. He seems like someone who is bored with tedium in foods and will jump at the chance to interject the bizarre and the unconventional. While I love regular barbecue sauces, I was genuinely excited to see his take on the genre of condiments.
The Chef also has additional "separate from the rest of the pack" clout going for him even more because Cascabel Express Barbecue Glaze (and his other two condiments) are first BBQ sauces to carry the American Diabetes Association mark on the bottles' labels, as they meet the stringent ADA specifications. Cascabel Express is also vegan-friendly, all natural, and contain no high-fructose corn syrup or processed sugar.
With all of these attributes, if Chef Hymie Grande' could pull this off as a delicious taste-bud pleaser, he would have one hell of a unique product on his hands. Unfortunately, I think this sauce misses the mark on flavor. It does it just barely, but it still misses enough for me not to give this a raving thumbs up...
St. Louis Chili Cook-Off To Be Held On January 30, 2010
St. Louis finally gets an ICS-sanctioned chili cook-off next Saturday, January 30th, 2010! It will be held at the Heart of Saint Charles Banquet Center and will run from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Here is the general information provided by STLChili.com:
Come and taste all the chili you can handle at the Saint Louis Fire and Ice Chili Cook-off. The cook-off will include decorated booths following our 2010 theme, Fire and Ice. Live music will keep your toes tapping while vendors and public are eligible for Awards and Prizes! Soda, water, tea and Budweiser beverages will be available for purchase to wash down the scrumptious chili! Bring your friends and family to help decide who has the best chili of Saint Louis, Missouri!
For More Information...
FireTalkers - Interview with Kevin Benz of Twodogs Unleashed
Attempting to cleanly categorize Twodogs Unleashed Sweet Hidden Heat Salishes may very well be a futile exercise. It has elements of products that many chileheads may currently have sitting in their refrigerator doors, such as mustards, salsas, relishes, dips, glazes and spreads. It's like a thick sweet and sour sauce with a mustardy kick and chile-derived heat. Salish (a combination of "salsa" and "relish") is strange stuff but it works on many levels. You'll have to try it to get the full gist of what I'm saying.
I wanted to know a little more about the man behind the product, Kevin Benz, so I contacted him to ask him a few questions. I found out that he, like many populating the spicy foods industry, has a day job but is passionate about his "second" career - making, selling and promoting his salish. He does this locally around his hometown in northern Illinois and nationwide on his Twodogs Unleashed website...
Review - Danny Cash Naga Sabi Bomb
I'd previously sampled Danny Cash's unique Naga Sabi Bomb sauce. A healthy spoonful had been enough to impress me with its power as a dual naga/bhut jolokia and wasabi hot sauce, even if I wasn't crazy about the taste. Alas, sometimes first impressions can be deceiving. Often, a sauce or condiment will need a "proper context", e.g. used with certain foods, to obtain its true flavor and usefulness. Danny had told me that Naga Sabi was amazing on sushi and even guacamole, so I knew that this sauce required to be put on some grub to give it a fair assessment...
German Teens Guzzle Extreme Hot Sauce, End Up in Hospital
BERLIN - Officials in Germany say eight teenagers were hospitalized after a test of courage in which they drank a chile pepper sauce more than 200 times hotter than normal. The Red Cross in the southern city of Augsburg says that 10 boys, aged 13 and 14, year drank the sauce Wednesday morning, apparently in school.
The German news agency DAPD quoted the Red Cross as saying the boys complained of feeling sick, and eight were taken to a hospital. They were to be kept in overnight for observation.
The Red Cross said that on the Scoville scale, which measures the hotness of sauce, the sauce measured 535,000 – compared to 2,500 for normal Tabasco Sauce.
Review - House of Jerky Beef Jerkies
It's been quite a number of months since I've done a formal review of a beef jerky, so this one is long overdue. My latest examination will cover three of Indiana-based House of Jerky's offerings: Black Pepper Beef Jerky, Hot Beef Jerky and Sweet & Spicy Beef Jerky...
Letter From the UK - January 2010
Christmas is well and truly over, the snow has gone, the kids are back in school, it is now time to make good on the New Year's resolutions, like learning to write better articles, losing weight, etc...
My last letter from the UK came out just before Christmas, most of our UK vendors had just moments to go before they would not be able to ship and more orders and where running as fast as they could to ship all the orders, all reports from the front reported good sales well up on last year, but there was little hot news in the last few days.
Now as we move into 2010 we have heard from a couple of our larger UK suppliers that they are close to moving to larger premises and their business continues to grow...
Quaker Steak and Lube Triple Atomic Tough Wing Challenge
I know there are no Quaker Steak and Lube locations within a couple hundred miles of St. Louis, but there's enough of you that live in close proximity to one to make this very noteworthy.
The famous sports bar/wing eatery chain is having a contest to promote their new Triple Atomic Sauce. In a nutshell, if you make a video showing why you're tough enough for the new wings, and if your entry gets chosen you could win free wings for three years and a $500 gift card. Watch the video below for more details or go to http://www.tripleatomictough.com.
