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Are You Ready For Some Football?
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This weekend kicks off my favorite time of the year...NFL Football season! The temperature outside drops, bringing us beautiful Fall weather throughout a large portion of the country while we feast on wings, BBQ, chips, or whatever gametime food we choose.
Many of the games are already underway as I write this, and I await my Rams to start their first regular season matchup one hour from now...whether they continue to play lousy again this year, I don't care. I still can't wait for the kickoff!
And not every man needs to be a diehard NFL fan or be glued to the TV for every play. This time of year guys will be allowed to unabashedly act like guys. Every dude can celebrate in their maleness without having to be "politically correct" or "sensitive".
So let's revel in the season and raise our glasses. Here's to Sundays, God and football, and to Fall!
Scott Recreates the Four Horsemen Burger
Being both a chilehead and a fan of the Travel Channel's Man v. Food, I always take great interest when host Adam Richman attempts to tackle spicy food-related eating challenges. For some reason, his recent battle against a four chile pepper hamburger really piqued my interest. He's previously taken on super hot wings and scorching Indian curry, but I guess what got me intrigued was the fact that this particular challenge could be duplicated at home with relative ease. Instead of trying to figure out a secret formula, mystery recipe, or unknown ingredients that were essential puzzle pieces in other Man v. Food-featured dishes, the Four Horsemen Burger was something somebody like me would have been able to get all the parts necessary for in-home trial...
FireTalkers: Interview with Clement Bourg of Cajun Heat
Cajun Heat's Clement Bourg, by way of Virgina, has concocted some stunning sauce and seasoning in Liquid Napalm and Voodoo Ash, respectively, that I reviewed not too long ago. I wasn't the only one enthralled by their unique tastes; they've also earned multiple 1st and 2nd place Scovie and TheHotPepper Awards.
I recently interviewed Clement, and here's what he had to say...
The Burn Buzz - Spicy Food News 9/9/09
It's time to pig out for another 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...
Official 2010 Scovie Awards Entry Form - Deadline extended to September 15
Rock's Farm And Garden's Pepper Field Now Open - In Northern Ohio
Only Known Photo of Wilbur Scoville - Found at Last! Circa 1909 - Inventor of the Scoville Scale, which measures the amount of capsaicin found in chile peppers.
Wrap-up of Austin Hot Sauce Festival - An good account of happenings, pics and video.
Couple slowly burns through their competition - Austin Slow Burn, a up-and-coming salsa company
"Saga" Jolokia - Indian Chilli Acquires Cult Following in US - The growing usage and acceptance of Bhut/Naga Jolokia peppers in America
DEFCON Sauces to appear on Travel Channel's Extreme Conventions - Footage featuring DEFCON's booth from the 2009 Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show will be shown.
Catching up with Dave Hirschkopf of Dave's Gourmet - Interview with the creator of Dave's Insanity Sauce
FireTalkers: Interview with Mike Greening of Mike and Diane's Gourmet Kitchen - Creator of Ring of Fire Hot Sauces and Mad Anthony's Sauces
Longtime Tucson Company's Salsa is One Hot Commodity - Poblano Hot Sauce Inc turns 85 years old on Sept. 10
BBQ Festivals - State by state listing of barbecue events in 2009
Assam govt promotes Naga chilli cultivation - Local Indian government encourages farmers to grow Bhut/Naga Jololia peppers to ward off elephants
When your burning desire runs to hot sauce, make your own - Brief overview of the hot sauce world
Review - Dat'l Do-It Datil Pepper Hot Sauce
Created at Barnacle Bill's seafood restaurant, this St. Augustine classic uses the Florida-indigenous datil chile peppers for its heat. If you're familiar with the wonderfully-tasting datil, you'll know that it can carry a lot of fire (usually around 100,000 to 300,000 scoville units). But Dat'l Do-It Datil Pepper Hot Sauce takes only a "dab" (a dab'll do it...er...did it, I assume) of the chile's fire and instead uses it mainly for it's habanero-like flavor in this uniquely-flexible liquid...
Defcon Sauces to Appear on Travel Channel's Extreme Conventions
The Travel Channel is slated to feature Defcon Sauces on "Extreme Conventions" on September 23rd at 8PM ET (date and time subject to change).
Here are the words of John Dilley of Defcon to explain more:
"Last March, at the Fiery Foods show in Albuquerque, the Travel Channel film crew showed up en masse. They went around to many vendors to get a little insight into the whole fiery food industry. On Saturday of the show, they spent about half the afternoon within the Defcon booth. They were especially giddy watching various public participants have their worst fears brought forth, and dropped like flies with samples of the ZERO. A good time was had by all in attendance.
"Well, I've been going back and forth with one of the editors for a while now, answering various questions for them. It seems the shoot was very successful and will be aired on the Travel Channel on Wednesday, September 23rd, at 8pm.
"I haven't seen the footage, but it's bound to be funny as Hell."
'Saga' Jolokia: Indian Chilli Acquires Cult Following in US
From The Times of India:
WASHINGTON: Nearly a decade after it was first discovered to be the hottest chilli on earth, the Indian firecracker named Bhut Jolokia, aka Naga
Jolokia, has acquired a cult following in the west among so-called chilli-heads.
That’s right; like Dead-heads, who idolize the rock group Grateful Dead, and gear-heads who worship all things mechanical, chilli-heads revere some of the hottest chillis on the planet. And they don’t come hotter than Bhut (or Naga) Jolokia, so-named because it is native to the fiery Naga tribe, and those who taste it are said to turn ghostly...
9th Annual Houston Hot Sauce Festival
Get hot with a little help from your friends...
HOUSTON - Don't get bummed out by the economy. Like wow, the 9th Annual Houston Hot Sauce Festival will be held September 19 and 20, 2009, at the Stafford Centre at 10505 Cash Rd., Stafford, TX 77477. Festival hours are Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm and Sunday from Noon to 5 pm It's a cool $5 to get in with free parking. Proceeds benefit Cancer Research.
The vendors will freak you out. Man, they are coming from all over the country - California, Maryland, Louisiana, Ohio, Florida and Texas. CaJohn's Fiery Foods, Ohio, is bringing...
A Message From Defcon Sauces.....
Courtesy of PeppersandMore.com:
Greetings fellow wing aficionados and culinary perfectionists,
As we begin preparation for our next event on the Defcon Sauces calendar, the wonderful Zest Fest show in Dallas, Texas next week (9/11-9/13), I thought I’d take a few minutes to get everyone up to speed as to what’s been going on within the twisted world of Defcon Sauces.
First off, if you haven’t seen the 2009 Defcon National Championship Wing-Eating Deathmatch video, which took place at Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire in August, check it out on our website, it’s definitely something you don’t want to miss. Certain parts are not for the squeamish, which is just the way I like it.
Our exhaustive global domination efforts have brought new markets into the fold, and we have crossed into new continents, exponentially expanding the perimeter of our sphere of influence...
Hot Sauce Made and Marketed By Prisoners
As mentioned a few weeks ago, a group of inmates in Florida's Hillsborough County Jail have produced a line of hot sauces which they have dubbed Jailhouse Fire. Well, they have finally have a website showcasing the three flavors of sauces available, along with some nicely-done, slick-looking print and television ads.
The trio of sauces are Original, their "regular" hot sauce; Smoke, which utilizes chipotles for a smoky flavor; and No Escape, their fieriest offering. Prices are $7.00 for a 5-ounce bottle of Original or Smoke or $3.00 for a 1.5-ounce bottle of No Escape. All profits from sales go to support inmate programs. Although Jailhouse Fire's website has no e-commerce capabilities, you can still order these by printing out an order form PDF and mailing it in to the prison with your form of payment.
Link: http://www.jailhousefire.org
FireTalkers: Interview with Mike Greening of Mike and Diane's Gourmet Kitchen
In the early 1990s, the husband and wife chef team of Mike and Diane Greening went on vacation in Arizona and stumbled upon a hot sauce store boasting supposedly great sauces and bought some to try out. Unimpressed with their lackluster purchases,the couple went on a mission to create a much better product. After a bit of trial and error, one of my personal favorite line of sauces, Ring of Fire, was born, and Mike and Diane's Gourmet Kitchen, their namesake company, has remained one of the pre-eminent manufacturers in the fiery food industry ever since.
Mike was kind enough to give me the opportunity to ask him a few questions about himself and his passion in this inaugural "FireTalkers" interview feature...
Robert Rodriguez's 10-Minute Cooking School: Puerco Pibil
It's time again for another dazzling cooking demonstration from director/filmmaker extraordinaire Robert Rodriguez. The last time I featured one of his vids, he had created some scrumptious and easy-to-make Sin City Breakfast Tacos. This edition, from the Once Upon a Time in Mexico DVD, showcases Puerco Pibil - or in other words, slow-roasted pork made spicy n' tasty. Nom nom nom!
National Buffalo Wing Festival This Weekend
Can't make it out west to attend the Hatch Chile Festival this Labor Day Weekend? Perhaps you can go to the 2009 National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York. Started in 2002, the annual event is held in the town that gave birth to the buffalo wing, one of the most beloved foods of both chileheads and sports bar enthusiasts. Over 70,000 fiery food fans are expected to see the sights and chow down on over a half-million spicy chicken wings. Eating contests, a .5K (yes, that's no typo) Running of the Chickens, cooking demonstrations and more await festival-goers.
For more information, go to http://www.buffalowing.com.
Review - Tom's Hot Sauces
You know the sign of a really good sauce? It's when you make it tag along with you wherever you go; when you dine out for lunch, when you drive to work munching on your breakfast in the car, and when you walk over to someone's cubicle to splash some on your co-worker's tortilla chips (of course I shared!). You mentally prepare meals in your noggin specifically to go along with that hot sauce because you love it so much. The past two days that sauce for me has been Tom Schickel's all-natural hot sauce creations, which comes in two varieties - Old Man Medium and Kickflip Fire.
The Best Beers in America?
Click to enlarge image
Lyke 2 Drink and Mike Wirth have produced the stunning infographic above that displays where the best beers and best breweries are located across the United States, according to medals won at lasy year's Great American Beer Festival. The next GABF is being held in Denver, Colorado in just a few weeks on September 24 - 26, 2009.
