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Chile Pepper Extravaganza Schedule Released!!
After you finish your spicy revelry in Houston this weekend, folks, get yourself down to New Orleans for the Chile Pepper Extravaganza! I just got the schedule from the festival organizers and it’s going to be a great show! Click the link directly below to hear the radio spot playing all over New Orleans! And click the second link further down for the complete show schedule!
Click the link below to see show times, schedule, cooking demos, and more!!! Lots of great fun and demos along with some of your favorite spicy vendors! Come see Tracy Carter from Jacs Tailgaters, Johnny McLaughlin of Heartbreaking Dawns, Steve Seabury of High River Sauces and the New York City Hot Sauce Festival, “Cin” Cindy of Cin Cindy Chili fame, CaJohn Hard from CaJohn’s, Michelle Northrup of the Intensity Academy, blogger and renowned Hot Sauce Collector Vic Clinco, just to name a few, along with lots of other local chefs and celebrities sharing their knowledge and passion for food, flavor, heat, and spice! I hope to see you at the Ernest Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA September 27-29! Laizzes Les Bon Temp Roulet!
2013 Chile Pepper Extravaganza Schedule
Flicking Your Bic Was Never This Much Fun!!
When I was approached by the Bic Corporation to review their portable grilling gizmo, the FlameDisk®, I tried to visualize a whole bunch of plastic lighters taped to a plate flying through the air at a rock concert! Okay, so I date myself, but I burnt many a finger holding my lighter up proudly at rock concerts, thank you very much! But I digress. This cool and groovy barbecue enhancing, nifty, swifty, pyro based product can take the dirty mess and hassle out of your next tailgate grilling experience. So sit back and enjoy this unique visit with the Bic ™ FlameDisk®!
The FlameDisk lights with the “Flick of your Bic”!
As you can see from the picture, the FlameDisk® is just that – a flat disk with holes that you place in the bottom of your grill and light in place of charcoal! The holes allow the flames of this Bic™ to flick your pre-game load of burgers, dogs, chicken, steak, or whatever it is you decide to grill up on game day, picnic day, or heck, just any old day! I found the instructions simple and the FlameDisk® even simpler than that- downright intuitive!
The instructions say to allow a four minute warm-up to achieve 40 minutes of cooking time, and then a 10 minute cool down after the flame goes out (which you can force by covering the Disk), and I found that to be pretty much true. This baby lives up to the reputation of its much smaller, but iconic older uncle, the Bic™ lighter! It is simple, effective, and disposable. Not having to deal with the mess associated with using charcoal briquettes, and right off the bat, the FlameDisk® gets 5 Fiery Worlds for convenience in lieu of charcoal.
The Bic FlameDisk Made Quick Work of Burgers and Chicken
It grilled the chicken and burgers without issue, and I had a little heat left for some veggies, had I been in the mood! I quickly learned that if you don’t have it level, the “fuel” they use distributes unevenly, giving you an uneven heat and more pronounced flames on one side of the disk. My tabletop grill isn’t round, and that was an issue for me trying to keep the disk level. I managed to adjust it for the most part, but I did have to shift the food around a couple of times to keep from scorching. The Flavor is not dissimilar to what you’d get with a gas grill, but I might experiment and put some wood chips on the disk the next time to get a better wood-fire, charcoal flavor. The only other real observation is that there isn’t an effective way to extinguish flare-ups without jeopardizing your flame, but if you’re babysitting your grilled gastric gridiron delights, you can manage and adjust! So it gets 3 Fiery Worlds for flavor, but another 5 Fiery Worlds for novelty, portability, and ingenuity! I’ve already rated it a 5 Fiery Worlds in convenience.
According to their website, the FlameDisk® sells for $4.99 list price, which isn’t a bad price for the huge convenience factor, and when I did some web searching, found it on sale at many locations. At time of posting, they also offered a $2.00 off coupon! So before the next big game, don’t battle your grill! Try out Bic’s new FlameDisk® and save those heated battles for the gridiron!!! And remember, Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s A Fiery World!
This Independence Day, Fly on EagleWingZ
When I think of an Eagle, I think about America! And when I think about America, I think about July 4th! And when I think about July 4th, I think about the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Rockets’ Red Glare, and the Star Spangled Banner! And when I think about the Star Spangled Banner, of course I think about its author, Francis Scott Key, and the Battle of Fort McHenry in the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. So………..What would be more fitting and proper this July 4th season, filled with BBQ and watermelon, and burgers, and chicken, than to talk about EagleWingZ Chesapeake Style Hot Sauce, hailing from you guessed it! The Chesapeake Bay area of DelMarVa!!! Rick Ewing’s EagleWingZ “Normal” and “Extreme” sauces may be just what you need to make your taste buds Fly Like an Eagle during this year’s July 4th picnic! (now you’re humming the Steve Miller tune, aren’t you? Yep, you know it’s true!)
This is a sauce that can’t decide if it’s a wing sauce or a hot sauce, or a BBQ sauce, or a………. and that’s the beauty of it! The simple, gluten free formula contains mostly basic ingredients: Cayenne Pepper, Distilled Vinegar, #1 grade Mustard Seed, Celery Seed, Salt, Black Pepper, Paprika, Turmeric, and Garlic Powder. And the Extreme version uses the same flavor profile, but layers in some Capsaicin to boost the heat. That’s it! The ingredient list is reminiscent of Old Bay Seasoning, very popular in that neck of the woods. But, it didn’t really have any hidden “spices” or other fancy stuff. Well, turmeric may be considered fancy cause it sounds cool and exotic, but it’s a subtle tone in this straight forward wing…errr…hotsauce.
EagleWingz Extreme Makes a Great Wing!
Speaking of Turmeric, the flavor of these sauces is excellent, especially if you are a fan of mustard-like sauces. The mustard seed base combined with cayenne is a favorite of mine, but then again, I’m a big fan of mustard based sauces in general. The celery seed adds a touch of sweetness, and the turmeric, a member of the ginger family from India, and a mainstay in mustard and Worchester sauce, adds a little pop and zing to the picnic of flavor! The Black Pepper plays more like a bottle rocket than a big starburst display, but in this fireworks display of flavor, you still know it’s there!
The Heat level is what I’d call very low in the normal version, and just low in the “Extreme”. So not a lot of heat to be had here, but the flavor is so smooth and broad-spectrum, that it’s not needed. The Capsaicin in the Extreme did vary the flavor ever so slightly, but not enough to become bitter or unpleasant.
Overall Rating and Impression: 3 ½ Fiery Worlds. This is a very tasty, versatile sauce and would’ve climbed to an overall 4 if the Extreme version had packed the heat it led me to believe it had. I tried it on wings first, using the hints from the website and from my email exchanges with Rick Ewing. He told me to grill the wings, then toss them in the sauce, and then “set” the sauce and the flavor by nuking the wings for 40 seconds after tossing! And it worked like a charm!!! Great technique! Also great on grilled chicken breast, pork tenderloin, sandwiches, shrimp (delicious if you like that mustardy style, which I do!), and I’m sure crabs, but I didn’t try that, not being much of a crab person! So, as your sense of patriotism and pride grow during this Independence Day season and you prepare that menu for your July 4th picnic outing, make sure it includes some EagleWingz! Go on the website, www.e-wingz.com, and check it out for yourself. The website is actually the site for their storefront, www.GlobalHotSauce.com, so the selection goes way past just these 2 sauces. Tell ‘em Chilehead Ken sent you and remember Ladies and Gentlemen, that It’s a Fiery World
After “Setting” the Wings in the Microwave for 40 seconds-Perfectly Glazed!
Smokin’ Good! Jac’s Tailgaters Bayou Gold Chipotle Mustard Sauce is Back!
Jac’s Chipotle Mustard sauce in the 5 oz. bottle
I love mustard. There…I’ve said it! And I’m not sure why, but I’ve always loved mustard. Maybe it’s the color since, afterall, yellow is my favorite color. Maybe it’s the tang and tartness. Or maybe the low fat, low calorie nature of the beast. However, as human nature dictates, some things get routine…normal…mundane….ho hum….okay, I’ll say it – boring! And this includes my beloved mustard. And while a turkey sandwich isn’t the same without a little yellow goodness, it can get a bit ordinary after a while. Until now! Jac’s Tailgaters has revived one of their original offerings and after tasting it I saw stars! Fireworks! And I heard angelic voices! And Boston singing “Smokin'”! Wait! What? Boston? Smokin? What’s up with that!? I’ll tell you what’s up – Jac’s Tailgaters Bayou Gold Chipotle Mustard Sauce is a little touch of smoked mustardy sunshine in an otherwise mundane, boring, cloudy mustardy day! Okay, so I’m mixing up my song metaphors, but you get the point!
When I was dieting last year, I was bummed out because I couldn’t enjoy Tracy and Kristi Carter’s Bayou Gold Mustard Sauce, because it had more than a gram of brown sugar in it and a couple of other ingredients that weren’t on my diet. And as I was chatting to Tracy about it at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival, he said he had a solution- his Chipotle Mustard Sauce which has almost no sugar at all – well within my self-imposed stringent dietary no sugar rule! So armed with a couple bottles, I proceeded to learn just how smokin’ hot (as in cool…nifty…swell…appealing…not flaming, scoville topping, scorching, etc.) this mustard sauce is on just about everything it touches.
Jac’s Chipotle Mustard Sauce is an excellent gourmet style mustard sauce
I’ve used this sauce on meat (especially pork, chicken, turkey, and ham), veggies (a little of this is crazy good on beans, cauliflower, and more), sandwiches, and still thinking of new uses. And my wife, who does not share my hot and spicy obsession (but is very supportive, I must say), has cautioned me on more than one occasion by stating “You’re not using all of that, are you? I like that one a lot!” That’s high praise, I have to tell you! And who could blame her? One bite and you discover the subtlety of flavors, the smoked pepper mellowing out most of the sharpness that is customary in mustard, but not totally taming the dynamic flavors set apart with hints of onion, garlic, a touch of lemon, and white pepper. Whether straight up on a sandwich, as a base for pork tenderloin, a sauce for veggies, or whatever your application, this mustard sauce is…simply put…..Smokin’!!!!
So what’s the verdict? This sauce, ladies and gentlemen, earns 4 1/2 Fiery Worlds from this reviewer! It’s as close to perfect as a mustard sauce can get, but alas, I marked it down 1/2 simply because it only comes in a 5 oz. bottle!!!! I can suck that down in one sitting! You can find this sauce, and many more excellent gourmet sauces, spice blends, rubs, marinades, dip mixes, chili and gumbo mixes on Jac’s Tailgaters website. I am a huge fan of their entire lineup and encourage you to indulge your palate and your imagination with a variety of his outstanding offerings. And remember, ladies and gentlemen…..It’s a Fiery World!
Just some of the many versatile sauces, rubs, marinades, dips, and seasonings offered by Tracy and Kristi Carter and Jac’s Tailgaters
It's a Fiery World 