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Ken’s Fiery World Talks Fall Hot Sauce Fests on Scott Robert’s “Weekly Firecast”
Check out my latest segment on Scott Robert’s web Weekly Firecast!!!! We talk festivals and how appropriate given Scott’s great interviews on this episode!!! So download and enjoy, and remember that Ken’s Fiery World is a regular segment on most every episode of “The Weekly Firecast”! And remember, Ladies and Gentlemen, “It’s a Fiery World!”
The Audio Weekly Firecast with Scott Roberts:
Weekly Firecast Podcast Episode #44 – Fall Fiery Foods Festivals Special with Carol Borge of the Houston Hot Sauce Festival and Rick McMillen of the Chile Pepper Extravaganza
It’s now the heart of the early Autumn Fiery Foods Festival season! During the Ken’s Fiery World segment, blogger and reviewer Ken Alexander chats with Scott about the plethora of spicy food shows and events during this Fall. Scott then features a double header set of interviews: one with Carol Borge of the Houston Hot Sauce Festival, and then later with Chile Pepper Magazine publisher Rick McMillen who discusses the upcoming Chile Pepper Extravaganza in New Orleans. Scott also reviews KFC’s Hot Shot Bites.
Links mentioned in the episode:
• Houston Hot Sauce Festival Facebook Page
• Chile Pepper Extravaganza Facebook Page
• Chileheads/Fiery Foods Event Calendar
• Ken Alexander’s It’s a Fiery World Blog
• Audible Trial Page – Download a FREE audiobook!
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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!
It’s Hot…No, It’s Sweet…No, It’s Hot….Noooo….It’s Sweeet….Awww Hellfire, Make Up Your Mind!
Devils Gold is a Beautiful, HOT, Flavorful Hot Sauce
Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are again in Lake Wob……oops, I mean Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where once again, Merle and Diana at Hellfire Hot Sauce are concocting lovely little potions designed to entice, entertain, and envelope our senses with heat….I mean sweet……no…..heat…..no……sweet……… hea……….STOP!! Stop the Madness!!! (Insert deep breath and a few yoga ommmms here) Of course I’m making light of the latest sauce they sent me to try – Devils Gold – a sauce that celebrates color, heat, fruit, and flavor! Sporting a label that is both appealing and kinda creepy at the same time, this sauce is unique in it’s ability to provide a great heat punch with the flavor of….ummm……fruit punch!
Devils Gold is a beautiful, yellow gold, medium consistency sauce sporting a label with a winged, blank-eyed she-devil babe with her hands in a cauldron of gold and pineapples! A nice visual combination of a sweet face, and piercing, menacing eyes, and well, you’ll have to see the rest and draw your own conclusion (But the sauce ain’t the only hot thing going here…just saying!) When you look at the ingredients of this yellow gold nectar, it reads like a Who’s Who of heat and sweet: Yellow Brain Strain, Fatalii, Trinidad Yellow 7-Pot, Yellow Bhut Jolokia, Yellow Scorpion, Pineapple, Pears, Oranges, Papaya, Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, and “Spices”. So in one delicious 5 ounce package, you get a killer combination of the hottest of the hot peppers all clad in yellow (my favorite color and pepper “flavor”, by the way), and yellow or gold fruits. Once again, Merle and Diana have rocked it out the box with this wonderfully flavored hot sauce!
We’ll discuss flavor in a minute, but first I want to talk about what this all-star combo of peppers create – HEAT! Lots of Heat! The heat profile in Devils Gold layers masterfully, beginning with a quick sting that hit the middle of my tongue and quickly rolled it’s way back to my throat, where it built and strengthened, filling my mouth and throat, and then decided to just hang around a while! I’m talking lingering to the extent that I had to actually grab the whipped cream can when I was doing an initial taste test and downed several spoonfuls pretty quickly! You can easily discern the distinct flavor of the scorpions and the fatalii, which always make the back of my tongue and throat burn for a while….But lest you think that Devils Gold is nothing but heat, let’s discuss the sweetness that made me fall in love!
Devils Gold Looks as Good and Rich as it Tastes
The sweet fruits used in Devils Gold are perfect matches for the peppers….the nice acidic tang of sweet pineapple and orange combined with the smooth pear and papaya. The result is a fresh, almost tropical blend that balanced the heat without diminishing any of the kick! The splash of vinegar added to the tang, and the “spices” are so well blended, that I couldn’t really discern individual flavors (that’s a good thing, by the way!) A natural as a salad dressing with a little olive oil, cracked black pepper, and red Hawaiian sea salt, it also complimented most everything I used it with – tilapia (pictured), pork, chicken, black beans (awesomeness when I threw in a little of my favorite Bajan style mustardy sauce for balance), and perhaps the best- pizza!!!! It wasn’t the best for steak, turkey, and some veggies, so it may not be as versatile as some sauces given its flavor profile, but that’s not a detractor or a negative at all. Most gourmet quality, artisan sauces aren’t made for general purpose!
So what’s the overall impression, folks? I think this is an excellent, 4 Fiery Worlds rated sauce!! Hot, sweet, playful, and fresh, and a great addition to any Chilehead sauce cabinet!!! I want to thank Merle and Diana for sending me these wonderful sauces to check out and review, and I appreciated their openness to wanting constructive feedback, and not just asking for an empty endorsement, which I don’t give, by the way. The only problem was that there was little, or any “constructive” feedback to share, except for them to keep making these sauces year round! And why should they make all their sauces year round? Because, Ladies and Gentlemen……It’s a Fiery World!
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 