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“Why Hot Sauce Doesn’t Taste Good When You’re Sick!…..A bedroom tale…
Well, I told myself when I launched last week that I would try and post at least 3 times a week. It’s already Wednesday of week 2 and this is my first post, and it’s a commentary, not a review or a recipe. “So what’s up with that?” you might be thinking. Actually, the post title gives it away. Last Friday night I found myself in a hotel room in Monroe, LA, and not feeling all too good. I was on the way home from Little Rock, where I experienced some fine BBQ at Whole Hog Cafe (see the blog post), and had planned to stop for the night in Monroe, La. An extra treat was spending time with Tracy and Kristi Carter of Jac’s Tailgater’s, who live in Monroe. We went to dinner and had a wonderful visit. And then, my night took a turn for the worse. Some might even label it bizarre!!!
By 10pm, I was coughing, fever, chills, stomach churning, etc etc etc. I’ll spare you all the graphic details. I was officially sick. All of a sudden sick. The kinda sick where you go, “what did I eat?”, “what’s wrong with me?”, “Was the movie “Contagion” really true after all?”, and finally, “man, I sure wish I’d have gotten my flu shot!”. And after a few hours of misery, I drifted off thinking something bizarre like, “hotsauce doesn’t taste good when you’re sick”, and then, everything got a little blurry……..
I vaguely remember the yellow bhut brick road, with a fresh layer of volcano dust (a recent eruption, I was sure), and it was lined with habaneros, bhuts and red peppers. I danced through red fields of ripe moruga scorpion peppers, and frolicked among the Cayenne’s, Serrano’s, and Pequin’s!!! And then I turned and saw flying Thai Monkeys coming after me – throwing apples and murmuring something about me calling them Monkeybutts and messing up their sweet apple harvest! I ran from them shouting, “Holy Jolokia”, i’ve gotta get my BigFats outta here!!!! And a hula girl was there, and I asked her why hot sauce didn’t taste good when you’re sick, and she said, man, you sure got some bigfats! How many you got? Is that 108, or 208….no, you got 808 bigfats….Daaaaang!!
And then it got even stranger…..I ran into a salty pirate carrying a white zombie, with a red hot robin perched on his shoulder. And I asked him, Cap’n? Why doesn’t hotsauce taste good when you’re sick? And the robin looked at me and said, “I’ll Jacks yer Tail, Gater! stay out of that bayou…its gold and thick like mustard. What!? I exclaimed! I’m losing my mind….What kind of Intensity Academy is this? Then these guys come walking up…one in a suit that looked like it was on fire, and kept saying, Hi, I’m Zane….no, I’m Zack….no, I’m Zane! no….I’m Zack!!!! And his buddy, Joe, had a head full of hair and it was flaming huge flames!!!!! He was asking Zane…no…Zack…. no, Zane, no….. anyway, this flaming joe guy was looking for his red hot robin. I started to tell him and his schizophrenic pal that they were some kind of loco gringos, when the refining fire department showed up in their Hazmat outfits, talking about going to Defcon 3, or something like that. Ole Ray asked them if they had a plan, and they said they’d just wing it.
Well, I kept on down the road, looking for the answer to my burning question, and took a break under a silverleaf tree, next to some howling peno’s, when I smelled something to my side. I turned and saw some garlicky greengo pouring something that looked like evil ooze all over everything!! I took off down the road and made a hotline to Melinda’s. Surely Melinda would know why hotsauce doesn’t taste good when you’re sick. That’s where I saw the black mamba….and more surprisingly, an angry cock and a happy beaver were fighting over it, and then a fiery cajun swooped in and zapped ’em…..murmuring something about turning them into voodoo ash, then laughing and saying mercy beaucoup…..anyway, I had reached the crystal city by this point and wanted to see the fieri guy behind the curtain! I explained to the man at the door, who wouldn’t stop talking and kept telling me he loved it spicy, that my night had gone from mild to wild, and I never had my questions answered, and I had to get home. I told him I had to get to my address, 1851, or was it 1498……darn, can’t remember, but anyways, I had had a dia de los muertos, and I had to get home before the heartbreaking dawn. And I still needed to know why hotsauce doesn’t taste good when you’re sick. And then the cajohn man behind the curtain told me I always had the power to go home….just repeat the Q…and rub. And he was starting to answer my burning question when everything went blurry again…..and that’s the last thing I remember before i woke up….
I was sick until yesterday, and even then I was still a little weak. I still don’t know the answer to my burning question, ” why hot sauce doesn’t taste good when you’re sick!” Maybe on my next adventure…
In the meantime, take your vitamins, get your flu shot, wash your hands a lot, and remember….It’s a Fiery World!!!!!!
Did Someone Say Dessert?!
Sauces I used for my spicy dessert night!
I love dessert! I love fruit, especially strawberries and blueberries! So logically, I love desserts with berries. I also love chocolate. And caramel. And yes, I love desserts with chocolate and/or caramel! So tonight I thought I’d share with you a couple of special, and spicy, desserts I whipped up.
With Spring having sprung, that means it’s strawberry season in Louisiana. So, in my house, that always means fresh Louisiana strawberries with angel food cake and whipped cream. Sometimes I put blueberries on angel food cake, too. And hold on to the chocolate and caramel shout out I made above. I’m gonna get to them in short order. I recently ordered some sauces from Red Hawk Premium Peppers: I bought Dan Lowenstein’s Strawberry Scorpion Sting sauce and his B3, or B cubed, sauce. The strawberry sauce also has a little vanilla and sugar in it, and the B3 is full of blueberries, bananas, and bhut jolokia peppers (Get it? B3? Nice play, Dan…) And just today, I received a care package from Renee and Ricky at Madison Chocolatiers West. They wanted my feedback on their brand new spicy confection, a dark chocolate and caramel dessert sauce infused with chocolate Habanero’s! Can you see where I’m going with this? It was a very good night at the Alexander house tonight!
Homemade angel food cake muffin with spicy toppings and strawberries!
As you can see by the pictures, I took an angel food cake muffin my wife made, a few Louisiana strawberries, and added Red Hawk’s Scorpion Stinger and B3 sauces, and filled the center with the chocolate caramel hab sauce! I added some whipped cream around the edge and even stirred some of the hot sauces into the whipped cream for a topper!
It was sweet, it was hot, it was tangy, and lastly, it was delicious! The pairing of the fruit based sauces with the berries and cake worked extremely well. The sweet of the berries, cake and whipped cream offset the heat (just a little) and any lack of sweetness from the sauces. Then add in the decadently smooth, creamy, rich flavor from the chocolate caramel habanero sauce, and I gotta tell you, my taste buds thanked me, my belly thanked me and I even think my pupils dilated a little when I took that first big bite!!! Just sayin………
Dark Chocolate and Caramel, pepper infused dessert sauce! Decadent and wonderful!
Both of these companies have a lot to be proud of. Red Hawk has some very unique flavor profiles in their sauces, and Madison Chocolatiers West hit it out of the park with this Chocolate Habanero sauce of theirs. If they haven’t named it, they need to name it “Money” cause it should make them a lot of it! I will admit that Red Hawk’s B3 sauce is my favorite in their lineup. Not that I don’t enjoy the strawberry scorpion, because I do, but I find the B3 fruitier than the strawberry, and a little smoother, which made it an excellent pairing for dessert. And given that it has carrots in it, I was very pleasantly surprised! I’ve also had it on a Peanut Butter, Banana, and Jelly sandwich and it was superb! I didn’t enjoy it as much when I used it as a salad dressing. The banana flavor, which is discernable, and the texture didn’t work for me. And oh yea, on pancakes with syrup! The bananas and blueberries are a perfect complement! On the other hand, the strawberry scorpion makes an outstanding salad dressing, and that use should be promoted! I also enjoyed it on my PB,B, and J! Since this is a dessert post, i haven’t talked about their use with meat, but suffice it to say, it was outstanding on Chicken and fish!! And I didn’t do anything fancy with it other than turn the bottle upside down!
To round out my dessert theme, I threw in a picture of Ricky and Renee’s sauce on ice cream, and the B3 on ice cream (crazy good)! I’ve hyperlinked their website in the post, so go out and get you some soon!! And remember…..It’s a Fiery World!
It's a Fiery World 