Greetings!
I’m writing to you to ask for your support in a very special cause.
This year, I’ll be taking part in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes along with a half-million other walkers across the country. Our goal: To raise $100 million to help fund research for a cure for type 1 diabetes and its complications. My friend Kirsten has 2 kids, Dustin and Brandon who were born with this deadly disease. She has a team I am walking on this Sunday, and I want to help her reach and surpass her goal. If anyone can help I would be so grateful for your donation even if it is a $1, it is better than nothing because if everyone gives a $1 then the cure will be closer than we could ever hope for.

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly disease that affects millions of people–a large and growing percentage of them children.

Many people think type 1 diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, it is NOT a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with type 1 diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease.

That’s the bad news… and yes, it’s pretty bad.

The good news, though, is that a cure for type 1 diabetes is within reach. In fact, JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. And JDRF funds a major portion of all type 1 diabetes research worldwide, more than any other charity.
I’m writing to ask for your support because now more than ever, EACH of us can be a part of bringing about a cure. Each of us can make a real difference.

Won’t you please give to JDRF as generously as you’re able?
Together, we can make the cure a reality.
Thank you,
Al Goldenberg (aka Buddah)
Please visit my Walk Web page if you would like to donate online or see how close I am to reaching my personal goal:
http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87033294

I have a 4am reserve (# 408) a 5am (# 913) and a 6am (# 220) that I unfortunately need to part with. They are all in perfect mint condition, no cracking or broken wax. They all come in their original plastic cases and still have the warning stickers on top of the actual bottles. The only thing wrong with any of them is that the person who had the 4am before me took the sticker off and put it back on, so it isn’t stuck on quite as well as originally was (if that is even something that would break a deal). I don’t have any pictures unfortunately, but if someone is serious and a picture is the only thing preventing the deal from going through, I can work something out. I just don’t plan on taking pictures for the hell of it since they were carefully packed up with tissue paper and bubble wrap after I last inspected them for flaws. I’d like to get $950 shipped for the lot. If people just want individual bottles and I am able to unload all 3 then I will split them up and negotiate prices with the respective buyers. I will entertain _all_ offers, but don’t expect to hear back from me if you plan on trying to lowball me. I am not accepting any trades, if my creditors accepted hotsauces, I wouldn’t be trying to sell these Thanks and God bless.

-Joe

If you are interested, please use the contact form below and we’ll get you in touch with Joe.

It’s time to fill up your propane tanks, dust of your grill, sharpen your knives, put on your apron and start barbecuing!

To help start your grilling season off right Sweat ‘N Spice is offering 15% off BBQ sauces!

Check out some of these featured BBQ sauces you will find on sale:
- Bourbon Q Gold Reserve - Roasted Garlic & Chipotle BBQ Sauce
- Wild Turkey Gourmet Sauce
- Jack Daniel’s Hot & Spicy BBQ Sauce - 100 Proof

If you would like your newsletter or press release posted on the HSB please use the contact form and we’ll get in touch

Melinda’s Dry Hot Sauce – All Purpose Habanero Seasoning

Of interest regarding the mighty habanero is its sheer versatility in the hands of product manufacturers – and its vulnerability. I’ve come to terms with the fact that not everything crafted with our beloved pepper – even as the feature ingredient, lives up to one’s expectations for mouth fuel. Alas, the curse of the chilehead.

To illustrate my point, I offer Melinda’s Dry Hot Sauce. We’re all familiar with the Figueroa Brothers’ product line, which has been around for a while - the habanero-based sauces with more X’s on them than, well, ahem. A whole lotta X’s going on with Melinda. This product doesn’t have any, so I guess it could be rated G, as interpreted from the “all purpose” classification. In fact, nowhere on the bottle does it mention the heat level of the product - but that’s okay for now.

This being my first-ever powdered heat condiment, chile powders aside, (their most likely source), I was definitely curious as to its zing factor. Back to the brand, though. Before I discovered online catalogues and specialty shops, over ten years ago, my hot sauce options were severely limited. Forget supermarkets. If you wanted something off the beaten path, your best bet was an all-natural or gourmet foods store. They might have something a bit more adventurous than the vinegar-based crowd.

That’s where I remember first picking up some Melinda’s along with another similar brand from Costa Rica with a big, colorful toucan on it. These pretty-labeled mild to medium sauces were great stepping-stones toward the eventual volcanoes we’ve come to inhabit. They built your confidence and credibility. Along with the habs, other ingredients like carrots and papaya are added, which provide texture, but also restrict the heat. Why do that, I always thought.

It is no wonder then, that reviewing this product became nostalgic, bringing me back before I tried Dave’s, Blair’s or Ashley’s tongue twisters. So I had a perfect occasion to test it. This past weekend, Lambertville, NJ celebrated its annual Shad Festival, and a few friends and I decided to check it out. Arriving late on Saturday, with the festival already closing down, I was a bit disappointed, although we could re-attend it on Sunday.

The surprise came when one of my friends already there, found out that the Shad hadn’t run yet, so there was none to be savored. Not grilled, fried, broiled and no roe – nada. (Lambertville lies along the Delaware River and the Shad enter it annually from the Atlantic, apparently one of their few chosen spots on the Eastern seaboard). So we dubbed it the Shadless Fest.

He had tried a crab-cake and a pulled pork sandwich, neither being remarkable and then pointed out all the cell phone, bank and other not-remotely-related-to Shad kiosks present. Some festival, I thought (we say fish but we mean fishy), content that I hadn’t missed anything spectacular. After a trip to Suzie’s Hot Sauce shop, in town, we headed to a local brewery, ordered some apps and cracked open a bottle of Ring of Fire Original to dress them with. Now that’s a tasty hab product. I realized later that this was a grave mistake, because we inadvertently compared the heat and flavor of this most excellent sauce to the Melinda’s Dry Hot Sauce later, which I was actually eager to impress my friends with, having brought it along.

That evening, grilling lamburgers with smoked mozzarella tucked inside, on my little Weber, we setup camp at a nearby state park where we had a site reserved. The good thing about Melinda’s Dry Hot Sauce is its handy size, perfect for a tailgate or a camping trip, where you want most of your accompaniments in a less-than-Costco size. So I rubbed down our patties generously with this Dry Hot Sauce.

Immediately I noticed that the powder was clumped together and barely came through the sifter. They should add an anti-caking agent or make bigger holes in the sifter, because I popped the top off, mixed it around, put it back on and it still wouldn’t shake out.

One of my impatient friends came by and put a good dollop on his finger, expecting, I dunno - fireworks maybe, and when he said “It tastes like breadcrumbs,” my tail nestled between my legs. No, I thought, it has to have more flavor than that. It was like serving a bad wine to your best table. The huge fire we had going in the pit didn’t help matters either.

Sadly, he was right. It does taste (and smell) like breadcrumbs, with the faintest tickle of heat, too shy to come out and play. Sodium is only 25 mg, which is fine if you’re watching your intake, but this dry hot sauce seriously lacked flavor, never mind heat. Maybe they need more product development, but I would consider dumping the entire bottle into sour cream and calling it a dip – adding salt to taste.

It seems to me that this product doesn’t fit that well into its category – it needs something else, and a good helping of it. If I want heat in powdered form, I’d go right to a good chile – Arbol, Chipotle, Hab, what have you. (I have a powerful chile powder mix I bought from an Asian market that keeps in a jar, and I swear as soon as I open it up I start sneezing).

For all-purpose seasoning, I go with Tony Chacere’s or Paul Prudhomme’s, or I blend my own. Heck, even Emeril’s is halfway decent. Melinda’s Dry Hot Sauce has more fillers than heat or flavor – hence the sawdust composition. You’d get better flavor just using salt and pepper. Even Ms. Dash no-sodium has more flare.

To be fair, I gave Melinda a second chance tonight. My dinner was simple - a salad with Ponzu sauce and sesame oil (makes a great dressing) and some giardiniera, brown rice and grilled chicken in an Indian-inspired lentil salad with fresh herbs and spices . Ok, so I mix weird foods – but I try to keep it generally healthy.

As you can see, I sprinkled the dry hot sauce over the whole dish. I had to add Tabasco peppers to my lentil salad, simply because my good ole’ tastebuds hold me for ransom during most meals, and from our previous lamburgers, I knew that the little powder that could - wouldn’t.

I had to bid Melinda farewell, without a kiss goodnight. Call me a heat-seeking snob, but I can’t say this product impressed me in the least. It seems to be a product extension for those with truly sensitive taste buds, or people minding their hypertension. When I come across habanero products like this, I reach for a tissue box, because it make me want to cry - not from intense heat, but from the extreme lack thereof. In my book, the sauce is still boss.

Appearance: Granulated spices/sawdust
Smell: A little on the earthy/musty side
Taste: Breadcrumbs. I have to add hot sauce to this to get some flavor out of it.
Heat: N/A; almost undetectable.
Overall: Sorry to be harsh to a well-established brand, but I wouldn’t recommend this product. Stick to an old-fashioned hot sauce, or if you are in some situation where you can’t use a liquid and require powdered heat (Mars maybe), use a dried chili powder. However, if you are watching your sodium intake, this product may be for you, but you’ll have to find a way to add more heat.
Ingredients: Pepper sauce powder (peppers, salt, vinegar, natural tocopherol), citric acid, garlic, onion, habanero powder, carrot powder, maltodextrin, modified food starch, natural flavors, sugar.
Manufacturer’s Info: Figueroa Brothers, Inc. Kenner, LA, 70062, www.melindas.com
Product Pricing: 1.12 oz shaker for $4.89 directly from the manufacturer.

Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp with Grilled Corn & White Cheddar Cheese Poblano Grits
Prep Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Serves: 6

Laura & I are obsessed with Top Chef - so much so that we bought the cookbook 2 weekends ago and immediately began playing with the recipes. If you recall my Chipotle Honey wings, those were my entry into our own Top Chef cookoff - versus her Bacon Wrapped Shrimp and Grits. Needless to say, so won - but any recipe with bacon is bound to be a winner.

For the Shrimp:
18 pc black tiger shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2T Kosher salt
9 bacon slices
2t cracked black pepper
Grapeseed oil for searing

For the Grits:
2qt chicken stock
1qt milk
1/4 stick unsalted butter
1qt instant grits
2 cups grilled corn kernels
1 cup poblano peppers, small diced
2 cups aged white cheddar cheese
3T chopped cilantro
2T Kosher salt
2T cracked black pepper

For the Chipotle-Tomato Butter:
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2T chopped garlic
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
3T chipotle peppers (in Adobo)
1t black peppercorns
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 lemon, juiced
2t Kosher salt

Shrimp Prep:
Season shrimp with a little Kosher salt. Using a hot grill, quickly mark each shrimp. Remove from grill and allow time to cool. Shrimp should still be uncooked. When cool enough to handle, wrap each shrimp with a half piece of bacon. Season with cracked black pepper. Sear each shrimp in grapeseed oil till crispy on both sides. Serve when rest of dish is ready.

Grits Prep:
Using a deep saucepot combine chicken stock and milk. Bring to a simmer, add butter, and allow time for it to dissolve. Slowly whisk in grits a little at a time. When grits begin to thicken, lower heat. Switch to a spatula and fold in the rest of the ingredients. Adjust for addition seasonings if needed. If grits are too thick, add more chicken stock.

For the Chipotle-Tomato Butter Sauce:
In a saucepot, sauté onions and garlic over medium heat. Next, add tomatoes, chipotle peppers and peppercorns. Continue to cook for another three minutes. Deglaze with chicken stock and lower heat. Cook for 5 minutes then place in a blender; blend till smooth. Place liquid back in saucepot and over low heat mount with butter, whisking in a little at a time. Add cilantro and season with lemon juice and salt. Turn off heat and allow 5 minutes to steep cilantro. Strain through fine mesh strainer and reserve warm till time to serve.

To Plate:
Place small amount of grits in the center of a large plate. Drizzle sauce around grits. Place three pieces of shrimp around grits. Serve.

Now ours didn’t turn out nearly as pretty as the one pictured at the top - but it was still very delicious. The hardest and most time consuming part of this entire recipe was the tomato butter sauce - a lot of ingredients and prep went into it and in the end all you get is the sauce. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but next time we’ll make some recipe modifications and preserve a lot of those ingredients. All in all, it was fun to try something that was way outside our cooking comfort zone - and now it’s onto the next recipe!

First Impression: After having this guy on my shelf for a few weeks, I finally realized it was called “Vampfire” and not “Vampire” Hot Sauce. Neat. The coloring book style vampire on the front of the bottle looks like he is halfway between bloodthirsty phantom of the night and your middle school science teacher dressed up for Halloween.

“Made up the road from Translyvania, LA.” Hmm…yep, there is one, I just checked. I imagine this vampire warning us in his spookiest voice of the “VERY HOT” labeling of his sauce, yet I don’t imagine that freakish thing could create anything close to hot.

Ingredients: Habanero peppers, tabasco peppers, cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, onions, sugar, salt, spices, lemon oil, cellulose gum, and F.D.&C. red #40.

Smell: This smells like there is too much of something in it. I do detect a citrus tinge from the lemon oil, but I think I’m going to blame it on the “spices,” whatever they are. Either there is too much of one of them, or there are just too many. When I was younger, I used to take every possible spice and bottled flavor enhancer in my mothers spice cabinet, mix it with water, milk, both, etc, and end up with these “potions.” I would not really do anything with them, but I remember what they smelled like, and it wasn’t too different from this sauce.

Appearance: Vampfire is reddish brown, almost like a rust color. It’s significantly runny, with a complete absence of chunks. Teeny tiny specks of black and red are slightly visible.

Taste: Initially, there is a sweetness that just sits there unsure of itself, like it’s afraid to reveal what’s underneath. Then a strong vinegar acidity bites through, along with the chile flavor, and finally the spice blend. I’m not sure if it’s the confused mixture of spices, or the dull, unresolved sweetness throughout, but something is amiss here. Or it could possibly be that the sauce itself got a bit stale. The flavor is not offensive; it’s just kind of blasé. I’d imagine this would taste alright on a smoked cheese, or like a split pea soup. These are just the first things that come to mind, no real rhyme or reason.

Heat: Hmm…well, it creeps up; I’d give it a low “hot,” rating, definitely not “very hot.” Sorry Dracula, or whoever you are. This sauce has an impressively slow rise to full strength, but it plateaus before any significant panting occurs, nesting warmly in a large mid-tongue area. In my opinion, no need for the additional “Caution! Extremely hot! Use sparingly” warnings on this sauce. It’s tame enough for most, though you might get a rise out of the less heat-inclined with it.

Overall: Fair. Satisfactory. A little too much going on, a little too synthetic-tasting. The heat is decent, but not out of this world. Before I drive a steak into it (the misspelling was unintentional, but now I’m keeping it), I want to see how it will perform on some exquisitely tender looking pork cutlets I bought the other day…ladies and gentleman, I present to you Meathenge, inspired, somehow, by Vampfire Hot Sauce.

It tasted just fine, and the heat complimented the swine quite agreeably. I cooked the pork with some Worcestershire, white wine, and soy sauce, so once I got some other flavors into the mix, a dousing of this stuff was a welcome and spicy addition.

Contact:
Panola Pepper Corp.
Rt. 2 Box 148
Lake Providence, LA 71254
318-559-1774

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Before you consider moving your plants outdoors there are still some precautions that we must take.

First of all, our little seedlings will still have some pretty weak stems on them, the second that any real wind comes their way they will be severely damaged. Secondly, our seedlings have been somewhat protected from their light source. Our plants, either grown on a windowsill or under artificial lighting such as florescent fixtures have never felt the full power of the sun. Even on a cool day the sun’s rays can burn. Ever been skiing in the spring? I bet you got a nice tan didn’t you?

It is very easy to get those stems a bit stalkier. About 3-4 weeks before you are ready to move your seedlings outside, start to introduce a little wind into their daily routine. The plant will slowly adapt, devoting more energy to thicking up it’s stem than it would towards producing more solar receptors (leaves).

I place a fan near by, on a low setting, for a few hours a day to slowly waft a bit of a breeze across my little guys. This is kind of like a work out and you will start to see the stems pumping up to handle the newly introduced element.

Now, picture a field of thousands of little re-sealable bags, each bag containing water. Except our bags have a very thin layer of plastic between our water and the sun. As we all know when water is heated it produces steam, but the plastic around or bags is pretty cheap stuff, it ruptures at the first sign of pressure. This leaves us with a field of broken bags with no water left within them. If you now pictured that field is the leaf of our little pepper plant. Even after just a few minutes of sun, all the little cells on the leaf of our plant could have burst and severely damaged our seedling, possibly harming it to the point of no return. All of our time and investment gone in just a few short minutes.

Ok, ok, I don’t want to scare you from ever putting your plants outdoors but you do have to remember that while it doesn’t take just a few minutes it can happened before you know it. If any of you are parents think of this, you wouldn’t leave your newborn son or daughter in direct sunlight for a few hours would you?

I would recommend putting your plants in the shade for a few hours each day to slow acclimatize them to the powers of the sun. Within about 2 weeks you will be able to slowly introduce them to more and more directly sunlight. This will help strengthen those cell walls and help the plant ensure the full power of the sun without worry.

–Jay

Mini Open Faced Steak Sandwiches on Garlic Bread with Aged Provolone and Parsley Oil

Ingredients:
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
6 cloves roasted garlic, pureed
Salt and pepper
12 slices French bread, cut 1/2-inch thick
6 slices aged provolone cheese, halved lengthwise, cut 1/4-inch thick
Steak, recipe follows
Parsley oil, recipe follows

Heat the grill. Mix together the butter and garlic puree and season with salt and pepper.

Brush 1 side of the bread with a tablespoon of the butter and place on the grill, butter side down and grill until golden brown; turn over, top with the cheese and grill for 30 seconds longer or until the cheese melts.

Steak:
1 boneless rib-eye, about 16 ounces
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Remove the steak from the refrigerator 30 minutes before grilling. Heat grill to high.

Brush steak on both sides with oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on the grill and cook until golden brown and slightly charred, 4 to 5 minutes. Turn over and continue grilling to medium-rare doneness. Remove from the grill and let rest 5 minutes. Slice into 1/4-inch thick slices.

Parsley Oil:
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup canola oil
Salt and pepper

Mix together ingredients in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Place the garlic bread on a platter and top the cheese with a few thin slices of the beef and drizzle with the parsley oil.

Before I get too far into the review I want to let everyone know what my experience with jerk sauce is. Walkerswood and the product I am reviewing right now. When I first tried walkerswood jerk seasoning it wasn’t really my favorite although I liked trying something new. I was excited to try this so that I could compare it to the walkerswood and get a better idea of whether or not I like jerk sauces. The label is not bad, but not really anything that makes me want to buy it either, and the sauce itself is a thick greenish brown color that looks almost gritty with all the spices in it (don’t worry its not). The smell was similar to the other jerk seasoning that I had which is sweet. Both in the smell and taste (straight from the bottle) the first thing I notice is the molasses (even though it’s only an ingredient in another ingredient and probably don’t have a lot in it), ginger, and brown sugar, it has almost a nutmeg type of flavor to it. All the ingredients are well blended and I actually really liked the flavor of it, but it’s not something that I would think to match up with chicken, or really anything. I guess the point is that it’s different and you have to be willing to try something new if you have never had a jerk seasoning before. The instructions say to marinade over night and then grill or cook as usual. I know that traditional jerk cooking is done by method of smoking so that’s what I did.

The chicken turned out great, I expected it to be dry having never smoked anything other than jerky but it wasn’t at all. The flavor on the chicken wasn’t very strong, I tasted mostly the smokiness and the Flaming Joes was more of a background flavor that gave it a little sweetness after every bite that was a lot better than if the chicken was just flavored with the seasoning alone. The next day (today) I decided to follow the directions on the bottle and cook chicken as usual. I got plenty of chicken when I marinated it for the smoker to do a couple pieces in the oven also, and even though they marinated a day longer than the first the flavor wasn’t powerful but it did taste like the jerk seasoning and nothing else, which is what I tasted straight from the bottle and thought “its good but I wouldn’t want it with chicken”. If you do decide to try this product do it the way it’s meant to be done and smoke it, it takes awhile (about an hour and a half) but it’s worth it. all in all I would give the sauce a 5/10 because it wasn’t so good that I will buy it again but I will definitely experiment with other jerk seasonings and similar products, it was better in my opinion than walkerswood which I have heard from so many people is the best of the best when it comes to jerk sauces. The heat on this one is mild, in the oven I couldn’t taste any heat at all, but the smoked pieces built up more towards the end, I don’t know why that is but it’s one more reason to smoke it rather than to bake it. One last thing that I am yet to try is putting it on some vegetables which are recommended on the bottle. When I tasted it straight and thought that it wouldn’t really be the best with chicken, vegetables are what I would of thought to put it on instead so that should turn out good. To finish out the review I want to note that even though I would only give the product I 5/10 that could just be because jerk seasoning aren’t my cup of tea. If you like jerk seasonings it is worth buying a bottle to judge for yourself.

Ingredients: key lime juice, soybean oil, soy sauce, green onion, Worcestershire sauce (vinegar, water, corn syrup, salt, molasses, carmel color, spices, garlic, natural flavorings, anchovies, tamarind, dextrin, and sulfating agents), ginger, habanero pepper, brown sugar, garlic, cilantro, chili powder, spices, xanthan gum, guar gum, sodium alginate.

Bottled by Taste Buds, llc Benton, AR 72015
www.flamingjoes.com