Very nice! Polls can be pretty interesting sometimes. What a better poll to start things off then What is your favorite pepper!

Nice poll! I also love a nice poblano!

Nice Addition……

Nick this is a great feature!!!!

Good stuff Nick, I am part of what is now the 52% of Habanero fans.

Ha there are over 40 votes yet only 5 or 6 comments. Speak up folks!
Me I picked chipotle since I couldnt pick two. I love the heat of the hab but if I am to come back as a pepper it would be a smoked one!

If your going to eat a chili, It may as well be a habenero.

Why drive a Yugo if you can drive a Porsche!

Nick, I can’t get the print link to pring any comments, just the post itself

I NEED SPELLCHECK TOO…..LOL

(print)

Well I guess not…Not too many threads get to 300+ do they?

Just the Interesting ones…LOL

No doubt for me, Jalepeno’s all the way. I eat a 26oz can of San Marcos jalepeno slices every four or so days. They have a pretty darn good amount of heat in particular for a can/jar of jalepeno’s. Best ones I’ve tried out of all the options I’ve ever seen and there’s no close second. I like most of the rest, but no way am I eating several hab’s in a single sitting like I do jalepeno’s.

I can’t even get a real hab around town. But then again I bet some are hiding in some specialty store around. I should go look…

look for a carniceria Aaron, or a non Big supermarket. Preferably a ethnic market.

Daniel’s right. I can’t get HABs at a normal supermarket. GO to a whole foods store if there is one near you. The one I go to always has Orange Hab’s – good price (#3.89/lb). Last time they had Red Hab’s. I found the red’s MUCH hotter than the orange.

HEY Nick. I just got my daily email update of new stuff (like I need that, I’m here enough as it is ). For the pepper voting post, it gave me the opportunity to vote in the email. I tried and got an error:
I’m sorry but we couldn’t find the page you were looking for.
Error Code: 80070002
Report ID: 1211-d03-20060309-140951

Not sure if that’s a bug in the polling, or you just can’t do what I tried. THought I’d let you know.
-=john=-

John – Thanks, I’ve been working on that one. For some reason the links for the polls in the RSS feeds are relative – which is why you’re getting the 404 error – should be easy enough to fix once I track down the link.

Good to know the Habanero is the winner so far. It is sooooooo good.

If you’re having trouble buying some of the peppers you are looking for, have you considered growing your own? This can be done in pots on a patio if you don’t have room for a garden. I did this last year and grew some amazing habs and other peppers as well. It is not too hard and you can get a great yield and even save a few bucks doing this!

BTW – there are some articles about growing chiles available at my site and many others on the net as well. I’m trying to grow some Red Savina’s and Congo Chocolate Habanero’s now. It should be interesting! If you have any quesitons, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help.

Habanero’s are in almost every market around here. 5.99 per pound….I bought a small one the other day ….The checker couldn’t even weigh it so I got it for free!

I like free

If you’re having trouble finding certain peppers, you may want to try International Food Source (www.intlfoodsource.com). They deal in bulk, and mostly dried peppers. Personally, I prefer dried, who needs all that useless fluid? I just want the oil and crystal.

That’s here in Los Angeles….you can get most anything here

I’m in Northern Michigan, and I couldn’t find a fresh pepper if my life depended on it. I have trouble finding anything up here!

Or, you can try your hand at growing your own. Its coming up on that time to start planting soon. Of course, this will not give you a quik turnaround (if you need peppers now)

Chipotle Texas (www.chipoteltexas.com I think) has some great dried peppers too. I prefer fresh though, and we can get pretty much anything anytime in some of the better markets here in Dallas.

I also enjoy growing them. I’ve used small “starter” plants in the past. This year I’m going from the seeds up! If you want to start with seeds, get going ASAP! Some chili seeds take up to 28 days just to sprout.

What’s a good climate for growing? Would I even be able to up here?

You can do a lot with just a few pots inside. You’ll need some sun once the seeds sprout (or if you start with small plants that you can get at most garden stores). I’ve got some entire articles on this on my site (www.locoluna.net) written my the Pope, but if you keep the plants in pots until at least spring and move them inside when it is cool at night, you should be OK.

By the way, I beleive Nick grows some nice plants inside in NYC. If he can work it there, you should be fine where you are.

Also, it’s fun to track the growth with some pictures to see where it started and where you end up!

Well, that’s good news to me! I’ve never really looked into growing peppers even though it interests me greatly. Any other sites I should check out for info?

There are good articles at http://www.locoluna.net, http://www.fiery-foods.com, and seeds at http://www.reimerseeds.com. Again, going with seeds is a longer, more hit and miss process. The benefit to seeds however is that you can get some exotic peppers that you will be very unlikely to find otherwise.

I’m tying to grow from seeds right now:
*Red Savina Hab
*Chocolate Congo Hab
*Poblano
*Congo Red Hab
*Tobago Red Hab
*Tobago Sweet Hab

It should be fun (and HOT)!

Oh – Reimer Seeds has a video on how to grow peppers (from seeds of course), and there are some good pepper books at Amazon/Barnes & Noble.

Guys, check out this link. Link.
Read about James Weaver about half way down.
Meadow View Farms happens to be about 15 miles from me. I am lucky enough to be able to go there and actually pick out my pepper plants. Give it a shot, its fun to watch what you can grow yourself. Like Nick, I’ve even grown some habaneros.

This tiny little town also has a chile festival in Sept. and I think there are tours of the farm.
Not as big as others, but interesting. http://www.pepperfestival.com/

The pepperfestival web site doesnt have much info right now.

Creator, maybe you could make an apperance?

That looks great chris K! How is the wide is the selection?

If anyone knows where you can buy plants like that in Dallas, let me know! I’ve got seeds and have seen basic pepper plants, but no exotic plants.

What does it take to start a Chilifest? I was thinking of trying to create one here in McKinney (N. Dallas suburb). I think the main thing might just be funding for location, PR, etc. Probably need to get the city council involved to help out with the project.

I usually go in late March or early April to get some plants. There are sooo many of them I dont know. That write up about him says over 200 varieties. All I know is there are to many for me to grow all of them. I basically buy about 7-10 different plants and grow them in pots on my patio. They dont get huge, but I do end up with quite a few peppere…lol

This is probably too big a project to take on right now…

200 varieties? Wow.. that is much more impressive than I imagined!

Jalapenos beat Serranos??? Lame……

Chris, where is this festival? We’re not really making any huge shows for a little while, we’re still dealing with the order tsunami that is happening as we speak after the FIery Foods show. We’ll be doing Defcon Days in the area, because they are just plain fun, but easy to schlep stuff to and from. We’re looking at Aprill Fools Day for the next one. Nothing like conveniently forgetting which wings have the Defense Condition #1 on them (April Fools). Oh how I love the sounds of whimpers and tears from the ingesting public.

Creator – making the public cry with you sauces sounds like pure evil – and the very best kind! Keep up the good work!

Creator, its in Bowers Pa (near Kutztown) approx SW of Allentown.
I havent been to the Festival the past few years, but I do go to Meadow View Farm at least once a year. (Meadow View is fairly close)
The Festival is in Sept sometime and there is usually something about it in Chilepepper Magazine.

approx 20 miles SW of Allentown Pa…sorry

It is interesting that tabasco peppers is so relatively unpopular here…

That’s actually not that far. If you could get me some information on it, I’ll put it in my “Things to Ponder” folder. We always do the Hillsborough Fire Dept. BBQ show in Hillborough, NJ. It was our first show ever, and it’s really a lot of fun. As long as it’s not the same weekend, I don’t see a problem.

Loco, Evil is good, in so many ways…

Creator, you can check out the link in comment#35. The site really doesnt have much to it right now (dont let that fool you) but it lists the date as Sept 8th -9th 2006. There is a “contact us” that has their e-mail. Maybe I will send them something (inquire)

CREATOR – That show is no good for you. Just wen to their website:
“NO BOOZE”
-=john=-

NO BOOZE?

EEK

Chris just sent me an email stating that he will be providing the booze @ his place each evening!!

Ooooh, I see. Thanks Tracy. No Booze means out in the open, I guess.
They cant control what goes on behind the scenes.
Creator has a work around anyway. The Defcon 12 oz’r. (not really a hot sauce hint, hint)

What do you think Creator?

Chris, the dates for the event is the same date for the Hillsborough event, so it doesn’t look very promising. The no booze thing has me a bit stumped…BBQ, chili, wings, and no beer? Man, that’s kinda rough. The pictures looked good, and maybe I’ll do it next year if the dates don’t conflict. The Hillsborough NJ Fire Dept. show was actually our first show we ever did, so it’s kinda special, and it’s great watching a bunch of grown firemen cry.

Creator, we signed up for the hillsborough show last year, but something came up and we didnt do it, I heard it was a good show, do you think we would do well there?? Oh and where is the tasting on the 1st??

The Hillsborough show is not a big money maker, we do it just for laughs, as it’s a lot of fun. The next DEFCON Day is at The Alley Bar in Berkeley Heights on Springfield Avenue. We did one there a few weeks back, when we got 24+ inches of snow. Still did really well, but this time around, it’s gonna be packed.

“The Defcon 12 oz’r”
I like it. I can see it now – One of those beer insulators with the Defcon LOGO. Need to add that to your merchandise Creator.

Personally, I like the new catch phrase my wife came up with,
“Arm yourself with DEFCON, and blow your guests away.”
Has a nice ring to it.

Sounds like a blast.think me and the girls will have to do a lil road trip

I put jalapeno – probably because it one of the only ones I can find around here!