yep, it was a hot time alright. chilliwoman and I left Sydney at 6am Friday and arrived at about 4:15pm I drove all the way and was pretty knackered by the time we arrived! 775kms up and we ended up coming home on Sunday though my darling wife drove the first 250kms.
anyway, after a quick freshen up, I went looking for bentalphanerd's campsite. what a view he had, right on the beach, waves crashing around, perfect. we had a couple of coldies and talked the usual crap for a while before it was time for me to head back to the missus and go get some tucker.
next day I was keen to get 'into it' chilliwoman and I went for a substantial brekkie, necessary for the chilli that was to come. we had a quick walk around, a sort of reccie mission and then CW hit the shops while I went in search of fellow chilliheads. it wasn't long before I was chatting to stillmanz and he pointed out bent's ponytail and mentioned that he had seen billyboy and that he was helping out lana. bent and I had a few cooling ales in order to steel our nerves somewhat, we exchanged our preferences regarding which free samples we wanted first all the while dipping corn chips into some of lana's chipotles in adobo, mmmm... bent was particularly interested when I told him about the stall holder who told me he was going to have a jolokia paste ready for sale in 6 or 7 months and if I came back to see him later he would give me a sample!
the nearest stall was stillmanz so naturally I hit him up for some free stuff straight away. if you haven't tried his great tasting sauces then you are missing out - I bought three - Fire, Inferno and the Texas Pequin Hot Sauce. all seriously tasty sauces and with heat that lets you know you've had chilli but yet doesn't overpower the flavours. I can see I'll be having more of these! well done Mick and nice to meet you. you're stall looked excellent and with the black and red colour scheme was one of the best there.
next we trotted over to lana's stall, it was crowded with people three deep and billyboy was working like a trojan! we said a quick gday and left them to the paying customers.
next it was over to Chilli Willies stall. he had a number of habanero sauces in 5 oz bottles with heat ratings between 7 and 10. nice hot sauces, hab based, mostly more than 25% habanero and some great names amongst them - I got two - Habanero Spontaneous Combustion and a bottle of Blurter Hurter - both 10 out of 10.
by now I was starting to warm up a little. we hit the Disaster Bay Chillies stall. they had about 6 different samples, a couple of curry types with great flavour and some reasonable heat. I fell in love with the Lemon Stinger which is a lemon and chilli marmalade and had to get a couple of jars. their chillies are organically grown and the packaging is top notch!
we tried a couple of other stalls. I got some Coriander Salsa. we had some really hot sauces but nothing too tasty. one was billed as a 10++ but by then I couldn't taste the heat in it because my mouth was constantly glowing, that is until we went to the next stall...
the Chilli Factory is a brand I have had many times before, in fact, I'm quite a fan of their products and nearly always have a bottle or two ready to go. it is also the stall where the vendor told me he had the jolokia samples. by now we were ready to give it a go.
I started off by chatting to the owner and his assistant, as we all know, chilliheads are a fairly gregarious bunch. I tried about half a dozen or more of his wares, though I knew what I was going to buy - a bottle of Fiery Frillneck Hiss (a hot smokey chilli tomato sauce - mmmmmmm - one of my all time favourites) and two jars of Turbo Supercharge (extreme hot habanero paste). bent was eating free stuff like the world was gonna end - hahaha.
the owner took a pinch of dried jolokia out of a small plastic container and placed it in my palm. it looked like regular dried red chilli flakes except for one thing - there was a chunk of dried placental tissue in my hand that was almost a centimetre long and about half as thick. he said "just chew it until it gets hot enough and swallow it". we started chewing, and chewing and chewing - it had a delayed effect. eventually I swallowed it, thinking that it was pretty mild.
just then, along strolls stillmanz who the vendor kindly gave some too also. Mick was given a nice big chunk of placenta also! you should have seen the look on his face!!
well, about a minute after I'd eaten it the heat was starting to reach an unbearable level. my eyes were watering, my bald dome was covered in sweat and my nose was starting to run. the three of us were just looking at each other. after blowing my nose several times I said - "I'm outta here" and hurriedly made my way over to the licensed area with stillmanz to quickly down and icy cold brew. I blindly staggered over to lana's tent and blurted out to billyboy that I was in the midst of a jolokia endorphin rush. after dribbling and blowing my nose I ventured over to see stillmanz again. he seemed to be faring better than I. we both had a strong burning sensation in our stomachs. it was the hottest thing I'd eaten in a while and it ended my chilli festival on a high! pics to follow.
all in all it was a great trip and well worth attending with around 40 stalls in total. yeah the rain forced most of us out of there on Saturday afternoon but I needed something to cool me off. unfortunately I didn't get to meet jaz but it was great to meet up with bent, stillmanz, lana and billyboy. see you again next year??? probably!
ps - stillmanz, lana and billyboy are friends from another site though I think stillmanz gets on here occasionally.
