Howdy Chileheads!
I must have been living under a rock to not have known about the awesome world of hot sauces! My journey began many months ago when I met James Beck from EatMoreHeat.com at a local networking event. We proceeded to close the bar slugging back beers and talking about hot sauce. Over many beer/hot sauce outings he told me about a show in Albuquerque, NM. As he described it, the National Fiery Foods Show is one of the largest in the world. Being from Albuquerque originally, I was totally down with checking it out.
An idea was hatched to travel via RV to the NFFS and utilize my HD production company to capture the journey (spicyrv.com). A few sponsors were lined up (10 cases from Lone Star!) and we picked a departure date.
We started with James taking on the Four Horseman Burger at Chunky's in San Antonio, TX. This burger was loaded with a crippling sauce from hell. It took James over 12 hours to recover from this burger showdown.
Along the way we stopped off in La Mesa, NM at Chope's Bar for the best chili rellenos I've ever had in my life. Small side note, it's a bikers bar and they server 40 oz beers as a standard offering. Good times!
From here we headed down to El Paso, TX where James and the crew jumped in the ring with Luchadors. Imagine a huge auditorium filled with raging wrestling fans yelling at you in Spanish. It was insane!
As we traveled up to Albuquerque, we stopped off at two great green chile burger joints. One in Hatch, NM called Sparky's. And another in San Antonio, NM called the Buckhorn Tavern. The Buckhorn is on the map for beating Bobby Flay in a green chile burger throwdown. Both were great burgers, but I would have to give the nod to Buckhorn. Those dude serve up the best green chile burger I've ever had.
We arrived in Albuquerque and got ourselves situated at the Sandia Casino. We did a cool radio spot with the local rock station thanks to Dave DeWitt. It was fun spending an hour with the morning crew talking about our journey.
The first day at NFFS I had the pleasure of meeting a ton of great people: DefconCreator (aka John) and his super cool wife, Blair Lazar, Danny Cash, Scott Roberts, Buddah, Chip from Peppers.com (this guy's a character!), JD from All Spice Cafe, Cajohn, and so many more I can't remember them all right now. It was so much fun meeting so many cool people.
Each day we did live feeds from the show with Dave DeWitt and James Beck acting as the hosts. There are tons of great interviews if you're interested in checking them out, including a "mohawk trimming" incident with Danny Cash:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/spicyrv
In addition to this you can see all of the videos we produced along the way here:
http://www.spicyrv.com (there are a few that are being added daily, we had quite a back log)
I've got to admit this was one of the cooler experiences I've had in my life, culminated with a great experience at the NFFS. If you've not made the journey before, it's well worth the trip.
Whew! If you're still reading after all of that, I just wanted to say that I'm a new convert to the world of Chileheads. I can't wait to explore amazing sauces!
Paul
I must have been living under a rock to not have known about the awesome world of hot sauces! My journey began many months ago when I met James Beck from EatMoreHeat.com at a local networking event. We proceeded to close the bar slugging back beers and talking about hot sauce. Over many beer/hot sauce outings he told me about a show in Albuquerque, NM. As he described it, the National Fiery Foods Show is one of the largest in the world. Being from Albuquerque originally, I was totally down with checking it out.
An idea was hatched to travel via RV to the NFFS and utilize my HD production company to capture the journey (spicyrv.com). A few sponsors were lined up (10 cases from Lone Star!) and we picked a departure date.
We started with James taking on the Four Horseman Burger at Chunky's in San Antonio, TX. This burger was loaded with a crippling sauce from hell. It took James over 12 hours to recover from this burger showdown.
Along the way we stopped off in La Mesa, NM at Chope's Bar for the best chili rellenos I've ever had in my life. Small side note, it's a bikers bar and they server 40 oz beers as a standard offering. Good times!
From here we headed down to El Paso, TX where James and the crew jumped in the ring with Luchadors. Imagine a huge auditorium filled with raging wrestling fans yelling at you in Spanish. It was insane!
As we traveled up to Albuquerque, we stopped off at two great green chile burger joints. One in Hatch, NM called Sparky's. And another in San Antonio, NM called the Buckhorn Tavern. The Buckhorn is on the map for beating Bobby Flay in a green chile burger throwdown. Both were great burgers, but I would have to give the nod to Buckhorn. Those dude serve up the best green chile burger I've ever had.
We arrived in Albuquerque and got ourselves situated at the Sandia Casino. We did a cool radio spot with the local rock station thanks to Dave DeWitt. It was fun spending an hour with the morning crew talking about our journey.
The first day at NFFS I had the pleasure of meeting a ton of great people: DefconCreator (aka John) and his super cool wife, Blair Lazar, Danny Cash, Scott Roberts, Buddah, Chip from Peppers.com (this guy's a character!), JD from All Spice Cafe, Cajohn, and so many more I can't remember them all right now. It was so much fun meeting so many cool people.
Each day we did live feeds from the show with Dave DeWitt and James Beck acting as the hosts. There are tons of great interviews if you're interested in checking them out, including a "mohawk trimming" incident with Danny Cash:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/spicyrv
In addition to this you can see all of the videos we produced along the way here:
http://www.spicyrv.com (there are a few that are being added daily, we had quite a back log)
I've got to admit this was one of the cooler experiences I've had in my life, culminated with a great experience at the NFFS. If you've not made the journey before, it's well worth the trip.
Whew! If you're still reading after all of that, I just wanted to say that I'm a new convert to the world of Chileheads. I can't wait to explore amazing sauces!
Paul
