The Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show is so all-encompassing and so overwhelming to us that it's hard to know where to begin a report like this.  Just to give you an idea, 94-Rock gave away 14,000 containers of Blue Bell ice cream as a cool-down to attendees!  The live video streams produced by James Beck of EatMoreHeat.com were a huge success and you can see them here at SpicyRV.com.  They are just the tip of the craziness iceberg.  As you can see by the photo, I was "arrested" by the German Chile Police for the attempted theft of an inflatable chile.  This was staged by Marco Del Freo, who came all the way from Parma, Italy to visit the show.  Total attendance exceeded 15,000 and the media coverage, arranged by Kelly Hunter of Shiroma Southwest, was spectacular.  On Friday, I did six video interviews!  The show advertising, produced by Wayne and Jackson of Wayne Scheiner & Co., my long-time agency, was obviously very effective. You can watch the TV spot for the show here (be sure to scroll down a little).  Lois, our managing editor is working on two photo-reports from the show, so expect to see them within the next week or two.

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Apparently because of all my work over the years on chile peppers, the Swedish government has made me a "Hero of Sweden."  You can watch an inspiring video of the announcement here.

 

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It's "Fiery Foods Show or Bust" as James Beck and his cohorts drive the Spicy RV from Houston to Albuquerque.  Spicy RV’s first Friday night we descended upon Chunky’s Burgers in San Antonio, Texas. It would be safe to say Chunky’s was catapulted to national fame when Adam Richman from The Travel Channel’s Man vs Food took up the Four Horsemen challenge. James Beck of EatMoreHeat had to throw his hat into the ring and see what this burger was all about.

 

The Four Horsemen burger is ludicrous....

The story continues here.

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First, Harald Zoschke in Germany sent me the hilarious card at the left after asking me to model the 'Bhut Jolokia' tie.  This imagery caused a ruckus among my female friends, ranging from "OMG! That is one for the archives!" (Martha "Body Bueno" Doster), to "Are those your real boobs?" (Lois "Cave Dweller" Manno) to "There are so many things that are just wrong with this pic, Dave!" (Melanie "Cold Water" Yunk).  I replied, "But I love my new panties, my new nail color, and my implants."  Then I emailed the card to Pat Chapman, the King of Curries in England, and he sent the following report about our upcoming event, "The Pope of Peppers Meets the King of Curries," in London on May 16.

 

Reuters, London, 0922 GMT; 02-05/2010

Sales of Sports Illustrated soared as tens of thousands of extra copies were printed to cope with astonishing demand following the near exposure of America's latest sex icon, the Pope of Peppers.  The magazine owners admitted that they had never known anything like it, and that the cover design would be nominated for the 'Less is More' Award.  

Security was stepped up to hold back the crowds of adulating admirers who took to the Miami seas in boats of all shapes and sizes in the hope of catching sight of the new icon. Wearing his new papal uniform aboard a cruise ship of hot repute, the Pope revealed he has tied up a deal with the King of Curries in England, which will result in a visit there in May following his highly awaited tour of Italy.  

Asked how this would affect relationships with the Vatican, the Pope said "I do not have plans to visit my namesake.  But I hear Benedict will pay a visit to England after my own."  This was confirmed by the Vatican who were obliged to hastily plan their first papal visit to Britain since 1982. The media on both sides of the pond are buzzing with anticipation. Asked how cash-strapped UK would handle two popes in one year, the Bank of England expected to step up its quantative easing to produce the extra finance need to handle the visit. Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated "Printing money is easy.  Providing we don't run out of paper."   President Obama said a decision may be made by the end of his term. British security chiefs said measures will be put in place to handle the expected crowd. "We will bring back our troops from Afghanistan, if we have any left by then."   The palace declined to confirm whether royalty will attend, stating her majesty was not amused, but they did intimate that the King had been alerted.  

When quizzed, the King confirmed that negotiations were ongoing between the Albuquerque papal office and his own regal office in Haslemere, Surrey. They expected to announce a US/UK Fiery Food Pope-meets-King summit soon. "A lot depends on what happens when DeWitt removes that tie," he said. Happy Birthday Pappa.

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Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday of the year.  Reasons?  There's no baggage associated with it, like religion, gift-giving, or dressing-up.  And it has all the things I love most about a holiday: family, good friends, food, drink, and football.  So, the feasting team here at the SuperSite is serving up the following Thanksgiving articles with recipes:

A Barbecued Thanksgiving, here.
Spiced-Up Thanksgiving Trimmings, here.
Holiday Sizzling Stuffings and Leftovers, here.
A Chile Lover's Mexican Thanksgiving, here.

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Lately the Internet has come alive with images of pepper pods that transcend the bounds of common decency.  Some unscrupulous people are actually posting them in their blogs to drive more traffic!  Imagine!  John Perea of Hot Rod Pickles (yes, a real company name) sent me the image to the left of a tumescent pod that I call "Horny Jalapeño."  Then there are the images of the pods that women love the most, the infamous 'Peter Peppers', and they are flushed red with excitement.  Notice that they are in the hands of a person of the male persuasion.  I'm not sure if that's gay or not.  And finally, my very own co-author and close friend, Dr. Paul Boland, a highly decorated Regent's Professor at New Mexico State University, insisted, over my vehement protests, that we publish a photo of an immature--but precocious--'Peter Pepper' in our new tome, The Complete Chile Pepper Book. The world is going to hell in a garden basket!

 

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For those of you who missed it, here is a link to "Extreme Conventions" that ran on the Travel Channel, as posted on You Tube by a fan, not by us.  It's great publicity and I really appreciate it, but it only portrays the superhot component of the show, which in reality is a very, very small part of the show, which focuses on gourmet spicy products that won't burn you out.  My niece Emily complained that I was not given enough coverage, and my 21-minute interview was cut to 8 seconds, but hey, the program was not about me, as I'm not particularly extreme.  At left are the "German Chilli Police" with the folks from CaJohn's Fiery Foods.

 

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Yes, they eat chiles in Finland.  My friend Jukka Kilpinnen has reported on his his bonzai chile plants in Finland, and there's a Finnish Chile Association.  They recently conducted their Chile-Eating Championship that featured the deadly 'Naga Morich', a cousin to the 'Bhut Jolokia'.  Read all about it here!

 

 

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By Bay Area Correspondent Melanie Yunk

At the Gilroy Garlic Festival recently, Kent and I made our way through Gourmet Alley and all the various food booths to look for lunch. We found many incredible options: garlic artichokes (another popular local vegetable), stir-fry chicken, calamari, wild boar on a stick, garlic salmon, garlic hot wings and so much more. We finally settled on Louisiana Jambalaya, Beer-Battered Garlic Crab Fries, Roasted Corn on the Cob (with garlic, of course) and a sampling of a delicious paella from Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme Catering made on-site in their giant 4-foot pans.

Full and happy, we needed to move around to work off our lunch. Ice cold beers in hand, we meandered through the artists' booths and found many fun and creative crafts by artisans from all over the world.  

Michael Loffler from Seattle's Hatterdashery sat at his antique Singer sewing machine crafting his handmade garlic hats, a very popular item at this event.

The French Garlic Grater is a useful and beautiful little plate invented in France and produced in Spain. Malin and Dan of MalDan Industries demonstrated their product before a packed booth. Their plates cost $22 each and are available here.

The Woodkins' veggie, fruit and flower characters (including a chile pepper) are designed by Linda Lebedowicz and hand-carved by her husband. Linda travels throughout California, Nevada and Arizona selling her designs. These entertaining and reasonably priced carvings range in price from $15 to $50 and can be purchased on their website.  Our biggest surprise at the show was the framed Antique Seed Packets. These seed packets were hand-lithographed 100 years ago and were never actually used. They were discovered in a basement where they lived for 100 years, untouched. The packets depict the many varieties and colors of flowers and vegetables that are considered extinct today. Because of the lithographic process, the art under magnification is three-dimensional. Simply amazing and beautiful--and reasonably priced too.  They are available here.

And one of the most fun parts of the Festival was that I got to canoodle with celebrity chef Fabio!

By the end of the day, we left the Festival, full of garlic, beer, and memorable images from the Garlic Showdown. We're already plotting our trip to the 32nd annual event and can't wait for next year.

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