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We are busy planning our May trip to Italy and England to promote The Complete Chile Pepper Book, which makes me think about how much both of those countries have heated up chile-wise in the past two decades.  Chile pepper growing, both commercially and as a hobby, has exploded, particulary in Italy.  In England, formerly the Land of the Bland, curry has taken over the culinary world and is the primary source of spicy food.  My good friend Pat Chapman, the King of Curries and I are planning an event called The King of Curries Meets the Pope of Peppers, and I will post more information as soon as the details are firmed up.  Meanwhile, I though you might enjoyed some stories and recipes about those two countries and their favorite spicy foods.  See the articles on spicy Italy, here and here and our 12-part series A World of Curries is here.

 

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I have been exchanging emails with chilehead Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, who just bought a copy of The Complete Chile Pepper Book. He writes, "Got the complete chile pepper book in the mail today...nice one! Looks great, very professional, very informative.  I might even try some growing now!"  I wrote back and suggested hydroponics under grow lights aboard his private jet!

I'll be off to the Bay Area November 10 for Round Two of Kingsford University.  I graduated a couple of summers ago when it was held in Arizona (see the article here), but apparently this one is graduate school.  Melanie Yunk of Melanie's Fine Foods will be a student with me and two of our instructors are the delightful Corinne Trang, author of Noodles Every Day: Delicious Asian Recipes from Ramen to Rice Sticks,

and Chris Lilly, author of Big Bob Gibson BBQ Book: Recipes and Secrets from a Legendary Barbecue Joint.  I shot this pic of him at the last Kingsford University class. Read all about him in this article.

And finally, my hobnobbing with the stars continued a few weeks ago when I was a Green Chile Stew Cookoff judge during Navy Week at El Pinto.  I was rough work to be paired as a judge with KOAT-TV news anchor (and incredibly cute) Shelly Ribando, but somehow I survived.

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10 tons of beef ... 4 tons of pasta ... 4 tons of calamari ... 2 tons of scampi ... plus 2 tons of fresh Christopher Ranch garlic ...More information here.

WHO Gilroy Garlic Festival

WHAT The 31st Annual "Ultimate Summer Food Fair"; three days of incredible food, arts and crafts, live entertainment, and cooking demonstrations.

WHERE Christmas Hill Park, Gilroy CA

30 miles south of San Jose off Highway 101

 

WHEN Friday, Saturday and Sunday
July 24 - 25 - 26, 2009 - always the last FULL weekend in July
Hours - 10:00am to 7:00pm with gates closing at 6:00pm each day

HOW Tickets -

Adult General Admission $12, Children (ages 6-12) $6 (under 6 - free), Seniors (60+) $6

Tickets: one per person, per each day attending.

Cash only is accepted at the gate. ATMs are available at most gates.

Advance tickets available online after June 1st at tickets.gilroygarlicfestival.com

FAQ's

The festival is held in a park. It is all outdoors with mostly turf and some compact dirt and asphalt walkways. There are natural shade trees, and many shade tents with tables and benches.

The admission price includes parking, musical entertainment, cooking demonstrations, and a children's area. Festival guests purchase food and beverages from the vendors. Prices range from $2 to $12 depending on the item, which is a full-size serving, not a sample.

Lodging, camping, and RV sites: www.gilroyvisitor.org

Parking is Free with a shuttle running from the parking lot to festival grounds.

Free secure bicycle parking is available on Miller Ave. at Yorktown Dr. just 1/2 block north of the levee.

Public transportation: www.vta.org

Gilroy is serviced Monday through Friday by CalTrain Commuter Service only. The train leaves Gilroy in the morning and does not return until the evening.

The Garlic Express Train sponsored by the Golden Gate Railroad Museum will not run in 2009.

General Aviators - If flying in to the area:
South County Airport, (E16)
13025 Murphy Ave., San Martin, CA 95046
(408) 683-4102 www.magnumaviation.com

For your comfort:
Wear comfortable shoes - walking on lawn, compact dirt, and asphalt.
Dress in layers - mornings could be foggy, afternoons are sunny.
Sport hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen - there's lots of garlic sunshine.

Handicapped and disabled access:
The parking lot is a graded agricultural field. Ask the lot attendant for directions to handicap parking. From there, guests will be shuttled to and from the gate. The festival grounds are mostly lawn, compact dirt, and asphalt. There are handicap restroom facilities in the parking lot and at the many restroom areas throughout the park. There are many shade tents with tables and benches throughout the festival grounds.

Please remember: Shirt and shoes are required.

Christmas Hill Park rules prohibit bringing the following items on Festival grounds:
◦ Alcohol of any kind
◦ Bottles, glass and cans
◦ Coolers - large or small
◦ Frisbees and water projecting devises
◦ Pocket knives and weapons of any kind.
If you bring any of these items listed above, leave them locked in your car.

Please be advised that the City of Gilroy park rules prohibit dogs and other animals from being brought into the park, except Guide Dogs, Seeing Eye Dogs & Service Dogs.

There are no kennel facilities available at the park.

The Gilroy Garlic Festival is a celebration of food, fun and family. It is the Garlic Festival's policy to provide a safe, family-friendly atmosphere for all Festival patrons and volunteers. Therefore, the Garlic Festival refuses entry or admission to anyone wearing clothing or paraphernalia indicating or signifying membership in a gang, including a motorcycle club. This policy is applied equally to all persons, regardless of their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability or medical condition.

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Dateline Las Cruces, New Mexico.  For years, research done by New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute has helped promote New Mexico's State Vegetable (really a fruit).  Now, the Institute itself (and its chile peppers) is on the map, literally, as a "must-see" destination in Rand McNally's 2010 Road Atlas "Best of the Road" program.

"We are thrilled that Rand McNally recommends the Chile Pepper Institute in their atlas," said Paul Bosland, Institute director. "It's an honor to know that people traveling in New Mexico can see us on the map and enjoy our Institute along their way."

According to Rand McNally, the publication is America's No. 1 road atlas. It provides five Best of the Road trips along with trip-planning tools, from detailed maps to mileage charts. The 2010 atlas is now available in stores and from online retailers like Amazon, here.

"Every year, our editors seek out and drive some of the best, most scenic road trip routes in the nation to find our Best of the Road winners," said Rand McNally editorial director Laurie Borman. 

Part of the attraction of the Chile Pepper Institute is its Demonstration Garden, where some 150 varieties of chiles from around the world are grown each year to educate the public.  See our article, here.

The Chile Pepper Institute is one of a handful of stops identified in Rand McNally's trip through New Mexico. The 2010 Road Atlas provides five road trips in regions throughout states such as New York, Oregon and South Carolina. Each trip features photos, an inset map and other similar destinations that readers might enjoy.

The Institute gained fame for developing and promoting the 'Bhut Jolokia' chile variety, named by Guinness World Records as the Hottest Spice in the World.  Located in NMSU's Gerald Thomas Hall, the institute is part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.  See their website, here.

Full disclosure: Along with Dr. Paul Bosland, I was a founder of the Chile Pepper Institute.  My company is a sponsor of the New Mexico Chile Conference, hosted annually by the Institute.

On Saturday, June 27, 2009, the story made the front page of the Albuquerque Journal, and was featured in the Business section.

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 Alexis Korman reports:  New Yorkers may be famous for a lot of things--bad attitudes, dazzling skylines, and high rents--but not necessarily the nation's best BBQ. But the Big Apple BBQ Block Party, set against the lush greenery of Madison Square Park, set out to prove that Manhattan can turn out mouthwatering barbeque to the masses.

What began in 2003 as a small-scale block party designed to introduce city dwellers to the nation's best regional ‘cue is today a barbeque festival on a super-sized scale-over 100,000 people turned out to taste juicy BBQ from some of the nation's top pit-masters over the weekend.

And taste they did. On June 13^th and 14^th, 15 grilling stations lined several blocks near Madison Avenue, and included tents from BBQ champions like Mike Mills (17^th Street Bar & Grill, Murphysville, IL/Las Vegas, NV), Garry Roark (Ubon's ‘Champion's Choice', Yazoo City, MS), and Chris Lilly (Big Bob Gibson BBQ, Decatur, IL).

Among the best dishes on offer were the tangy pulled pork shoulder topped with crunchy coleslaw from Blackjack BBQ (Charleston, NC), juicy beef brisket with sausage from The Salt Lick BBQ (Driftwood, TX), and expertly spiced Kansas City-style ribs and pickles from local favorite, Blue Smoke (New York, NY).

Other New York-area BBQ restaurants also represented their skills on the grill, including Hill Country, Rack & Soul, and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, which had a line stretching half-way around the block.

Making the wait for lip-smacking barbeque worthwhile were several excellent performances by toe-tapping blues, rock and soul artists, including SaRon Crenshaw, Howard Tate, and Junior Brown.

Despite insanely long lines and overcast skies the city's biggest barbeque event was nothing less than smokin'hot.

Alexis Korman is a NYC-based freelance food and wine writer. You can visit her website here.

 

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Our European editor, Harald Zoschke, reports from southwest Germany: We drove to the Swiss border south of the other end of Lake Constance (Bodensee).  German BBQ smoker manufacturer "Farmergrill" threw a huge Grilling & BBQ Fest. Not only do they manufacure a wide line of quality smokers, they also run one of Germany's largest BBQ retail stores--we saw most likely more than 100 different grills and smokers there. Reps from various manufacturers were present, and the "Barbecue Academy" smoked excellent brisket (they publish a German BBQ magazine and hold hands-on BBQ classes right here at Lake Constance). Good food, entertainment including electric bull riding (not HZ), chile pepper eating contest, the BBQ Train, at left, with twin smokers, and more.  Great fun!  Here are more pix:

 

 

 

The Big Green Egg arrives in Deutschland!

The showroom at FarmerGrill, complete with a
friendly Burnese Mountain Dog!

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I just received the July, 2009 issue of Saveur, my favorite food magazine, and it's a special Texas issue which is really a fun read with great recipes.  I was delighted to spot friends of mine as contributors, including Sharon Hudgins and Robb Walsh.  Sharon and Robb were two of the three great writers ("The Triumvirate," I used to call them) who I depended on for quality content when I was editor of the original Chile Pepper magazine from 1987 to 1996. (The third member of that group was Richard Sterling, who lives in Berkeley and Vietnam and isn't a Texan.)  In this Texas issue, Sharon writes about chuck wagon cooking and Robb covers chicken-fried steak, oysters, mesquite, and vaquero (Mexican cowboy) cooking.  To see them in this issue brought back fond memories of all the fun we had in the "old days" (remember the first Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival, Robb?)  Also making appearances are three New Mexicans I know and like, Deborah Madison, probably the most accomplished writer on vegetarian subjects, and Cheryl and Bill Jamison, who were kind enough to write a cover blurb for my upcoming (September) book with Paul Bosland, The Complete Chile Pepper Book.  Congrats to all of you for a wonderful special issue of Saveur.

 

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by Gerald Schmidt

China is red. More than just in the flag, more than in its political philosophy. Traditionally, red is the color of luck. The color of the clothes people marry in. The color on many temples. The color of the banners and charms put up around New Year. No wonder, then, that the chile peppers' role in culture comes to a high point in China: In many sizes, many forms, in rare cases even in a few colors, one finds the chile pepper as part of good luck charms.
One of the first questions one learns when eating out, whether in restaurants or on the street: Do you eat chile pepper? (And it's not just the foreigners who get asked that!) I teach at a university.  I once asked my students what they did when they felt unhappy. One reply: I eat.  Not chocolate, but hot and spicy food.  Chile peppers even made it into a Chinese/Tibetan medicinal treatise that was written (for the greatest part, actually, painted) between 1750 and 1800.  It suggested taking chile peppers and honey, hailing that concoction a drug to prolong life. Hot food is a good point also considering that China does not have heating south of the Yellow River.  What one hears in winter, contrary to the popular theory about the chile pepper's great role in hot regions, cooling us off by making us sweat: they are heavily consumed in the cold months, for heating up.  Of course, they are also widely eaten during the hot months.  Here and there, chile peppers hang outside like ristras. And there are the good luck charms which look like them.  Sometimes, aside all the red lanterns, one wonders what design the Chinese could possibly have used on their decorations and charms before the chile peppers were introduced.

 

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by Paul Schatte

Head Country Food Products and the BBQ and Chili Company of Stockholm, Sweden have been doing business together for two years. Last April, as general manager of Head Country Food Products, I was invited to Sweden by Jonas and Robert Lundin, owners of the BBQ and Chili Co. The purpose of the trip was for me to share my knowledge of barbecuing.  For several days I shared my expertise with restaurant and grocery store owners, as well as magazine and newspaper personnel.  I prepared several of Head Country's specialty items like bar-b-q brisket and ribs.

One of the restaurant groups in attendance was O'Leary's Sports Bar that operates more than 40 sports bars in Sweden. From that event and follow-up meetings by the Lundins, the O'Leary's restaurant menus will be featuring several flavors of Head Country Bar-B-Q sauce and smoked meats from the BBQ and Chili Company.

The highlight of the five-day trip for me was being asked to be guest Chef at Melker Andersonn's four-star restaurant, The Grille, in downtown Stockholm.  Melker Andersonn is a respected Michelin Chef in Europe and he asked me to prepare some of his favorite barbecue items. "The Grille Plate" featured brisket, pork shoulder and homemade sausage prepared by me. More than 125 Grille plates were sold that evening.

Our company has been selling BBQ sauce off and on in Germany for the past ten years, exporting private label sauce to Canada and are in the beginning stages of a larger scale growth in Canada as well."

Originally published in The Ponca City News, Ponca City, Oklahoma.  Used with permission.

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