An expo just for hot sauce? “Hot sauce production has been rated one of the 10 fastest-growing industries in the U.S.,” say the event organizers. “The trend shows no sign of cooling off.”

If two days of fiery food is your idea of the ultimate endorphin rush, the weekend promises to be packed with live music, fire breathers, spicy food vendors, eating challenges and contests, adult beverages and the best hot sauce producers in North America.

Awards will be presented on Saturday afternoon in categories that include Chipotle, Fruit Based, Fruit Based Hot, Habanero, Jalapeño, Louisiana Style, Novelty Hot Sauce, People’s Choice, Pepper Blend, Scorpion and a category we always appreciate, Best Label Artwork.

We grew up in a household that used hot sauce for Bloody Marys. Everything else was flavored with fresh-cracked pepper and fresh herbs. True hot sauce fans shake the condiment on just about everything, from grilled cheese and other sandwiches, eggs, fried foods, French fries and hash browns, meat loaf, ribs, soups and anything else you can think of, including, of course, chili and Tex-Mex cuisine.

Dave Pace, founder of Pace Foods, who began to manufacture hot sauce in Texas in 1947, would even shake hot sauce into his coffee. Whether he added sugar and milk as well, we don’t know. But we do know people who sprinkle hot sauce on their oatmeal and ice cream. (More about hot sauce.)

Leah Hansen was one of THE NIBBLE writers who tasted her way through the media preview. “It was so much fun, and the hot sauces so terrific, that I’m going to attend the two-day Expo,” she reports.

Here are the favorites of all she tried. Even if you can’t get to the Expo, you can order the sauces online.

1. NYC Hot Sauce Co. A traditional red hot sauce with more depth of fruit flavor (from the flesh of the chiles) than the large commercial hot sauce brands. It‘s heavy on the vinegar flavor in a good way, and went really well on the mini grilled cheese sandwiches served with it. I loved the squeeze bottle too; it made it easy to squirt as much sauce you want. Ingredients: habanero peppers, carrots, onions, celery, garlic, fresh squeezed lime juice and creole seasonings. More about NYC Hot Sauce Co.

3. Big Fat’s 7 to 8. Big Fats makes an impressive array of hot sauces, all with number names. This super-hot sauce started out with a pleasant, subtle sweetness and a good depth of flavor with a big burst of citrus, quickly swirling into a vortex of spices. I really like the Trinidad 7 Pot Peppers used (they appeared in a few sauces, one of the super-hot chiles that have yet to enter commercial production). It takes a whole minute to hit you, but then the heat is pretty extreme and stays with you for a good 20 minutes. Ingredients: orange juice concentrate, onion, water, Trinidad 7 pot peppers, pineapple concentrate, garlic, pomegranate molasses, sea salt, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, and white pepper. Learn more at BigFatsHotSauce.
4. High River Sauces “Tears of the Sun.” The different fruit ingredients make this my favorite of the sweeter sauces. It’s not too sweet, with pretty high heat and a lingering aftertaste. How it got its name: “Your taste buds are greeted by the sweetness,” says the manufacturer; then the heat rises like the sun on a hot summer day.” Ingredients: habanero peppers, peaches, papaya, pineapple, mango, cider vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, red pepper, salt and garlic. More about High River Sauces.
DO YOU KNOW YOUR CHILES (PEPPERS)?

See the different types of chiles in our Chile Glossary.

What’s the deal with “chiles” versus “peppers?” Chile is the correct word, alternatively spelled chili and chilli; chilli is the original spelling in Nahuatl, the Aztec language.

When one of Columbus’ crew first tasted a chile in the Caribbean Islands, he likened the heat to the black pepper known in Europe. Hence, chilli became pepper, or chile/chili/chilli pepper.

To us purists, pepper should only refer to Piper nigrum, the peppercorn, which has no relationship to the chile plant. Capsicum is the genus for chiles, fruits that, when cut in half, have a white spine and seeds that contains the heat (or, in the case of bell peppers, no heat at all). For us, chile/chili/chilli is the way to go.

Even though we stored our brown sugar in a supposedly airtight glass canister, it invariably became rock-hard in a few weeks, its natural high level of moisture evaporating into…well, who knows where it went?

The old “Hints From Heloise” on how to soften brown sugar don’t work if you’re in a hurry. They include putting slices of apple or a slice of fresh bread into the airtight container. In a day or so, the moisture from the apple or bread will infuse into the sugar and soften it.

But if you discover, as you’re making a recipe, that your brown sugar is one big hard lump, you need a fast solution.

We subsequently came across these Terra Cotta Brown Sugar Disks. Soak a disk in water for 15 minutes, then add it to the container of brown sugar. The terra cotta (which is porous, unglazed baked clay) holds moisture, and releases it slowly to keep brown sugar or other foods moist for weeks.

You can pick up a set of Terra Cotta Brown Sugar Disks ($8.99 for three) and give the other two to friends.

Should you happen to have a small piece of terra cotta hanging around, you can try it first. We used a shard from a broken flower pot, wrapping it in cheesecloth to ensure that none of the broken surface would come into contact with the sugar.
  

If you have a kitchen with limited storage space, you’re constrained in the number of pots and pans you can keep.

As petite as it is (five inches in diameter), we would never have thought to buy The Egg Expert, a pan whose unique selling proposition is that it can fry two eggs perfectly.

But when tried this little sweetheart sent to us by the folks from GreenPan USA, we fell in love: It’s the perfect pan for making fried eggs—at least, if you want your eggs to come out perfectly round and pretty.

The ceramic coating (Thermolon) in superb searing and creating crispy surfaces.

The heat distributes evenly, it browns food beautifully. The only caveat: The handle does warm up, so you may need a pot holder.

And it cleaned up more easily than any cookware we’ve ever used. After a dozen sets of eggs were fried, the pan still looks brand-new.

In addition to its cooking prowess, GreenPan environmentally responsible cookware.

 
Discover the whole line at Green-Pan.com.

GreenPan products are available at retailers nationwide (store locator).

One of the most elegant bosses we’ve ever had, an old school gent, drank Bourbon and Ginger Beer* as his cocktail of choice.

In those long-ago days, before the runaway popularity of the white-goods-based† Bloody Mary, Martini and Margarita, most people were either Scotch or Bourbon drinkers. They drank their spirit of choice with soda, with water or on the rocks; those who didn’t really like the flavor of the spirit added the sugar and lemon of sour mix.

Back then, Bourbon and Ginger Beer was stylish and different. And delicious.

So we were happy to receive this cocktail suggestion from Maker’s Mark Bourbon. For baseball season, they’ve renamed the classic Bourbon & Ginger Beer and ported it to a Pilsner glass, called the Ballpark Diamond. Those ice cubes look like big, rough diamonds, don’t they?

And it couldn’t be easier to serve to your friends and refill during the game:

BOURBON & GINGER BEER RECIPE

Ingredients Per Cocktail

1. ADD ice cubes to a tall Pilsner (beer) glass.

2. Pour in 1-1/2 parts of Maker’s Mark and fill to the top with ginger beer. Stir lightly and serve.

You can also mix multiple drinks in the pitcher and keep the pitcher in the fridge or in an ice bucket. But don’t add the ice cubes to the drink until you’re ready to serve.
 

FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE COCKTAIL RECIPES.
*Ginger was brewed in England in the mid-18th century as an alcoholic drink. Today it is invariably a soft drink. Think of it as a stronger version of ginger ale.

†In the liquor industry, “brown goods” are the brown spirits, including bourbon, rum and whiskey. White goods are the clear spirits, such as gin, tequila, vodka.

We love this recipe, inspired by a dish served at the Chobani Mediterranean Yogurt Bar on Prince Street in SoHo, New York City.

Easy to prepare yet high-impact, it’s a twist on a bagel with smoked salmon. We enjoy it at brunch, as a light lunch, as a first course at dinner. We like to serve it in a glass dish or wine glass to showcase the layers.

SMOKED SALMON PARFAIT

Ingredients

Preparation

1. ADD some of the diced cucumbers and dill to the bottom of the serving dish.

2. ADD yogurt to fill dish at least halfway. Sprinkle onion over yogurt.

3. TOP with smoked salmon. Garnish with diced tomatoes, capers or a dab of yogurt with more dill.

4. SERVE with a side of bagel chips.