Paqui One Chip Challenge

Video of yours truly attempting the Paqui…well you can read the headline. It is a great tasting tortilla chip company that has gotten authority from Ed Currie and his Puckerbutt Pepper Company to create the world’s hottest tortilla chip. The Smokin’ Ed Carolina Reaper is presently the Guinness Book of World Records record holder as the world’s hottest chile pepper. This chip

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Happy Father’s Day with Guapo

Happy Father's Day

I wanted to dedicate something to my Dad being it is Father’s Day. So I went looking in the archives for the videos I made for Guapo, the Authentic Mexican Sauce. I had a lot of fun filming these videos of my friends and family trying Guapo on all kinds of things. These are just the videos I took in New York and New Jersey. This was filmed in June 2010 around Father’s Day, when my Dad who was fighting for his life in his battle against Cancer was actually doing much better after the initial chemotherapy. This was a fun set of videos we did and I wanted to share them with you. There is a small cameo of my Brother Mark, and wanted to give a shout out to him as he just had a birthday yesterday. So happy b-day Bro! I hope you enjoy the 2 videos. Happy Father’s Day to all your Dads out there!

If you are interested in Guapo, or any of their other quality authentic Mexican style sauces check out your local Whole Foods or at their website HERE.

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Chileheads Facebook Group Photo Contest – Part 2

The Dude

This is the 2nd of 2 photo contests for the Facebook Group Chileheads. I have selected 15 of my favorites from the over 100 submissions. The picture will be featured atop the Chileheads group page for all to see for at least 1 month. Since there are so many great pics including those that did not make the cut, I will be using some of those non-winning photos in the future as the featured photo of the month. The winning photo will be determined by the poll below and the most votes will win of course. I will get my Mom to break all ties if I have to. Don’t make me do it! She is a Jewish Grandmother and loves bacon, so some of these might have an obvious advantage. Just sayin’.

I would like to thank all those people that submitted their foodie love for this contest. I am sorry for those that did not make the cut. Sole blame comes down to me as I was the only one that chose them. I determined them simply by whether I thought they were colorful enough, drool-worthy enough and eye-catching enough to sit atop of the group page. Not every photo would fit right (vertically challenged), some had companies products in them, and I tried to avoid advertising so as not to think I was being paid off. Some were a little on the dark side or just did not pop enough for me. Some had background issues and others were a little too greasy in appearance. There were a lot of great BBQ and soup pics and for the most part I just went in a different direction. Not saying they were not worthy, but I had to make some tough cuts. I think with all contests, there will be some disappointed folks and other people that think I made a mistake. I get that and I will take it on the chin, but since I am providing the prize (2 bottles of hot sauce from my favorite stock from 2 different companies), and I felt I would pick what I liked the most and let you good people sort it all out with your votes.

Finally no names are attached to the photos as not to influence the vote. I know some of you will know, but please keep it to yourselves. I rather have a straight vote on what people liked rather than a popularity contest. I know some of you will go find people to vote for you, but I hope it isn’t about who has the most Facebook friends and Twitter followers and it is about who has the most drool-worthy picture for our Chileheads group page. Good luck to all the contestants. Please vote below as well as the stuffed pepper photos as well that you can find HERE. I am awarding two winners instead of just one winner, one for each of the photo votes. We have a Chileheads 2 group as well which is free from reviews and chile pepper pics. People use it to share recipes, talk about restaurants and products they discovered as well a place for companies and events to promote what is going on. I will post one of the 2 winners in this groups banner as well and switch them in April.

Now go vote for your favorite foodie pic…

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Chileheads Facebook Group Photo Contest – Part 1

Internet Pepper pic not for contest

I assembled 10 of the best Stuffed Pepper photos from the Chilehead Photo Contest. I am awarding 2 bottles of hot sauce from 2 different companies to the photo that receives the most votes. I have the names of those that are attached to each photo, but I will not include them until I have a winner rather than prejudice the vote. So please do not claim or announce which person submitted them. I am sure some will know it or find out from the previous contest post, but I ask you to vote on which photo you think deserves to sit atop the Facebook Chileheads page for at least a month.

The 2nd half of the contest is still being selected and I will have that up later in the day. Those photos will be other food entries. This was not a contest for pepper porn, just best food porn. So you will get a chance to vote on that later. I will have the final results on both polls on Monday afternoon as polls will close at 6pm est.

The winners of the contest will be awarded 2 bottles of hot sauce from 2 of my favorite sauces I have in stock. The companies products I select will have no knowledge of this prize, they are purely favorites of mine that I have extra of. No entry was selected out of favoritism or prejudice, and by no means works for ILoveItSpicy. I solely selected the photos and was not influenced in my determination other than the drool-factor that ultimately swayed me in the end.

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4th Annual Chilehead Secret Santa

Buddah's Secret Santaberg Spicy Gift Exchange

In the spirit of giving, I present you the Chilehead version of Secret Santa. It is a holiday spicy gift exchange between people in our Facebook group: Chileheads. Well, since the group is now teetering on 4,000 people, I have to put a cap on it. Last month I created a 2nd group called Chileheads 2. It was meant to weed out all the pepper pics and the endless reviews and keep it more about the community that revels in spicy product making, great fiery recipes and festivals that people love to attend. Since this is a new group, I am posting the Secret Santa there for people to see. This will keep the # of people relatively controllable for me to handle. Otherwise, Secret Santaberg might need more lil’ helpers.

If you wish to be a part of this, then

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Hypnosis and Hot Sauce

candle flame

Back in 2010, I got Scott Roberts from www.ScottRobersweb.com to volunteer for a little hypnosis experiment I wanted to try. There is something called HypnoBirthing which basically is hypnotherapy to remove the pain and fear associated with child birth. So a woman can have a pain-free baby delivery. I figured since I had learned a little about hypnotizing others over the years, maybe I could use this pain-free hypnosis for things that are too spicy. Imagine the ability to eliminate pain at will? Well I had to know if it would work. I was very confident it would, but I wanted to document it, but needed a guinea pig for my experiment. In stepped Scott to allow me to play with his brain, so to speak. Hypnosis works best with people that are very intelligent and willing, and I knew Scott would be the perfect subject. We were both coming to the Fiery Food & BBQ Show in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and there would not better opportunity than there to do this experiment.

The 2 videos we showcased our test with 3 super hot extract products from 3 different companies. The first company is the German Police with their Painmaker which ranges around the 800,000 scoville mark. You will see that test in the 1st video which begins with my hypnosis induction I did with Scott. In the 2nd video, Scott took on Defcon Sauces‘ Zero which is between 1-2 million Scoville, and then finally CaJohn’s Flavor & Fire’s Black Mamba which uses 1-4 million extract to create a better average.

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Buddah’s Fiery Festival Ideas

Idea

I woke up with an idea that I wanted to share with you and in return would like to hear some feedback on what you think of it. As many of you know, I have attended many spicy and BBQ festivals/events over the past 6+ years. There is a big issue at some of these events about getting people sick with stuff that most of the public is not prepared for. This community needs more positive experiences to share than negative ones. So I think it is up to the promoters to ban all extract sauce sampling from shows. They can still be sold, but I think we are better off not seeing people bent over a garbage container and scaring the rest of the attendees. There can still be burning going on with extra hot pure pepper products, but nothing with extract in it. All vendors will sign a form agreeing with this ahead of time, and if one of them crosses this line, they might be subject to a law suit for breaking the contract and harming the event. That might be extreme, but a contract will get a sneaky vendor from crossing any lines.

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Sean “Boyardee” Boley does his last review for ILoveItSpicy

Chef Boyardee Spicy Ravioli

In a few days, Sean will be moving out of the Buddah castle and to permanently be with his new blushing bride, Anna. The two look perfect for each other, and while I will miss having Sean’s presence around the house I wish him and Anna all the best for their future. Sean has gone from roomie to cartoonist to guinea pig to lawn-mowing Albino Nipple Boy to more than a friend to me. He will sorely be missed around the house. With that said, I thought Sean and I could do one last video review and there is no better product review that we could do than this one. As you will soon see and hear for yourselves why Chef Boyardee Spicy and Extra Spicy Beef Ravioli is like ambrosia of the Gods to this man. So please give the best of luck to Sean as he leaves ILoveItSpicy for bigger and better things including playing music as DJ Bobo!

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Spicy Product Makers Round Table – Part 2

Spicy_Makers_Roud_Table_photoshop

Part 2 of our interview with some of the spicy product makers in our Chilehead community continues where we left off. You can see Part 1 HERE. We elevate to more serious questions in this part including new spicy trends and tips for people who want to get into this industry. Unfortunately, the drinking that began well before the interview kicked off is now starting to take it’s toll with some of our participants. As the discussion continues we begin to lose a few of our makers to outside influences. In the end, I think we touched on some great points, and hope it is well perceived to those that have put in the time to watch it.

Our round table existed of Jeremy Walsh from Bigfats Hot Sauce, Ed Bucholtz from Born to Hula Hot Sauce, Steve Seabury from High River Sauces, Chuck Evans from Montezuma Brand Sauces & Salsas, Johnny McLaughlin from Heartbreaking Dawns and Joe Leicht from Flaming Joe’s, Inc. A big thanks to them all for giving us the time to do this. As well as a huge thanks to CaJohn for letting us use his place and private meeting room to house it in.

If we are lucky enough, we will get to do this round table discussion again with some other great spicy product makers at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo next month and/or the Bowers Chile Festival in September. If you are a spicy product maker interested in doing one of these and want to get yourself a seat at the next one, please let me know. Thanks and enjoy part 2!

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Spicy Product Makers Round Table – Part 1

Spicy_Makers_Roud_Table_photoshop

Whilst gathered at CaJohn’s Flavor & Fire Headquarters in Westerville, Ohio for the Fiery Food Festival Weekend at the North Market, I got a chance for a special interview. This special interview was with some of the faces in our great chilehead community. Since we had much fun over the years with the Bloggers Round Table, I thought it would be great to do a similar version with a select crew of our various award winning sauce makers. This is the 1st of 2 videos in which I get to ask some topical questions to this panel of hot sauce makers. To add to the discussion, there had been some drinking going on which only added to the conversation as you will soon find out. There is quite a bit of profanity, so please be aware of this before starting the video when surrounded by those easily offended. The discussion deteriorates pretty fast between part 1 and part 2 as you will soon find out as the liquor starts to kick in with some of the makers. Our round table existed of Jeremy Walsh from Bigfats Hot Sauce, Ed Bucholtz from Born to Hula Hot Sauce, Steve Seabury from High River Sauces, Chuck Evans from Montezuma Brand, Sauces & Salsas, Johnny McLaughlin from Heartbreaking Dawns and Joe Leicht from Flaming Joe’s, Inc. A big thanks to them all for giving us the time to do this. As well as a huge thanks to CaJohn for letting us use his place and private meeting room to house it in.

I will post part 2 tomorrow at 7pm est. If some of you other spicy product makers would like to do one of these at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo or perhaps at Bowers in September, I am sure we can do another one or two. The more the merrier since there are so many great spicy product makers out there. Enjoy the round table! There will be the occasional shaky camera, but it will be steady most of the time. Also, you will note another camera crew here and there. They are filming something very special for one of our own in the community, and I am not sure I am allowed to mention more than that at this time.

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The Murph’s Famous Bloody Mary Mix hits TV

Murph's Famous

Stephen “The Murph” Murphy has taken to the airwaves with a new commercial now airing on some cable stations on Long Island. He has had a 4 minute spot on WPIX-11 on its morning show three weeks back. If you did not get a chance to meet The Murph or try his Famous Bloody Mary Mix, you can check him out again at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo coming in March or visit the website at

30 Second Spot

4 Minute spot on WPIX-11
Click HERE to watch the saved video

Stephen P. Murphy
CEO of The Murph’s Famous Bloody Mary Mix
Phone: 516-398-0417
www.murphsfamous.com
“ONE SIP, ONE BELIEVER”
Facebook: CLICK ME
Twitter: @themurphsfamous

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Buddah’s 2013 Ultimate Chilehead Roadtrip – Part 6

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September 25, 2013

The Sauce Goddess, Jen Reynolds and I started the day off with a little touristy stuff. Before we left Baton Rouge, we went to the Louisiana State Capitol building as recommended by Dana Romero, our host from the previous 2 days as mentioned in the previous posts. The State Capital building is also the tallest building in the city, and Dana said it would provide a great view of the landscape of the city. Boy was he right. You can see this in the pictures below as well as the Sauce Goddess modeling pic atop the page. It was a blue sky, and it added to the lovely landscape. The building itself had the coolest looking interior with the beautiful wooden pews and exquisite ceilings for the Federal Courtroom, State Senate and the halls in between.

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Buddah’s 2013 Ultimate Chilehead Roadtrip – Part 5

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Talking about stretching something out for all it’s worth. I am sorry I am not writing this faster, but we had some issues once again with our web host and had to relocate again. There was some malicious code that was hacked into the site and it was causing endless spam to be sent to site, causing ILIS to need more and more space. Outside of paying $200/month for more space, I had another benefactor step up and get me another free web server to host my site. It is slower, but it is free, and for now it is all we got until I start paying for something bigger and better. My deep appreciation goes out to those that have helped me through the last month’s ordeal with my site. Thank you so much for all the help you all have provided me.

So let us continue where I left off, in New Iberia with the Sauce Goddess…

September 24, 2013

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Buddah’s 2013 Ultimate Chilehead Roadtrip – Part 3

Stretch of Grinders

September 21, 2013 – the 2nd day of the Houston Hot Sauce Festival

The show having a start time of noon was a relaxing way to kick off a Sunday morning. I got up early and got me another cheap pair of footwear from Wal-Mart again. I found sandals that were only $8.50 after taxes. They weren’t too bad for cheapies. They survived the muddiest of areas at the event. I headed to the show thereafter and spent time talking to the vendors and seeing how the first day went. I think the consensus was that of surprise. It might’ve been the best Saturday the festival had ever seen. Before the event started the show announced their people’s choice winners as voted on by the public the day before. It was a celebration of a job well done. A pat on the back from the people you hope to please when you first started this business.

The clouds had disappeared, the sun was shining and bringing the heat. It wasn’t hot enough to dry up the mud, but the grounds were getting a wee bit more navigable. Yet, there were some seriously slippery patches that could drop you. I slipped on a few and it was a miracle that I kept my balance. At times it was like sliding on ice. I watched Fiber Joe interview a few people, took a pic with him and Stretch of Grinders as you can see below, and then found my way back to the boudin balls. I had ordered these yesterday, and they were pretty good. I wanted to make sure the Sauce Goddess got some, so I brought over them to her and settled back into the booth to get me more sales experience. I said in the last post that I enjoyed the pitch, and I think I did much better the second day as Jen schooled me a little bit on feeding the masses. It was fun when the sales were reflecting the “mmm” factor of the grazing from the masses. I respect how much vendors put out in product just in hopes they can wrestle some bills away from the samples. There is a lot of food that goes out free. It is like bait on a hook, and you hope your line gets tugged and you can reel in the reward. You don’t want to lose all your bait and bring home to fish.

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Buddah’s 2013 Ultimate Chilehead Roadtrip – Part 2

iBurn mural outside

September 20, 2013

I owe a lot of my sanity on this trip to the Sauce Goddess, Jennifer Reynolds. I was still having personal issues that I could not drop, and she told me to focus on where I was and have a good time with the people around you. Jennifer and I shared hotel rooms in Houston, TX as well as New Iberia and Lafayette, LA. We did the tourism thing in Louisiana and I had a great time with her company. Thanks very much Jen, you were an awesome travel mate. Our Friday schedule immediately became a bit sketchy because of the weather. It was raining and it was going to get worse and worse as a big storm was heading our way. Friday was setup day at the Stafford Centre for the Houston Hot Sauce Festival, so it was a matter of choosing the best time to dance between the raindrops.

Both Jen and I decided to visit the new iBurn brick and mortar hot sauce store before helping her setup her booth. The look of the store was amazing. So clean and professional looking. The murals were so very artistic. See the pic at the top for the outside mural and part of the inside mural is below. I really liked the way the bottles were child-protected by these small metal bar guards. While that was good against bottles tipping, the appearance was extremely sharp and appealing. Proprietors, as well as newlyweds, James and Amy Beck/Wreck had started selling products last year online and having such a widely successful show close by, they are going to support the festival by bringing in some of the vendors that appear. The idea is to tell the attendees at the show if you like the vendor’s products you will be able to reload at iBurn. Many of the vendors at the show gave away iBurn postcards to push home that point. Good marketing.

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