Sunday 9/22
My Mom loved hard boiled eggs. But beyond the egg, what she loved was her hot sauce. Tabasco, the one of a kind hot sauce from Avery Island, Louisiana. Mom always ate her boiled eggs with Tabasco and we’re not talking a few drops here and there. She would cut the boiled egg in half and hit that thing with so much Tabasco you literally could not see any yellow.
I thought this was disgusting.
I was 25 years young when I was introduced to the strange land known as Texas. What do you mean these chips are not potato chips? What’s that tiny bowl of red stuff? I was and still am a Jersey Boy from the mean streets of Newark. Seriously, people eat chips made from corn dipped in this red stuff?
It was not love at first bite. But like many other things in life I learned to love Texas and all things about the Lone Star State. This Jersey Boy met and married a Dallas girl and we created two more Texans. I acquired my desire for Thai food in Texas which then led me to other forms of spicy heat. The years sped by and when the Sriracha craze hit I never got on that train. I did keep a small bottle of the Huy Fong chili garlic sauce in the fridge which became my go to sauce when I needed to heat up my mild bland homemade chili made specifically not spicy for the someone else I live with.
My chili garlic sauce had to get tossed because the expiration date was years ago. I guess I never used this sauce as much as I thought. Today is the first day of Fall and chili season grows near. I needed a replacement hot sauce. The Tabasco, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, some cheap Mexican hot sauce and the omnipresent jar of medium salsa were just not going to work for me.
Then suddenly (Devine Intervention?) this hit the grocery shelves.
Thanks Mom. I hope you are enjoying your hard boiled eggs wherever you are.
garyskitchen.net 
I never had hot things until I grew up either. My favorite now is something called Cholola. A friend of mine in Spanish class told me about it. It comes in several flavors. Might go to is the chili lime.
Cholula is a very good hot sauce. When it’s on the table at a Tex-Mex restaurant, you know the owners know their stuff. Hmmm…new post? How to Pick Out a Good Tex-Mex Place? What’s the hot sauce on the table!
Do you know where I found the absolute best selection of hot sauces? Aboard Navy aircraft carriers! That can be part three of your hot sauce series.
“Ever since Napoleon, armies have sought better ways to preserve, store, and transport food for battle. As part of this quest, although most people don’t realize it, the U.S. military spearheaded the invention of energy bars, restructured meat, extended-life bread, instant coffee, and much more. But there’s been an insidious mission creep: because the military enlisted industry—huge corporations such as ADM, ConAgra, General Mills, Hershey, Hormel, Mars, Nabisco, Reynolds, Smithfield, Swift, Tyson, and Unilever—to help develop and manufacture food for soldiers on the front line, over the years combat rations, or the key technologies used in engineering them, have ended up dominating grocery store shelves and refrigerator cases. TV dinners, the cheese powder in snack foods, cling wrap . . . The list is almost endless.”
Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat – Anastacia Marx de Salcedo
Now you know.
Gracias!!!