Weekend of Fire - Thoughts and Reminiscings
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Jungle Jim's Weekend of Fire is an annual gathering of spicy food and BBQ vendors held in the Cincinnati suburb of Fairfield. The locale for the event is the Oscar Event Center, which is part of a large grocery shopping complex anchored by the ENORMOUS Jungle Jim's International Market, one of the largest grocery stores I've ever seen.
The following is loose rundown of events, plus random thoughts on things. This may not be the most well-written post I've ever put up, so bear with me.
After staying the night at my wife's relatives in Columbus, I started the early Saturday morning with a 90+ minute trip from there to Fairfield. I arrived around 8:35 (show started at 10:00), walked around, found the Bloggers Booth, and almost immediately ran into Jonathan Passow. Started strolling the floor, and took pics of booths, most of which at this hour were unmanned.
Went to Jungle Jim's complementary vendors/bloggers breakfast with Passow, saw several other vendors and reviewer Al "Buddah" Goldenberg. Joe and Linda Levinson of thehotzoneonline.com strolled in for breakfast, as did Eric Grant. Went back to the Bloggers Booth, and talked with Buddah. One by one, other bloggers/reviewers and online chileheads showed up around the booth: David "Hudd" Huddleston and his wife & son, Paul "The Big Show" Raczynski, Joe "Dyce" Bowan, Ethan Clapham and Mia Seversen, Bill and Sandi Kraft, and Vic Clinco and his wife Wendy (I apologize if I'm forgetting anyone). Bret Vitek, formerly of JJ's and now works for CaJohn's, made several appearances amongst our group.
By 9:30-ish that morning, I still hadn't received my vendor pass, so I walked back down to lobby to wait for Debbie Hartinger of JJ's (who had helped organize the event alongside of Jim Beckett), and met Greg of Stadium Salsa and talked to him for a few minutes while we waited on our vendor badges.
The salsa contest held at the BB was successful, with a rough estimate of 350 people (I don't have the vote figures with me) coming by and voting for their favorite out of the four finalists. Montezuma's Smokey Chipotle Lime & Garlic Salsa was the winner. Here's Jim Beckett of Jungle Jim's handing Chuck Evans of Montezuma the 1st Place award:
Big Orson's Mango Habanero Salsa also received an impressive number of votes, enough for it to snag 2nd Place:
We also were fortunate enough to have many items generously donated to the BB, such as sauces, t-shirts, and cigars, which we sold off to show attendees at a discounted price for charity. The BB raised $500 from the sale, which was given to Autism Speaks and Step Up For Charity.
On Day One I did not need lunch at all, as I was feeding myself with samples during my numerous floor runs (I was totally sick of sauce/salsa and tortilla chips at the end of the day!). My strategy for Day One was to visit all the vendor booths and meet all the vendors while trying out their sauces and foods, and on Day Two, make my purchases from the booths I really liked food-wise. There were a few vendors I would have loved to have bought stuff from (such as Cajun Heat, who make the excellent Liquid Napalm Hot Sauce and Voodoo Ash Seasoning), but a combination of limited monetary funds and the fact that I might have already had a good supply of their product at home prevented me from doing so.
There were some really good food and great sauces, salsas and toppings. I was happy to see that there were quite a few sweet toppings, jams/jellies, and overall dessert-compatible products available at the show, because I think sweet + heat is primed to explode in the industry.
DEFCON had a new extension tent on their booth dubbed The Pain Center. Attendees could go in and try out the ultra-hot DEFCON ZERO extract sauce. Unfortunately, I never got around to consuming some ZERO myself (seriously, I wasn't trying to wuss out).
I did go to CaJohn's "Execution Station" at their booth, which was seven hot sauces lined up, each increasing in heat until it finally ended with the inferno-like power of the Jungle Fever and Black Mamba hot sauces. CaJohn's also had some new, nuclear-green margarita mix in a large container which the CaJohn's crew would mix with Frostbite sauce.
What was the hottest thing at the show? Well, other than the aforementioned CaJohn's extract sauces I had eaten, the thing that really knocked me out was Bald Eagle Foods' Buck in Rut Extreme Horseradish placed on a slice of summer sausage (the guy in their booth said it was 30 times as strong as horseradish root). It was like a firecracker went off in my nasal passages and put me in a coughing fit for at least 20 seconds.
I also have to credit the Global Warming Salsa Co. folks for not only making the hottest salsa at the show (the "End of the World" salsa), but for making an overall good lineup of products.
Met some really good people, including a few guys walking around the floor who recognized me from my blog - Jason (I'm so sorry if this wasn't your name), and also Mark of Hott Commodity. Also met for the first time in person James Beck, the webmaster and chief reviewer of EatMoreHeat.com, the "official" review blog associated with Dave DeWitt.
The DEFCON Deathmatch Wing Contest that evening proved to be fun. We gathered in the alleyway outside of Buffalo Wings and Rings (who provided the wings) while John "DEFCON Creator" Dilley maniacally provided the sauce. Here is adding the capsaicin extract, bringing the sauce to God-knows-what Scoville levels:
The reigning champ from last year took the "head of the table" chair:
It looked as if if were going to rain on the contest (it actually did sprinkle for several minutes), but luckily it held off until after the contest. Once the contest started, the wing devouring was fast and furious, as was the look of pain on contestants' faces. From what I could tell, not many people were able to consume all ten of the wings in the allotted 4 minutes they were given.
After years of coming in second place, David "Hudd" Huddleston of tastethefear.com was able to finish first.
The second (and equally as fun) part of the the contest is the 5 minute waiting period, where contestants must place their hands flat on the stable or face disqualification. This, of course, prevents them from wiping their faces or imbibing in a cool drink and let the painful multi-million Scoville concoction sit and burn their mouths and lips.
Since smack talk and dirty tactics were allowed (and even encouraged), one of the wing eaters took advantage of the snot strings dripping from his nose and tried to lick the mucus-y mess to nauseate the other contestants (upchucking also disqualifies you). Although at least one guy looked queasy, no barfing occurred.
Hudd was the winner, and even his teenage son Danny put in a respectable performance. After the contest, the eaters were given ice cream, which Danny smeared around his face to soothe the burnt lips and cheeks. The young lad also nearly knocked over the table after getting up and moving around from the endorphin rush.
[L to R] Eric Grant, Al "Buddah" Goldenberg, Deathmatch champion David "Hudd" Huddleston, Danny Huddleston, Jonathan Passow, and Scott Roberts.
Day Two, I started quite a bit more groggy, maybe the overall excitement from the day before was slowly wearing off (not that I enjoyed the show any less on Sunday).
This day's activities started with a pre-show visit to Jungle Jim's International Market. To call that store thing huge would be an understatement. I found my way over to the hot sauce/spicy foods section, saw James Beck speaking with some individuals and also ran into Buddah, who chatted about sauces and salsas for over twenty minutes (as only he can) while we perused the selections. We got a few bottles, walked back over to the Oscar Center, and started our "boothing" duties.
We quietly revealed the winner of the salsa contest and made a heavier push to sell the items for charity. I made some rounds to booths to make my purchases and relaxed before the Lick-a-Thon contest.
The 1st Annual Spicy Lick-a-Thon was presented by Intensity Academy, who provided some 1.5 million Scoville Unit lollipops for each of the contestants. The contestants were given five minutes to take ten licks on their devilishly-hot suckers and then suck as much as they could of the candy. The person with the least amount of lollipop left at the end of the five minutes would be the winner.
Of course, since I didn't subject myself to the previous night's Deathmatch, I just had to enter this contest. At 2:00 PM, the contestants and I sat around a table outside the main showroom in the large entrance-way upstairs at the Oscar Event Center. We were provided large, black plastic buckets for possible vomiting (which thankfully weren't needed).
No, I'm not falling asleep. It was just one of the inevitable mid-blink camera shots.
Lick-a-Thon phtos courtesy of Michele Northrup of Intensity Acadmeny
We held up our suckers for the photo op, unwrapped the candies, and took ten licks at the start of the clock. When it was time for full-fledged sucking, I felt the lollipop wasn't all that hot, partly because my mouth and tongue were still partially numb from all the other hot sauces I'd eaten that day. Don't get me wrong; it was still mighty hot, but I could have easily sucked on that thing several more minutes after the clock ran out without any pain. A few of the other guys were way too quick for the rest of us and completely dissolved their candy. Vic Clinco was the big winner, with Buddah coming in second.
After more hanging around the BB, it was time to call it a day. We pitched in to clean up the booth, divided up the remaining donated charity items and salsas, and then after getting a call from my wife then it was time for me to leave. The other bloggers, chileheads, and a few vendors went to the nearby Pappaduex seafood restaurant for supper, I settled on some leftover, reheated chicken parmesan back at the in-laws.
I had a great time, and although helping out at the booth seemed somewhat like "work", I'd take this kind of work over most other jobs any day. I'm looking forward to next year's show, which I already have a few ideas on how to make things even better.
Although the WOF show was over, my weekend was not. The next was my trip to CaJohn's Fiery Foods, for an open house and some barbecue. Details and pics to come soon...
Comments
2009-08-06 14:26:17
"found the Bloggers Booth, and almost immediately ran into Jonathan Passow"
That's because I'm everywhere.
2009-08-08 15:28:24
Nice pics too! Thanks.
Brian
2009-08-11 17:38:28
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