[CH] Back home again in Indiana & lots of other stuff
jim@wildpepper.com
Fri, 04 Mar 2005 12:41:07 -0500
Sounds like the start of a song, eh? Bit of a long post here- topics
include the Indiana Hot Luck upcoming, Australia festival, & Tony Flynn-
the supposedly retired Grandad on the beach.
Happy to report on an awesome time in Australia! The festival was
outstanding. The best part of the trip was all the really neat people I
met! Met a bunch of lurkers & some other regulars on the list. There
are a WHOLE lot more Australians on this list than you might think :-)
Met some nice folks from the States (Pepper Creek Farms) who helped me
along a bit.
Weather was great- got sunburnt, which is always kind of nice when you
get back home to snow & sleet :-) Found lots of great wine & even
better port ;-) Didn't sight see at all as the entire time in Australia
was spent prepping for the festival. I'll try to squeeze in a bit more
'getting about' next year. A chunk of the time was spent watching my
host fight with Customs, AQIS, and the freight forwarders who each
didn't seem to like the paperwork that the other two filled out. The
three agencies fought amongst themselves over it for 3 WEEKS after my
products arrived, only releasing them a few scant hours before the start
of the festival. And then they charged me storage fees on top of that
for the honor :-) Oh well, beaurocrats are the same the world over it
seems :-)
Had a lot of fun introducing folks to just what 'hot' is all about :-)
The show organizer (Horrible Haggis- Redback Chilli Co) tried to tell me
that folks around there liked stuff HOT! As is usual though, his
definition of hot & mine weren't quite the same ;-) The mildest sauce I
took was straight Habanero (Ralphs'). After tasting that & being told
that was the 'mild', folks got a whole new appreciation for heat :-)
"Stupid Hot" won hottest sauce of the show, "Pure Arson" (my Red
Savina(R) Garlic sauce) took best Habanero, & "Ralph's Righteous" missed
some other first place award by a single point.
All in all, an event I fully intend on doing again next year!
Speaking of events, the 10th(??) Annual Indiana Hot Luck & Fiery Foods
Expo is rapidly approaching. April 1st (no kidding!) is the hotluck &
the Evil Corporate Event is the following day on the 2nd. Once again,
it is being hosted by Steve Thomas (another lurker) at the Thomas Family
Winery in historic and beautiful Madison, IN. 1 812 273 3755 for info.
Hope to see lots of list folks there as well!
Speaking of seeing list folks, I had the honor of stopping in and seeing
Mr tony Flynn- the Grandad on the beach in New Zealand that tries to
convince folks he's retired. Don't believe it! :-) He kept a full
schedule while I was there, mostly showing me that fish tremble at his
passing! We spent a day out in the Bay o'Plenty finding out why it was
named that. Didn't recognize anything that we caught though Tony
assured me they were all good eating. He also spent a day showing me
around and filling me in on the history (and politics) of New Zealand.
Pretty knowledgable fellow :-) A finer gentleman you won't meet though
you might find his equal hiding out on Vancouver Island ;-)
-Jim C
Mild to Wild(R)