Cinco de Mayo


Gary and Sarah had a little get-together Saturday in celebration of Cinco de Mayo (Which is NOT Mexican Independence day, but rather a celebration of one battle victory over the French. And the French losing to anybody is as good of a reason to celebrate as any, right?)
The party was a vegetarian taco and salsa thing, with a fun twist - Hot Sauce testing/tasting. Gary and Sarah are big fans of hot sauce and so had about 16 kinds, which they put out with chips, then had a piece of paper for each person to note their progress. The goal was to get through all of them, from mildest to hottest. If you made it through, plus took a bite of 4 fresh peppers, including a habanero, you got your name on the wall.








Here's the testing station
and the award peppers












And it was actually pretty tough. The first 14 sauces were fine. They gradually got hotter, but not a problem - I was taking double portions to really identify the taste to record accurately. Then, just when you think this tasting is a cake walk, the last two sauces WHUP yo ass. They were "Mad Dog Inferno", and the legendary "Dave's Insanity Hot Sauce". One tiny drop and you are in pain for 10 minutes, no lie.

Here's Gary in his favorite t-shirt cutting out a pepper for one of his victim - er - guests. We learned that Gary is a bit of a sadist. Laurel here had already finished and was contemplating if it was worth it.

Those last two sauces and then the slice of habenero were putting people in bad ways. I swear at one point people were licking ice cream cartons and drinking sour cream in search of relief from the searing searing pain. But Gary and Sarah got their payback. Their toilet stopped working. And hot sauce and hot pepper tex-mex night with people throwing back Coronas to soothe the pain is not a good night for the toilet to go down. Cause it sure didn't stop people from using it.