5th (Almost) Annual

    The 5th (almost) Annual Midwest Chileheads Hotluck was held on July 22, 2001, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Renee Watson hosted, and did a bang-up job from all reports.  

Here are some reviews and notes from the Hotluck:

From Renee:

I BE LATE IN, very, very late in posting this! sorry :(

Hey CH'er -

Thanks a heap & a bunch to all of you who attended the Almost 5th Annual Hotluck in Minneapolis, you made my day!  Tasty, tasty, tasty!  Only one (1) person brought the recipe.  Thank you Amy. Now, shame on the rest of you! When will you be emailing those recipes to me?

I thank you, El Grande, for the rain in the morning to make the peppers grow and the clear sky all afternoon for our hotluck... next time, please, could you make it a cooler day, too.

It was great seeing you listmembers from IA & KS & MN again.  Thanks to you Dean, SandyO & Criag, green56 and Scott &
Chery for coming to Minneapolis from for the hotluck.  Sandy, your keyed down version of The Bread made Mike's XXX-Hot Beyond Buzztail Pepper Jelly Pepperpori and Backdraft sandwish samplers quite tolerable, thank you, thank you. And,  Scott, I love the Spam jerky--anytime, all day long.  ... your tofu jerky, well, it makes a better bagel cream cheese samich, add beer as chaser. :) CH's closer to my hometown were green56 who was smokin' up the place with a great smoked pork with strawberry & hab sauce... (you can cook for me any time!), and Dean, who brought two great pheasant pates... hot and hotter. I still have your chair: when do you deliver the pate hotter ransom!?!

Thanks to my hometown friend Dorothy for the great chilehead banner...you are just too clever. I hate you ;)

Thanks to Sarah (Pop-Girl) for finding coolers for all the soda and beer... sorry, I got carried away with that purchase.

A big THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Chip Welsh (Red Lion Spicy Foods Co) for the chili, salsas and marinade products.  Everything arrived timely and in one piece.  The new chile mix must have been pretty good, as I never got a taste. And, another thanks to Jim Campbell (Mild To Wild Peppers) for previous his considerations and commitment to us Chileheads.

Well, from the mouth of our midwest email-laureate, SandyO, and to your ears: a chile pepper banner is a symbol of an Almost Midwest Hotluck.  If ya wanna host a midwest hotluck, ya gotta hab a banner...actually, Sandy didn't say 'hab' ;)

So, elected absentia you are it, find the needle and thread, John... 2002 - Welcome to Topeka, Kansas, here we come!

Renee

This edited review by Sandy Olson appeared on the list:

From: "Sandy Olson" <sandyo@willowtree.com>
Subject: [CH] Almost 5th MidWest Hot Luck!

Well, I wanted to be the first to report on the hot success of the Almost 5th.  We had a grand group of people gathered in Minneapolis and my moderate tongue was treated to several dishes created so that I would not die in the process of enjoying them!  I did, however, have an out of body experience when I spread some pepper jelly that Renee had brought back from Seattle, on an cracker for an innocent looking treat.  This stuff was EVIL...I had tears running down my chubby cheeks for quite some time as I attempted to put out the fire with all the techniques you "real" chileheads talk about.  Then I had to encourage another guest (young man who is a friend of Renee's, not on the list) to taste the sweet stuff.  He had the same reaction so I knew I wasn't hallucinating again.  It was interesting to see a grown man hopping around seeking out cold beverages.  You guys who love pain are just beyond my comprehension  LOL!  I try to avoid hurt and suffering whenever possible.

Renee did an over the top job of organizing and stocking this event. . . .  I met Green56 and Dean of Tongues of Fire Fame.
We had Minnesotans and Iowans and people we'd never seen before.  A good time was had by all...honestly.  We're already talking about next year's event.  Thanks to Chip Welsh for sharing his delicious goodies with us.   I made a version of The Bread but since smoked hab powder is not in the cupboard of a CH of the moderate persuasion, I used Jim's chipotle powder
and some caribe as well.  Very good and well received.  It was almost as hot but some butter on top mellowed it out for my benefit.  Scott and Chery, daredevils that they are, spread the evil jelly on the bread, topped it with
Backdraft and.....actually ate it! Scott did it twice!  I wonder if there is something in the water in KCKS
that causes people to do things such as this?

SandyO
CH #1146, back to my normal state after a wonderful chile-filled afternoon

And this from Chery (methinks she doesn't know what the <shift> key is for):

dear renee,

thank you sooo much for a wonderful time in minneapolis.   scott & i really enjoyed our trip.  the "hot luck"  was a success.  i  hope you were finally able to get some catch up sleep.   i know it is kind of a drop after planning so long for the hot luck and then all of a sudden it is over.  i shed a tear or two when we separated at the highway.

we are glad to have a  friend in minnesota.   we enjoyed meeting green and all the people at your hot luck.  quite a special group aren't we?   if you are ever near kc or want to meet half way, let us know.  otherwise i look forward to seeing you at the "open
 fields"  take care.

your friends,

chery & Scott
And another review from Sandy:

my moderate tongue was treated to several dishes created so that I would not die in   the process of enjoying them!

I've had mixed results when bringing a moderately or lightly hot dish to a  hotluck.  Usually everyone is either enthusiastic about hammering some good  strong heat, or else they're a borderline or non ch-h still reeling from whatever "Oh go ahead and try a bite" it was they just tasted at the next table over.  When they taste a lightly hot dish, the mild folks look at me  with a mix of bewilderment and appreciation, surprised and happy that I  didn't have a hot trap for them.  The hammerheads look me in the eye and tell me it isn't hot.

A dish that's only hot enough to make you realize it towards the end of the serving simply falls off the mild end of the scale.  I guess it's sort of a sensory saturation effect, when there's so much to taste in quick sequence.  A wine taster can spit into the sawdust, but after tasting something really hot, only time can really clear the palate so as to be neutral and ready for the next tasting.

I did, however, have an out of body experience when I spread some pepper jelly that Renee had brought back from Seattle

I prefer to think of it as a portal to another state, sort of an internal sweat lodge.  In some ways you are still in the room, maybe still chatting, but part of you is definitely ... elsewhere.

Or to put it differently, if you're up on your Todd Rundgrenn:

Time stops - the light goes on
a thundering head and no body
washed up and woke up on the beach,
seaside breakfast, tender egg on white sand.
Legs long and tan without a break, even to the neck
suddenly, simultaneously, an eclipse and a snowfall
flakes melt instantly on the shoulders like wet silver
burning little holes all the way to the marrow
puckered flesh like avocado sags into a green pool.
All the birds leave raking turquoise ruts across the Velveeta sky.
It's time to scream.
More to follow as it rolls in.