Stuart went to pick Di up from the airport by himself yesterday evening because I had rearranged my trainer to yesterday afternoon. However, he was happy because his new Garmin sat nav, had arrived the previous evening and it would guide him there, and back!
We had already decided to go out to dinner and I wanted to try out a sushi place around the corner mentioned in the previous weeks Houston Press, as having won the Houston Press Best Sushi 2008. A
s I said it was around the corner, so we just walked it is becoming quite a regular thing now a days and we are certainly not going to run out of places to try in a hurry! The place was nice with the sushi chef busy behind the sushi bar, but we chose to sit in the diner style booth. Di and I wanted wine, however, the first bottle we chose they had run out, the second choice we were told had also run out but they had a more expensive one!, so third time lucky we opted for another bottle, this she said they had, however, it arrived and I didn't notice but it was the wrong one! You know when you just give up so we drank it and fortunately were only charged for the third one we had asked for! Apart from the wine disaster, the food was very good and we just had a mixture of appetizers to share between us - always the best way. At the end of dinner Stu decided to eat all the large lumps of wasabi sauce (the hot stuff!) - he is made but this was only the beginning of his hot food weekend!
The heat went from very hot to exceptional and Stuart was pacing around looking for something to calm the fire in his mouth. He wanted milk or cheese, basically anything with fat but there was nothing. So whilst sweating uncontrollably, he went to get a beer, and apparently just said to the beer stall 'beer now!'. There appeared to be no let up and even finding a bit of 'chilli con queso' (chilli cheese sauce) didn't really help. We then wandered around more of the stalls tasting the calmer stuff that Di and I liked, whilst Stuart continued to sweat and burn :) It took a crawfish sausage on a stick to finally return him to human again! By the way, if you ever think of having a a crawfish sausage don't - they taste like fishy sausages - just wrong!
s I said it was around the corner, so we just walked it is becoming quite a regular thing now a days and we are certainly not going to run out of places to try in a hurry! The place was nice with the sushi chef busy behind the sushi bar, but we chose to sit in the diner style booth. Di and I wanted wine, however, the first bottle we chose they had run out, the second choice we were told had also run out but they had a more expensive one!, so third time lucky we opted for another bottle, this she said they had, however, it arrived and I didn't notice but it was the wrong one! You know when you just give up so we drank it and fortunately were only charged for the third one we had asked for! Apart from the wine disaster, the food was very good and we just had a mixture of appetizers to share between us - always the best way. At the end of dinner Stu decided to eat all the large lumps of wasabi sauce (the hot stuff!) - he is made but this was only the beginning of his hot food weekend!Di wanted to try out the pub from last weekend. However, on a Friday there is no live band and the place was pretty dead in comparison to the previous week. Ideally Di and I wanted to stay on wine, however I said it wasn't the sort of place you would get wine, and oh I was right. When Di asked what wine they had the barman said 'we have white, red and pink!' Oh so classy! Di said give me a margarita then and I opted for their odd tasting gin & tonic (the second we got was a pint of!!). Since the place was pretty dead we
played darts. All of us were pretty bad with the occasional flukes, it also tested our maths! The first game we played first one to 0 from 301 (reduced from 501 because we knew it was going to take us forever!), and then Stuart said lets play around the lock, hence getting each number from 1 through 20 in order. Well that took us even longer not to mention we were on to another drink by then! It must have been just after midnight when we wandered home, and when I couldn't face writing the blog - sorry!
played darts. All of us were pretty bad with the occasional flukes, it also tested our maths! The first game we played first one to 0 from 301 (reduced from 501 because we knew it was going to take us forever!), and then Stuart said lets play around the lock, hence getting each number from 1 through 20 in order. Well that took us even longer not to mention we were on to another drink by then! It must have been just after midnight when we wandered home, and when I couldn't face writing the blog - sorry!Today I could linger in bed as I had agreed to skype Sam at 7am! Although I managed to fling my mobile across the bedroom when the alarm went off I think it was the best thing for me getting up. We all had breakfast before setting off for the Houston Hot Sauce Festival in Stafford (pretty much due south from me). This was obviously a Stuart thing so he was very excited :) We got there only about 30 minutes after it opened - some of the crazy early birds. It was outside in a field and there were lots of different vendors giving tastings of their chilli sauces, salsa, jellies - basically anything with a chilli in it! Di homed in on a stall very quickly that had chilli sauces made from carrots. He told her to start with the mild one, which she did, but even that was too much. Stuart went through the guys range and said they weren't too hot. The man said go and try the 'mongoose' if you think you are hard enough then!!
Well, we found the stall with the 'mongoose', just one of their chilli sauces. There must have been about 6-7 sauces lined up in increasing heat intensity. We were busy watching some of the recent victims sweating uncontrollably having tried near the top of the range sauce. The man said you could do the challenge of trying all of his sauces. Stuart said that the chilli used in the top of range ones was quite new on the market and had been rated the hottest chili in the world! So Stuart obviously decided to have a go. Di and I stood there in amazement. Stuart actually savoured each of the early ones as he went commenting on the flavour with the guy. He then went a little quieter as they got hotter! However, another chap came in to do the line and went at high speed, passing Stuart. For the hottest sauce he took a really large spoonful, at which the guy behind the counter said you don't want to do that, but it was too late. His face was a picture, just holding together long enough to get his prize, a beer coozie (the neoprene holder for your beer), then he walked off briskly! Meanwhile Stuart also completed the full complement. He had his picture taken by the guy and also given his prize for the pain. However, the following photos were taken over the next 10 minutes.
The heat went from very hot to exceptional and Stuart was pacing around looking for something to calm the fire in his mouth. He wanted milk or cheese, basically anything with fat but there was nothing. So whilst sweating uncontrollably, he went to get a beer, and apparently just said to the beer stall 'beer now!'. There appeared to be no let up and even finding a bit of 'chilli con queso' (chilli cheese sauce) didn't really help. We then wandered around more of the stalls tasting the calmer stuff that Di and I liked, whilst Stuart continued to sweat and burn :) It took a crawfish sausage on a stick to finally return him to human again! By the way, if you ever think of having a a crawfish sausage don't - they taste like fishy sausages - just wrong!Stuart said Di and I were wimps. So I agreed to do one of the line up chilli sauce challenges with him at another stand. Only three to get through! The first one was a piece of cake, the second one, which had chocolate and other flavours, was a tad warm, but quite pleasant 
in taste. The third one, to win the skeleton key ring, was hot! The pain was not immediate until I breathed in - oh my goodness. My ears then started o burn, and all I wanted to do was curl up on the ground - my head was exploding. My eyes began to water and I also could not control my sweating. Stuart was of course saying it was only a 'twenty', if his serious hot chilli sauce from earlier was 100 points! By this point I was wandering around in search of something to cool the offending sauce, and I walked past the stand trying to get you to sign up for their electricity company, just earlier we had stopped to talk to them and I said they had turned me down because I had no credit rating! Anyway, the nice man gave me a bottle of water (he could see I was crying and in a lot of pain!). I just took sips and let in sit in my mouth - ahh relief! Stuart went to buy a 'snow cone', basically artificially flavoured ice - oh amazing, who cares about the E numbers in a situation like this. The pain continued for at least 20 minutes coming and going - it was awful!!! Even when I thought it was all over and we were back in the car, my stomach started to burn and make me feel really quite funny. Let's just say it wasn't worth the skeleton key ring!
in taste. The third one, to win the skeleton key ring, was hot! The pain was not immediate until I breathed in - oh my goodness. My ears then started o burn, and all I wanted to do was curl up on the ground - my head was exploding. My eyes began to water and I also could not control my sweating. Stuart was of course saying it was only a 'twenty', if his serious hot chilli sauce from earlier was 100 points! By this point I was wandering around in search of something to cool the offending sauce, and I walked past the stand trying to get you to sign up for their electricity company, just earlier we had stopped to talk to them and I said they had turned me down because I had no credit rating! Anyway, the nice man gave me a bottle of water (he could see I was crying and in a lot of pain!). I just took sips and let in sit in my mouth - ahh relief! Stuart went to buy a 'snow cone', basically artificially flavoured ice - oh amazing, who cares about the E numbers in a situation like this. The pain continued for at least 20 minutes coming and going - it was awful!!! Even when I thought it was all over and we were back in the car, my stomach started to burn and make me feel really quite funny. Let's just say it wasn't worth the skeleton key ring!After dropping Di off somewhere miles northwest in the middle of nowhere - for a wedding she was going to, Stu and I came home to take it easy by the pool.
No ill effects from the sauce yet - tomorrow morning might be different:)
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