The 20th Anual Austin Hot Sauce Festival was held on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was so hot and the lines were so long that I only got to try a few sauces before looking for air-conditioned refuge. My favorite this year: Don’t Panic Hispanic. Unlike past years, it does not seem that the press was alerted of my presence. Good, because I hate paparazzi.
Looks like I’m not the only celebrity in my family: In a news report for this year’s Hot Sauce Festival, local news station KXAN digged through their stock footage looking for beautiful people at previous editions. Check out the watermarked video embedded below:
Thanks to Antonio Lie for actually watching the local news and alerting me of the cameo.
P.S. Oh no! Blogger faux-pas! In a terrible turn of events, I’m shown in that old video wearing the same t-shirt as in the previous post.
Bad blogger, bad blogger. Here I am, posting about something that happened almost a month ago. Shame on me.On the 27th of October, Maya mentioned to me that there was a hot sauce festival the next day.As a man who grew up eating tostadas prepared by that artisan who diligently stood by the Campo Halcones (now Troyanos); that man who mysteriously dissappeared on a faithful day of 1995; that man simply known as “El Maestro de las Tostadas” I could not resist the lure of the fire in my mouth, the runny nose, the tearfull eyes; the ringing ears; the happiness. I had to go. (of interest, I think “El Maestro de las Tostadas” may have crossed over to this side of the pond to become Don Filemon… judge for yourself).So I searched and indeed, The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival 2006 was the next day, on a Sunday. Since we were in between seasons on the City League, the day was completely open to see what this whole thing was about.It was about standing in line for 20 minutes in 40 degrees heat just to taste a tortilla chip with hot sauce on it. Repeat for each of the tens of stands. I did it three times and it was pretty good but not worth the wait under the scorching sun. However something worth telling about happened. I will do that on Part II of this story. In the meantime, satisfy your vouyeurism and look at a few photos I took (and notice how many links I put throughout the text of this post. Good blogger. Good blogger):
