Entering the Spice Dome

There were times in my life where every meal had to include either ketchup or ranch. I remember watching a friend use ranch with french fries in middle school and after trying it - I was hooked. This continued in some form or faction until I stumbled upon Sriracha. It was a perfect blend of heat and flavor with the emphasis on heat.

Co-workers took my heat obsession to the next level as our company kitchen was littered in hot sauces. We had sauces that could be found at any grocery store, but also sauces that take a bit more effort to obtain.

The above sauce was the first sauce I tried that introduced me to the mega heat game. I was reheating my pasta for lunch and a coworker tempted me to put a few dabs into my pasta. Almost instantly the pasta smell in the air was covered with an intense heat and every bite burned my lips. It was painful, but strangely good.

The compound that causes this pain is none other than capsaicin. I don't want this blog post to be some scientific investigation into it, but the gist is it has a few benefits that doesn't make it completely useless.

I started researching hot sauces, because I wanted some at my own home and stumbled upon "Hot Ones". This is an online show on YouTube where celebrities are interviewed while eating progressively hotter wings. This was the first video I saw, which started giving me a good background and knowledge of hot sauces to purchase.

Week after week of watching, I finally decided to purchase some hot sauces and chose the Queen Majesty sauces.

They arrived and every sauce was perfect for a different thing. The scotch bonnet sauce was perfect on wings, while the lime sauce was great on pizza and finally the red habanero spiced up my pasta creations. Messing with heat allowed me to continue the trend at any restaurant I visited. Trying new hot sauces everywhere, including some that sent me straight to endless milk and water.

I look into my fridge now and ranch is nowhere to be found, instead replaced by tons of little bottles of hot sauce. The health benefit of a tiny bit of hot sauce vs globs of ranch is probably in my favor to stick with hot sauce. I don't know enough yet in the realm of sauces, but I'm interested in the continued chase of heat.