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Outdoor Living OUTDOOR LIVING 1 4 KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW n APRIL 2014 n www.kitchenwarenews.com BY LORRIE BAUMANN For those looking for a great barbecue sauce, the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show, held Feb. 28-Mar. 2 in Albuquerque, N.M. offered a great place to taste, test their courage with some of the spiciest sauces on the planet and to shop for great flavors to season the summer. The show is open to the public for most of its run, and cash-and-carry retail sales are permitted. This year's show drew more than 150 vendors who displayed their barbecue sauces, rubs and marinades alongside chile sauces, barbecue cookers, jerky, pepper jams, chile- spiced candies and snacks and even the Carolina Reaper Pepper, recently named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the hottest chile pepper in the world, to an estimated 20,000 attendees who started lining up two hours before the show opened to buy $15 tickets to visit. Many of the best of the sauces, rubs, beverages, snacks and condiments competed for the 2014 Scovie Awards, named after Wilbur Scoville, the inventor of the Scoville Heat Scale, which is the scale used to measure how much heat (and pain) a chile pepper or hot sauce delivers when it's tasted. Barbecue sauces alone competed in 14 categories, differentiated by barbecue style and degree of heat. Among this year's winners was Robert Rothschild Farm's Cherry Pomegranate Habanero Sauce, which won a first-place award for a fruit-based hot sauce. Robert Rothschild Farm won another award in the American-style hot barbecue sauce category for Anna Mae's Smoky Sweet Sauce, which won a third-place award behind first-place Hole Lotta Hotta from G. Willie BBQ, LLC and Heffys All Natural BBQ Sauce Hot & Spicy from Heffys BBQ and another first place award in the Specialty Chile Barbecue Sauce category for Anna Mae's Smoky Sweet Chipotle Sauce. The big winner among the barbecue sauces in this year's Scovie Award competition was Smackers BBQ Ltd., which won awards in multiple categories for its Smack Me Mild Smackin' Sauce and Smack Me Hard Hot Smackin' Sauce. Jonathan and Terri Toner of Pirate Jonny's came all the way from Clearwater, Fla. to offer their Caribbean-style sauces and rubs and will be taking three Scovie Awards home with them. The Toners started the business three years ago after a slow economy delayed landscaping projects that were on the drawing boards for Jonathan's landscape design business. The family wanted to stay in the Tampa area and wait out the business slowdown, so Jonathan turned to the spice rubs that he'd been making to change Terri's mind about whether she liked barbecue. Terri, a New Orleans native, doesn't enjoy getting sauce on her fingers, and she'd thought that meant she'd never enjoy any barbecue until her husband introduced her to meat barbecued with a dry rub. "I didn't know what a rub was. It was the rub that changed barbecue for me," she says. "It was the first barbecue I had where you could actually taste the meat without the mess of the sauce." Although Jonathan's landscape architecture business has picked up again, he and Terri are planning to continue producing the Pirate Jonny's products with Terri now working full time on Pirate Jonny's production and sales. Jonathan continues to do product development and marketing, and the labels for all the products are his designs. The Toners are in the process of relocating production facilities from a building that was once a restaurant to a new facility that offers enough capacity to Sauces and Spices to Season the Summer double their production. The products are currently sold in 20-30 retail stores in the Tampa Bay and central and south areas of Florida and is being shipped to England by a distributor, where their rubs and sauces have found fans. "They understand the island flavors, and barbecue is becoming more popular in England," Jonathan says. Simmie J's Gourmet Barbecue Sauce, marinades and rubs come from recipes passed down in company Founder Simeon Greene's family since the early 1800s, when his family were slaves in Emanuel County, Ga. His dad used the sauce on meat that he cooked on a wire rack over a hole in the ground. "My dad was a real connoisseur of barbecue," Greene says. He's looking to build his company into a business that his two sons can take over from him in a few years. Chris, his younger son, who has a degree in communications, is his particular hope for eventually taking the business national. The products represent Georgia's southern- style barbecue tradition — rich with tomato and pepper flavor but without a spicy kick, and Greene, a 25-year veteran of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency and a Los Angeles police officer before that, says that they're best on ribs, chicken or beef and the rubs are also good as a soup seasoning. While Simmie J's sauce represents Georgia flavor, Arizona Rub is entirely inspired by the flavors of the Southwest. The seven chili- based spice blends are made in Tucson by Dan and Diana Krongaard in a rented commercial kitchen, and they've won nine Scovie Awards over the past four years. They're currently sold in about 30 retail stores, ranging from small gift shops to Tucson's two Whole Foods Markets. "We hand-make all these rubs ourselves," says Diana. "We're crazy." The rubs are low sodium, with no soy, no gluten and no MSG. "People that are really rub fans look for rubs that don't have additives, that are low sodium and have good flavor, Diana says. "What we really sell is flavor." Their heat level ranges from zero to the kick of ghost pepper. "We have a mild side and a wild side," Diana says. The Chili Lime rub is the most popular. Jennifer Reynolds named her company after herself. The Sauce Goddess specializes in barbecue sauces and spices with no smoke. "You can do bacon-wrapped scallops without having the smokehouse flavor," Reynolds says. She went into business in San Diego, Calif.13 years ago with her Sticky Sweet and Sweet & Spicy Grill Glazes. Over the years, she's turned up the heat in her products. "I like heat with flavor, so for me, it's finding how much heat I can add and keep the flavor," she says. The sauces are vegan and gluten free and are currently carried by 350 retailers in New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Indiana and across the West Coast as well as internationally. The Golden Toad launched at the Fiery Foods Show in 2004 with three products, says company President Todd "They call me Toad" Jilbert. Using the tagline, "Saving the Planet One Tongue at a Time," the company's championship barbecue team now competes around the country, especially in Colorado's very active barbecue community, and its sauces are sold in 160 retail stores, mostly in the Rocky Mountain region. The company takes its commitment to help save the planet seriously, and a portion of its revenues is donated to charities, including Denver's Children's Hospital and the Denver Zoo. The product line includes two barbecue sauces, four hot sauces and three rubs. The Chipotle BBQ sauce is a sweet Kansas City- style sauce sweetened with brown sugar and combining whiskey and cider vinegar with a chipotle kick into a sauce that's good on chicken, pork and seafood, while the Colorado Red sauce is a Texas-style sauce based on tomatoes and vinegar spiced with cayenne pepper and some hickory smoke flavor in the background. It's great on brisket or grilled vegetables, Jilbert says. The sauces are made in a commercial kitchen in Castle Rock, Colo. that's shared with two other manufacturers. BY DONNA BOYLE SCHWARTZ Innovation and fun are essential ingredients to any backyard barbecue, and suppliers are offering some interesting ideas in grilling accessories. A new company, Grillight, launched its stainless steel spatula with a built-in LED light to widespread acclaim at NY NOW. "Our Grillight products have gotten off to a very successful start and built quite a bit of buzz since our launch in January," asserts Colton Knittig, Sales Director. "Almost every person that has ever cooked food outside knows the frustration of not having enough light. They might have tried a head lamp, a light mounted on the grill, or even flood lights, but nothing seemed to really solve this problem. Our product has a light directly incorporated into the handle, which shines a perfect beam of light onto the work area and will always aim directly where you are cooking. "Consumers are, without a doubt, embracing the outdoor lifestyle," Knittig adds. "People love to entertain and socialize with their family and friends. Doing so around the fire of a grill or patio table just adds a layer of intimacy that isn't there otherwise." Talisman Designs debuted a collection of stainless steel spatulas featuring solid rosewood handles etched with witting sayings, including "Grilling Animal Meat…Aromatherapy for Men," and others. "Outdoor living and entertainment is just another way consumers can 'nest' with family and friends while also enjoying the refreshing aspects of Mother Nature," suggests Kimberly Timmons, Sales and Marketing Specialist. "Our products are not only functional but also very gift-able. Our new turners are the perfect gift for that special man in your life." Cue the 'Cue BY SAM RUDDICK Summer's just around the bend, and that means millions of American families will soon be firing up their grills again. It also means they'll be in the market for Father's Day presents. Given that men are more than twice as likely as women to be the ones who take charge of the family grill, barbeque accessories are popular go-to gifts for Dad, and this year offers a wealth of both traditional and not-so-traditional options. For those who prefer propane, grilling tools are a safe bet. Cuisinart offers a very nice 10-piece Premium Grilling Set at $79.99. The Premium Grilling Set (Model #CUI CGS-2010) comes with a chef 's spatula, grill tongs, a grill Fork, 4 skewers, a grill brush and 2 replacement grill brush heads. The tools are of 1.75 mm thick, single-piece steel construction with handcrafted pakka wood handles, and come in a durable leather case. For something completely different, consider a Pizza Stone. Because of the high, dry heat, the grill can produce a pizza with a flavor more similar to a brick or wood oven pizza than a conventional oven can. All you need is a pizza stone. California Pizza Stones, produced by Creative Ceramics and Glass, are made of a high-grade, non-toxic Mullite mixture with a high quantity of grog. This essentially makes them imper vious to thermal shock, so they won't crack. In fact, California Pizza Stone come with 100% no-crack guarantee: if the stone cracks, they'll replace it free of charge. Stones come in a variety of shapes and sizes: as small as 5" x 5" to 22" x 22" square, or 8 5/8" to 21" in diameter for round stones. Suggested retail prices range from $6.00 to $63.00, depending on the stone. BBQ Gift Ideas

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