Confessions of a spice addict

My name is Sham and I'm a spice addict. It started innocently enough 11 years ago. Just a little dab of Sriracha on my bowl of bun. Then just a dab wouldn't do me. Slowly over the years I would add more Sriracha to my Vietnamese cuisine.

But if Vietnamese food was so much better with spice, why not other foods? I had always gotten my wings mild but a new universe of "hot" wings unfolded in front of me. I started ordering spicy food at all the restaurants that offered it. I would confront scared Chinese waiters with "No, I want is hot! I want it spicy! Not round-eye spicy but real spicy! I'm serious!" (This may have contributed to the fact that I'm no longer allowed in The Peking Dragon but that is a story for another time. And why is it that most traditional Asian cuisine is so good if it lends itself to spice? AKA, Japanese food can suck it.)

But as my fondness for hot and spicy food grew there was always a stumbling block. My long time feud with vinegar. The acrid smell in my nostrils starts a gag reflex. All forms of vinegar ruin food for me unless masked by more strong flavors. The worst are malt and balsamic vinegar, which will cause my gorge to rise. And almost every American hot sauce is primarily vinegar.

For the longest time I just went through bottle after giant bottle of Sriracha. The paste like consistency and lack of a biting vinegar nose made it the perfect hot sauce. I keep a bottle at work, home, GF's house. The major downside of my hot sauce of choice is that many restaurants (non-Asian) do not carry it. Since most commercial eateries don't make the spicy food spicy enough this creates a dilemma.

I soldiered along bravely for a long time. In the last year I started experimenting with American hot sauces again. I need my heat! At first I only used it on pizza when crushed red pepper was not available in sufficient quantities (i.e. at somebody's house). Then I tried mixing different hot sauces with other condiments (btw, H57 and Red Rooster is so fucking money).

Then came this past weekend. Up in Athens in the middle of a complete day of frolfing the meatatarians hit up a Kebap shop. I needed spice bad. I doctored up my ketchup with Tabasco brand Chipotle sauce (about 50-50). I used up the rest of the bottle on the sandwich and had to go get a backup bottle to finish the sandwich.

And then yesterday the unthinkable occurred. I bought a bottle of vinegar based sauce for myself. It was the aforementioned Tabasco Chipotle sauce. I immediately tested it out on some leftover sweet potato chipotle shepherds pie. Between eating dinner and seasoning today's lunch I have used half of the bottle. A buck fifty of hot sauce already used! Now, this stuff isn't very hot but the flavor is great! You have to add another hot sauce to get the proper heat but a nice flavor base to cover it is awesome.

I'm seriously considering getting a gallon jug of that stuff. I'm officially a fucking addict.