Now THIS lady from California is one we’d like to invite over to dinner. In addition to being quite the Chilehead by collecting hot sauces and making everything she cooks as spicy as she can, she uses Da Bomb sauce in her cooking and is willing to taste on of Blair’s Reserve sauces. Our Substance P levels are draining away just thinking about it….
Chili sauces fill kitchen, recipes of Jenny Lind woman
By Craig Koscho
Wednesday, April 5
Cynthia Kirby-Humphrey’s hobby would leave most people breathless - literally.
She collects hot sauces, chili peppers, and other delicacies with a hot kick to them.
A display hutch in her kitchen is filled with about 200 bottles of hot sauces, ranging from the commonplace, such as Tabasco, to the extraordinary - and tongue-scorching hot - such as Satan’s Blood and Blair’s Reserve.
But this hobby is more than just for show.
“I not only collect them, I eat them,” Cynthia said.
Four shelves in her refrigerator door are filled with the chili sauces she uses for her family’s daily meals.
“There’s not a meal, except for a filet mignon, (that) I don’t eat hot sauce or hot pepper with,” Cynthia said.
Cynthia has been a fan of peppers since she was a toddler.
Her father often tells the story of how that love affair began.
The family was living in Oklahoma and regularly put out a plate of fresh hot peppers with dinner.
Cynthia would reach for them and cry when told she couldn’t have any.
Finally, when she was 18 months old, her father said to let her try one to see what it was like, and she took a bite.
Her eyes watered, she scrunched up her face, took another bite, and kept eating.
Collecting the colorful sauces began later in life.
When Cynthia was working for AAA insurance in the Bay Area in 1994, one of her co-workers returned from New Mexico with two bottles of chili sauce for her - one to use and one to keep.
“That was it,” Cynthia said. “That was the beginning of my hot sauce collecting.”
Since then friends and family have given her bottles and other chili-related items on birthdays and other holidays.
The chili theme can be found everywhere in Cynthia’s kitchen.
There are oven mitts, clocks, sponges, cups, saucers, bowls, a slow-cooker - all shaped like chili peppers or featuring them in the design.
She also has a necklace, bracelet and earrings with a chili pepper design.
And in 1981, Cynthia realized the dream of every hot sauce fan, she toured the Tabasco plant in Avery Island, La.
Not everyone in Cynthia’s family is as passionate as her about the spicy condiment.
Cynthia adjusts her recipes for her husband and children, adding extra peppers or sauce to her own portions.
Recently, Cynthia and David went to Habanero Hots restaurant in Lodi, where patrons get a free T-shirt if they eat a whole Habanero pepper.
Cynthia took home the prize, but David passed on the challenge.
“He wouldn’t even kiss me for four hours,” Cynthia said.
But even a little bit of hot sauce can do wonders for any recipe, Cynthia said.
She throws a couple dashes of Tabasco into her spaghetti sauce.
“Just because it gives it that little zing and brings out the other flavors,” Cynthia said.
Cynthia puts chopped jalapenos on her pizza, pours hot sauce on her bagels, and chops fresh peppers for her popcorn, which also gets a drizzling of hot pepper vegetable oil.
She does have other interests, quite a few of them, in fact.
Cynthia sews and makes jewelry. And she’s a past member of the Valley Springs Youth Center, former treasurer of Boy Scout Troop 302 and past-president of the Jenny Lind Fire District Auxiliary.
She noted that hot sauces are not created equal.
Some of those in Cynthia’s collection are rather mild. For others, though, the word “strong” just doesn’t do them justice.
Blair’s Reserve is particularly potent.
“You would never pour it on anything, you would touch it to something,” Cynthia said.
Blair’s is also well respected among chili aficionados. Some of the reserved, numbered bottles go for up to $200 apiece.
Another hot sauce, Da Bomb, is equally effective.
Cynthia touched it with the tip of a toothpick then stirred her soup with the pick for just the right amount of heat.
Had she used even a couple of drops in the soup, Cynthia said she would not have enjoyed it. She’s quick to add, though: “I could have eaten it.”
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