Hey guys! My name is Sam. Some of you may already know me, but for the rest of the readers out there I will provide a brief bio. I am 38 years old and live in a suburb of Seattle called Renton (we are about 20 minutes south of Seattle or 15 minutes east of Sea/Tac airport). I am the father of 3 boys and any day now #4 is coming! I love hiking, fishing, camping, SCUBA diving, beekeeping, and of course cooking. I am painting contractor, but I also have a small hot sauce company that is named after the 2 oldest boys Zane & Zack (don’t worry Hans and his soon to arrive brother Maxx will have products of their own). I also have a passion (or maybe it’s an obsession) for food. Although most anything with at least a little zest makes me salivate, food doesn’t have to be spicy for me to enjoy it. I really like layers of flavor.

I have been lucky enough to meet some of the nicest people in the world. It’s you, the chilehead community!!! Manufacturers, collectors, consumers, foodie bloggers… Wow! Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported us (’cause we had no idea what we were doing! Even now, we only have a slight clue!).

I’m going to throw this out there right now, but it will probably be different next week. Favorite sauces I am currently eating. Raw Heat Vintage ‘69, by Original Juan; Cry Baby, by Three Hot Tamales; Jolokia Havoc, by Danny Cash; and Picante Chombo, by D’Elidas. I think we have just over 40 open bottles right now.

I hope that I can write a few words now and then that are of interest to each of you. I will tell a few tales, cook a bit of food here and there, and hopefully write an article or two that stimulates positive discussions among us. Not that I expect it to all be positive though. Some heated arguments would be fun too! I promise I will submit a few articles that pose an open question of what do you think?