First, Whole Foods in our area has just rolled out new LOCAL branding and you will see new signage and logos around the stores. You should see this bold branding around our products in the stores. We are now in 27 Whole Foods Markets in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii!

Next, we are slowly getting our Fiery Sweet Candied Popcorn into stores and right now you can find it in Valencia, El Segundo, and Fort Apache. We are hoping to announce more locations real soon. Follow us on twitter for any breaking news.

Other exciting news we have is that our Chipotle Olive Tapenade is now available at the Fort Apache store in Las Vegas!

We are really happy about everything that is going on and we want to thank everyone for their support.

Check our Buy Page for a store or restaurant near you that carries and/or uses our fiery products!

Update: For our Friends and Followers out on the island of Maui, great news!!! You can now get our fiery sweet popcorn and our Ghost Pepper Sauce at the Kahului Whole Foods Market!

LOCAL Shelf Talker

New WFM Local Branding

Local Fiery Popcorn

Lopez Tonight

George had a kidney transplant in 2005 and his wife Ann was the donor.  Since then they have been big supporters of the National Kidney Foundation and in 2009 he and Ann started The Ann & George Lopez Foundation, “going beyond kidney disease and kidney related issues, the new Foundation will reach out to children and adults who face hurdles in their everyday lives and assist them in matters of education and health.”

All Spice Cafe has been a supporter of the National Kidney Foundation and at the 2008 Our Great Chefs of Los Angeles/NKF Charity Auction George won the bidding on an All Spice Cafe Gift Box. Since then, we found that George is a fan of our gourmet hot sauces and working with Linda Small & Kathy Rosenberg, of the Lopez Foundation, we have donated 150 bottles of our hot sauce for gift bags at their events, including the George Lopez Celebrity Golf Classic.

We are looking forward to the new season of Lopez Tonight and to our continued support of The Ann & George Lopez Foundation.

Lopez Foundation

John George JD

Artisanal LA

We were able to showcase our gourmet hot sauces, dry rubs/seasonings, and fiery sweet-heat popcorns. There was fantastic response to all of our products and we got to meet wonderful food enthusiasts and vendors from the local area. JD was even interviewed by an Italian journalist.

We had locally grown (Ventura County) Bhut Jolokia Ghost Peppers on display (thanks Red Hot Foods!) to help us explain the hottest pepper in the world that we use in some of our products. We even Sold Out of our Ghost Pepper Sauce.

We can’t wait to do this event again. Nice job Shawna, Alyx, and crew at Artisanal LA!

Here are just a few of the friendly vendors that we shared the great weekend with (we know we are forgetting many):

All Jarred Up – Grape Pie! In a Jar!
Bernod – Organic Cotton Candy (they were testing a Jalapeno Cotton Candy!)
Cafe de Leche – Single cup brews got us through the day!
Cast Iron Gourmet – Small batch bacon and candied bacon trail mix
Chicks with Knives – Very tasty Perishable Pickles
Gotta Have Smore – All the flavors of a smore in a cupcake!
Home Girl Cafe – Awesome carnitas tacos with habanero-apple slaw
Lemon Bird Jams – Small batch, handmade unique jams & syrups
Lindy & Grundy – Sustainable butcher shop coming to L.A. this Dec – We can’t wait!
Marina Elana’s Authentic Latino – Certified Organic Horchata and Jamaica drinks
Miss Fruit Fly – Hand crafted tea towels with inspiration
San Angel Mole – Mole like Grandma used to make
Sauce Goddess – Very tasty BBQ sauces and rubs
Sweet Dreamery Desserts – Artisan scratch bakery
That’s a Nice! – Traditional Italian Pastas and Sauces

Also, check out photos of us at the show by R. E. Photography on flickr.

Our photos:

Artisanal LA show starts	AllSpiceCafe Hot Sauce	Vanessa interview
Lauren and John	AllSpiceCafe Ghost Peppers	Lauren and JD

Maria Elena's Horchata

Maria Elena’s invited us to participate in an Open House at their shop that they hosted for a local group of food enthusiasts. They featured their Horchata by itself, as a Dirty Horchata (with espresso), and a Chai Horchata. These go really nicely to help tame the fire in your mouth after having some of our Habanero and Ghost Pepper sauces and popcorns.

Other great products Maria Elena’s featured was their new Jamaica drink and cotton candy.

Here are some pictures from the event. It was a great time and we are looking forward to doing something together again soon!

Gathering Crowd	Bill gave history	Jerry tells the Maria's story
Tasty Treats	Sweet Heat!	Jamaica Drink
Lots of great food talk	All Spice Cafe Fiery Gourmet	Open House

JD at the Booth

Ghost Pepper Products

We just returned from the Fiery Foods & BBQ Show in Albuquerque, NM where we debuted our newest Gourmet Fiery Foods and they were a huge success.

All of the new Jolokia Ghost Pepper products (Jolokia Ghost Pepper Sauce, Adobo and Jerk Ghost Pepper Rubs, and the Fiery Caramel Popcorns) were so well received, we heard “that is incredible” and “those are awesome” all day long.

Some of the best praise comes when other exhibitors come back after tasting our products and asking for more, not just a taste, but to add to some food that they were already having at the show. Several vendors asked for either our Adobo Ghost Rub or the Ghost Pepper Sauce to add to their Bloody Marys. Our neighbor Lille Belle Farms kept asking for our Ghost Pepper Rubs to shake on their lunch sandwiches and even their morning bagels with cream cheese.

One of the best quotes was from a lady who said, “I love it when you talk dirty to me” as JD was describing the Angel Hair Pasta dish he does with our Chipotle Olive Tapenade.

Another highlight was seeing toddlers who actually enjoyed having fiery foods! One woman said that she had eaten spicy foods through her entire pregnancy and now her 1 y.o. son loves spicy food. He couldn’t get enough of our Sweet Habanero Candied Popcorn!

SpicyRV Interviews JD

It was a great show for us to introduce our new products to the industry. This weekend (Sat. March 13th, 2010) we will be debuting our new products in the Los Angeles area at Surfas Chef’s Paradise in Culver City. Surfas has been great supports of All Spice Cafe and will be the first local retailer to carry all of our new Ghost Pepper Products!

We are already looking forward to next year’s Fiery Foods Show (March 4-6, 2011). Hope to see everyone there!

If you’re at the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival this weekend (Nov 6th-8th, 2009), come meet the man behind the mustachioed All Spice logo. Look for JD in the Foodzie area of the Adventures in Tasting (Tasting Pavilion, Metreon City View) on Saturday, from 12:30 to 3:30p. Come and get a taste of the award winning Gourmet Hot Sauces and the newest award winner, Chipotle Olive Tapenade!

 
 
Update: Susie at Foodzie posted a quick review video of the Foodzie Producers at the event. And a nice group pic of the Foodzie Producers back at Foodzie after the Tasting Event (they’ve got awesome office space).

USMC 1st Marines Golf Tourney

Where else in the World is All Spice Cafe Gourmet Hot Sauces? What other Armed Forces are out there lovin our sauces? Send us your pix and we’ll post them here in our Where in the World series.
 

The CBnG guys are known for the great tailgate parties that they host at each Bills home game and for this show they went head-to-head with a tailgating team from Chicago. Guy Fieri hosts the show, with a panel of judges.

Tailgate Warriors

Illegal Motion

Da'Bus v. CBnG

Scotty of CBnG uses our sauces in several of their dishes. Look for our bottles on the show – even though they had to tape over all the logos on products, you should be able to recognize our bottles. We are trying to get Scotty to divulge some of his recipes to share on our site, but look for these dishes on the show:
· Scotty’s Crazy Blue Cheese Dressing (Cayenne Habanero Sauce)
· Scotty Rochester BBQ Sauce (Chipotle Garlic Sauce)
· The stuffing in the Wing in the Pigskin (Cayenne Habanero Sauce)

Now, they filmed 2 different endings for the competition, so we don’t know who the ultimate winner was (besides all the people who got to eat all the great food that day), so we all have to wait and watch to see who comes out on top.

There’ll be a Red Carpet Viewing Party of Tailgate Warriors in Dansville, contact Scott for details. (His contact info is on the fb event page.)

Here’s a link on the Food Network for the show.

Tailgating w/CBnG	Illegal Motion
1 Rich Place	Conklins Tailgate

Update: here’s a link to Guy’s blog post about the show.

Update: Well DaBus edged out CBnG with the final scoring of:

It was a very close competition. CBnG did get docked 1 point for butterflying the pork tenderloin, but not marinading the night before. However it seemed that the dish that the judges liked the most was the Wings in a Pigskin that CBnG did.

All in all it was a great show and we hope that it becomes a regular show in the Food Network line up. We’ve heard that Scotty is already looking for a rematch!

We will be sampling all of our sauces, including our new Chipotle Olive Tapenade, along with giving serving suggestions and recipe ideas.

Update: here’s a picture of JD at the show – even though there was a poor turnout, he keeps smiling!

Smiley