Event Menu

If it's the last weekend of August, it's time for our annual celebration of Austin's top condiment: hot sauce! Contest entries will be accepted as late as Sunday morning at the event, so whip up a batch of your signature salsa, and bring the friends and family on down to Waterloo Park to eat some heat. Admission is three nonperishable food items to support our friends at the Capital Area Food Bank. There will be plenty of tasty foods and refreshing beverages, local artisan condiment makers will be on hand offering their finest creations to be judged by the people, and great live music will rock the park all afternoon. As always, panels of uniquely qualified preliminary and final judges will decide whose sauce reigns supreme for yet another year. Be there: 11am-5:30pm, Sunday, Aug. 26.

The No-Holds-Barred Hatch Chile Pepper Recipe Contest culminates at both Central Markets (4000 N. Lamar, 206-1000; 4477 S. Lamar, 899-4300) this weekend. Preliminary judges have chosen the Top 5 recipes submitted at each location. A panel of celebrity judges will choose the winners at each store, and prizes will be awarded. Judges at the Westgate store are Judd Nordyke, mayor of Hatch, N.M.; Monika Powe-Nelson, food writer; Chronicle contributor Mick Vann; Statesman columnist John Kelso; Kate Weidaw, KXAN news reporter; and Joe Bickett and Katherine Kisiel, Fox 7 morning news anchors. At the North store, decisions will be made by Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir, food writers Laura Kelso and Karen Odom Spezia, and noted Austin chefs Stewart Scruggs and David Bull. Sunday, Aug. 26, 2pm, Westgate; 5pm, North Lamar.