Hot Sauce Fest Cooking Tent

Photo by John Anderson

This year, the Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival provides an interesting new feature that should be fun for chile-heads of all ages: a cooking demonstration tent. Folks can enjoy a bit of shelter from the sun while learning the salsa craft from chefs who will demonstrate recipes in all contest categories: red sauce, green sauce, and specialty varieties. Of course, demo attendees will be able to sample the salsas after watching them being prepared. Demonstrations will begin at noon and will take place hourly until 3pm. Chef instructors and students from the Texas Culinary Academy will be in charge of the tent, and the sauces to be sampled by the audience will be prepared in TCA's commercial kitchens in advance. In addition, some TCA students will enter their own fiery creations in the contest, something that should add to the variety and competitive spirit of the event. The cooking demonstration schedule is as follows:

Noon-1pm: Chef Adam Gonzalez, founding chef and co-owner of Serranos, has placed in the Top 3 of both red and green categories of the Hot Sauce Festival for many years. His salsas are a popular feature at his homegrown eateries, and this year he will also act as a celebrity judge after revealing some secrets of his award-winning red sauce.

1-2pm: Satay chef/owner and food scientist Dr. Foo Swasdee will showcase a couple of Asian-influenced sauces representing the specialty category. Using exotic Southeast Asian ingredients, Foo will prepare her famous Thai salsa, as well as an Asian dipping sauce appropriate for dumplings and dim sum.

2-3pm: Chef Kevin Quinn, Culinary Department chair of the Texas Culinary Academy, will prepare green salsa to round out the afternoon of demonstrations.