Last Night Was Hot

Last night was so hot. While it was freezing ass cold outside, it didn’t matter. I conquered something I never thought I would be able to do: I drove a car on the streets of Manhattan.

Honestly, now that I’ve done it, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. At all. Really. Like I shouldn’t even be posting about it because it really was no big deal. It was like normal driving. On normal streets. And thankfully my GPS Lady didn’t completely fail me. When she decided to take a break and gather her thoughts (over and over again) I was able to use what knowledge I have of the area to figure out how to get where we were going. And we made it.

Where did we go? Well, I’m glad you asked!

Brad Pitt participated as a judge in a hot sauce contest.

The actual hot sauce expo is scheduled for later this month, but there are many events leading up to the expo, one of which was last night’s judging of sauces. It was a press only event, but I managed to squeeze by as Brad Pitt’s Plus One aka Photographer. But I told myself I got on the exclusive list because really and truly they wanted PigTales to blog about it. I mean, come on, lets be honest…. they didn’t really care about a national men’s magazine covering their event right? They were much more interested in someone with a small blog, from Kansas City who now lives in Pennsylvania, to write about the hundreds of hot sauces on display. I spent the evening rubbing elbows with restauranteurs and folks from Bon Appetit, Food Network and other media outlets. But I know they all went home thinking “Wow. I can not believe I got to talk to Katie from PigTales. Holy shit. Check that off my bucket list.”

Not to mention all the food, beer and hot sauces that were had. I spent the majority of the time walking around, taking photos, snacking on Cuban sandwiches (Yes! 2014 Sandwich Challenge accomplishment!) and keeping a watchful eye on Brad Pitt in case the hot sauce took over and he needed to be driven through the streets of New York to the nearest hospital (which I was ready to do, considering I had already mastered driving in the Big Apple.)

After, oh, three hours (?!?!?!) of tasting hot sauces, judges started throwing in the towel. So, of course, when I noticed an empty seat, I offered to fill in with my own expertise. And they accepted my offer. Somehow I ended up at a table that overlooked the rest of the room. One of the guys sitting next to me summed things up in the best way possible when he said “I’ve never felt so fucking important and powerful sitting up here judging the hottest hot sauces of the world.”  — That may not be exactly what he said, but its pretty close. The whole point is this: it was awesome and we were powerful and important people.

And the hot sauces were hotter than hot. Beads of sweat, heart palpitations, you name it. It was hot. At one point, I looked over at Brad Pitt and he wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed and he had his hand over his chest. I called out his name and he didn’t move. So I yelled over to his table again but still got no response. I got a bit worried so I excused myself from my seat at my powerful and important table and walked over to check on him. He finally opened his eyes and said “I’m okay. I’m in my Zen place.”
I’m not sure what the hell that meant, but he was alive and able to speak, so I figured he was okay and went back to tasting more hot sauces.

When it was all said and done, I probably tasted at least 20 different hot sauces ranging from hot to insanely ridiculously hot. Brad Pitt must have tasted over 100 sauces, some of which he explained were hotter than insanely ridiculously hot. I can only wish him well today when all the heat he consumed decides to leave his body and he is stuck with the one-ply toilet paper in the office. Painful or not, last night was an awesomely, great, hot night.