I admit it. This is an extremely indirect jazz post. Steve Sando is not a hot cornetist. He doesn’t lead a band dedicated to the music of Jelly Roll Morton.
But I live for spicy food. And Steve Sando makes the best hot sauce I’ve ever tasted, complex and not just tongue-burning. And jazz musicians themselves will tell you that the food and the music go together. And Steve loves jazz. All right?
His company is called RANCHO GORDO (http:www.ranchogordo.com) — with a naughty logo of a lip-licking bombshell. And his beans are delicious: rich, deeply-flavored, not just carbs with a nasty after-effect. And aren’t those dried limas truly pretty?
I wouldn’t be blogging about Steve — this is a jazz blog, not a food blog, even if the latter interests me greatly — except for something written about him in a recent Washington Post story: that he has one wall of his house floor-to-ceiling with jazz CDs. My kind of fellow. And I’ve taken a quick look at his new book, HEIRLOOM BEANS (Chronicle), where the recipes are inventive, the writing straightforward.
Swing it, Rancho Gordo!
