Chef Chris Schlesinger joins the Craft Hot Sauce podcast. Chris was born and raised in Virginia, where he first developed his love for barbecue, spicy food, and live fire cooking.

Schlesinger has won multiple James Beard Awards for Best Chef of the Northeast, and he put Boston on the map for chiliheads in the 80's with his Inner Beauty Hot Sauce and the Hell Nights put on at his restaurant.

Cottage Lane Kitchen was founded by me in 2010, and it isn't only my business name, but also refers to a secret lane in Chapel Hill, NC where our family homestead was built in the 1950s. Four generations of my family have cooked and preserved spicy peppers out of love and tradition in that kitchen.

The last homemade batch of my family's spicy pepper relish was made by my Grandfather in the early 1990s. He grew chilies around the outside of the house and harvested and pickled them during my summer visits. I remember him watering the empty tin cans he buried beside each pepper plant.