Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

Marc Gelinas, owner of Comida Loca Inc., weighs his New Mexico hot green chile, dried and crushed, before mixing it with his other seasonings to make his green chile chicken soup base. A heat-and-serve version of his soup is being unveiled this weekend at the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show. "If you breathe in too much chile powder, it can send you coughing for a while," he said from his Albuquerque warehouse. "It's hot chile and pretty powerful stuff."

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

Marc Gelinas' cowboy hat hangs on the door in the warehouse of Comida Loca, his soup-making company. "I wear my cowboy hat when it's appropriate," he said. "I wouldn't wear it hat a New York trade show, but in Texas, yeah."

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Some like it hot.

And not just make-you-sweat hot. We're talking fire in the gullet here, peppers searing every taste bud, the senses pushing every memory of milk and butter and fire hoses to the forefront of the brain.

And then there are the others.

They like the sweet heat - a sugary flirtation between tongue and flame.

Anna Shawver can tempt both breeds.

Shawver owns Apple Canyon Co., which produces fire-makers such as Holy Chipotle hot sauce, Puerta de Luna salsa and Uncle Mabe's Ruby Red - a sizzling and sweet barbecue sauce made in part by fusing the flavors of New Mexico red chile, cayenne pepper and molasses. It also makes honey barbecue and raspberry chipotle sauces - both still anchored by chile.

Apple Canyon, an Albuquerque company, is just one of the more than 200 vendors showing their goods at the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show. The show this weekend at Sandia Resort & Casino is in its 19th year.

It's because of Holy Chipotle and the sizzle it created at the fiery foods show that Apple Canyon has found success, Shawver says.

Holy Chipotle is highly addictive, she says. (Perhaps the sauce might not be sent from the heavens; fire and addiction seem to be traits of places farther south.) One addict spoke to a soon-to-be convert at the show. That sauce lover turned out to be a European distributor, a person who eventually connected Apple Canyon with a national distributor.

Today, Holy Chipotle and other Apple Canyon treats can be found in 15 states, Canada and parts of Europe.

"We have such a loyal following," Shawver says, adding that the devotion still surprises her. "It's been on the market going on 11 years now."

Some of her customers have been regulars for the entire stretch.

She didn't start the fire

Shawver's business journey was a cool and slow transition toward the path of flaming foods.

She, like many transplants before her, just couldn't tear herself away from her chile connection when she moved to Seattle from Albuquerque.

She began importing green chile and bottling it. Soon, she was offering it to her Northwestern neighbors.

When she moved back to New Mexico, she brought with her a newfound entrepreneurial spirit.

Her first thoughts, naturally, were toward salsa, a well-saturated market.

"I don't know what I was thinking," Shawver, 48, says with a laugh.

She was thinking hers was different. She was thinking she had something special.

When she approached a company about manufacturing and packaging her product, they were skeptical.

"They said, `Anna, you of anybody should know the world does not need another salsa,' " she says. "I just really believed in what we had."

So she pressed on, and in 2001 Puerta de Luna Salsa was born.

Soon after Shawver established her business, she was approached by another company. The family that had created Holy Chipotle sauce was eager to get out of the food-vending business, and they thought Shawver could keep the fire burning even as they stepped away.

Shawver took on the challenge, tweaking the recipe and the label, and the result was soaring, searing sales of an established product.

"That (Holy Chipotle) is turning out to be our most profitable line," she says.

Apple Canyon now makes the raspberry chipotle sauce, wedding cookies, a red chile orange sesame marinade and wine crackers - a big seller in California, she says.

The company has also received another level of foodie interest. Chile Pepper and Food & Wine magazines will have features on Shawver's products in the coming months. (Chile Pepper in April, and Food & Wine in June.)

And, the flame was first and is consistently fanned at the fiery foods show.

"Last year there was so much synergy in the booth. We're just really looking to continue on this year," she says. "We want to welcome back our current customers and bring in some new ones."

Soup's on

Marc Gelinas has a similar tale.

The show has been crucial to his company's success.

Gelinas' business, Comida Loca, was founded on a single hot seller: his mom's green chile chicken soup.

The soup had been luring weary travelers and flight crews at the Albuquerque International Sunport for years. (Still does, actually, at the Comida Buena stand near the observation deck.)

In the beginning, though, it was sold at a no-name (literally) snack shop in the airport. Pilots and flight attendants had been making sure that fliers heard about Gelinas' mom's savory soup.

"They'd say, `Thank you for flying Southwest Airlines, the weather is such-and-such degrees. And if you really want some good green chile soup . . .' " Gelinas says. "It had almost a cult following. It just took off."

That was 15 years ago.

When the observation deck was built, the snack shop had to close to relocate. Gelinas, 42, saw a chance for the soup to soar.

He soon sold the snack shop and devoted himself to taking the soup outside the airport and into New Mexico homes.

"I didn't know what I was doing," he says of first starting the venture. "It's probably just as well. It's a good thing I didn't realize it (would be hard), because I probably wouldn't have done it."

He wanted to develop a ready-to-eat product that could be purchased at a store and microwaved for a quick meal.

That fate would have to wait. A dry-mix version would come first.

The unveiling: the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show five years ago.

That mix is now sold in Albuquerque at La Montañita Co-op, Keller's Farm Stores, farmers markets and a handful of Smith's grocery stores.

Today, Comida Loca comes full circle, Gelinas says. The first day of the fiery foods show is also the day the world will see his vision come to fruition: A ready-to-eat version of the soup will be on hand for the first time.

"What's nice about it is, we've been able to reproduce the flavor in this product," he says. Gelinas has 60,000 packages of the tomatoey chicken stew ready to sell.

What's next for Gelinas is likely new Southwestern-themed soups, he says. What's for certain: For Comida Loca, it's time to expand the vision.

And you can bet there will be heat.