Most trade shows are the stuff of, if not nightmares, then at least a sleepwalk from one charmless kiosk to the next. Not so at the 54th Summer Fancy Food Show, where 20,000+ gourmet retailers, restaurateurs, chefs, media folks and plain ol' food fans spend three days chomping their way through a fever dream of some 180,000 specialty foods. The throwback "Fancy" is a bit of a misnomer by now, as there's a very wide slice of products on offer, ranging from swankity wines, oils, cheeses and caviar to humble chewing gums, ketchups, chili seasonings and snack mixes.

Here are my first day favorites from the more wallet-friendly end of the spectrum. More thorough reviews will follow, but I've gotta recover from hauling around a 21lb* shoulder bag of collected samples and press releases first.

It seems the potato / potahto pronunciation debate is no longer the biggest debacle in the potato world. According to USA Today, Chilean Agriculture Minister Marigen Hornkohl stated that 99% of the world's potatoes derive from spuds native to Chile.

The head of Peru's National Institute for Agricultural Innovation, Juan Risi, retorted by calling Chile's potatoes mere "grandchildren" of Peru's tubers. Ouch!

Risa said that, "Peruvian potatoes that originated near lake Titicaca are the true potatoes, and their children spread throughout the Andes." Peru is said to have around 3000 varieties of potatoes. I can't even really fathom that. It would take trying a different type of potato every day for over eight years to try them all.

I'm not sure I care where the potato originated, but I'm glad that it made its way to my mouth!

Errazuriz Sauvignon Blanc 2005 Late Harvest is made in the Casablanca Valley, Chile. It is 11.5% abv. with a light body and a very pale yellow color. The aroma is that of mild pineapple and honeydew, as well a combination of the typical Sauvignon Blanc range of aromas. This all comes together in a wine smells like a perfume version of a Sauvignon Blanc.

The taste is pleasantly semi-sweet, with good solid acidity. This is my first time tasting a Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc because they are kind of rare and you don't run across them that often. I was surprised that is was definitely recognizable as a Sauvignon Blanc. Like the aroma, the taste has all the unique Sauvignon Blanc characteristics like fresh fruit and a nice crisp quality from the high acidity, that often get lost in dessert wines. The most identifiable fruit flavors were pear, pineapple, hints of honeydew, and some woody notes.

The other day I decided to crack open this can of tuna, which has been in my cupboard for a couple of months. I love spicy food, so I figured I'd give California Delight Chipotle Tuna a try. I think the reason I held off on eating it for so long is the confusing packaging. California Delight is kosher and is made in Thailand. In case you're wondering it's imported by a Los Angeles company.

About the only resemblance it bears to Thai food is its incendiary heat and psychedelic red color. Even though it's called chipotle tuna, it contains none of the smoked peppers. The finely chopped light meat tuna is however hot as hell thanks to the two whole chiles and tons of seeds. At first I tried to eat it straight out of the can, which was not the best idea. But even when it was mixed with microwave rice it still emitted a steady heat and left me with a pleasant flush.

Chipotle chiles are not a unique chile, but are actually dried, smoked jalapeno chiles. They are dark brown and wrinkly, in sharp contrast to the glossy look of fresh chiles, but have a wonderfully rich flavor. Most of the heat of the jalapeno is retained when the chile is dried, so chipotles are fairly spicy, falling in the middle ranges of the heat scale. They have smoky overtones, but the real flavor of the chiles is complex and earthy. Instead of causing a sharp and immediate heat, the heat grows gradually as you eat it and takes time to fade away.

In truth, most kinds of chilies can be smoke-dried and sometimes they are all called "chipotle" no matter what they started out as, but the vast majority of the chipotle chiles on the market were originally jalapenos.

Hot food may not be the first thing that springs to mind in hot weather, but believe it or not, sweating will cool you off faster than you might think. Some Like It Hot: Spicy Favorites from the World's Hot Zones serves up some of the spiciest foods in the world, all in one cookbook. Author Clifford Wright provides lots of information on the origin and uses of various chiles and spices in the book. The recipes range from the familiar, like Enchiladas Verdes, to the more exotic, with recipes from countries like Bolivia and Africa, where the cuisine is less familiar to most diners. The recipes also do cover a range on the spicy scale, so those with slightly more sensitive palates can work their way up to the more fiery dishes.

The recipes are organized by type of dish and include salads, sauces, seafood, meats, vegetables and - most intriguingly - eggs, which are not often made into their own category. Check out the recipe for Indian Chile Eggs before trying any of the others.

And remember to drink plenty of water (or the other cooling drinks Wright provides), too.

Lemon verbena is growing in popularity, seemingly by the minute. A few years ago, it was almost unheard of to the home cook, then it rapidly spread from the pages of upscale menus to Gourmet to Cooking Light and to Better Homes and Gardens. It is a perennial herb, native to Chile and Peru, that has an unusually strong lemon scent and flavor to it. The lemon scent comes from an essential oil known as citral, which is also found in lemon, lemongrass and other plants.

Verbena is not a popular herb in traditional European cookery, though it was commonly planted for ornamental reasons in European gardens after it was introduced in the 18th century. The plant grows best in temperate climates, with plenty of water and sunshine. It will produce beautiful, small flowers in the late summer and fall. Its aroma is strong and can perfume a garden easily.

This simple combination of skirt steak and cucumber salad is easily the steak dish I make most often. For the salad, combine two cucumbers, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced; one medium tomato, cored, seeded and thinly sliced, minced Thai chili to taste; a good palmful of fresh mint, finely chopped; 3-4 tablespoons of lime juice; and a splash of fish sauce (start with around a tablespoon if you're not a huge fan of the stuff, yet). Toss all ingredients to combine.

As we all know, steak lovers can be pretty particular about how they like their steak cooked. Having said that, I'm not going to insist on any specific method or level of doneness. Most recently, I grilled a 1.5 pound skirt steak, trimmed of excess fat and cut into three pieces, over a very hot (three seconds max with the hand test) fire of hardwood charcoal. If grilling is out of the question, broiling the same skirt steak works just fine. After resting the steak, cut it across the grain into thin strips. This shortens the muscle fibers and yields a more tender cut.

[Photo: Nick Vagnoni]

A British couple has grown what they claim to be the hottest variety of chili pepper in the world. Dubbed the Dorset Naga, the pepper has apparently tested at between 876,000 and 970,000 Scoville heat units, according to The Telegraph. For comparison, common habanero peppers clock in at about 200,000-300,000 SHUs and jalapeños are in the low thousands. The Dorset Naga was developed by Michael and Joy Michaud in Dorset. On their website, they trace the origin of their chili to the Bangladeshi Naga Morich. Still, Dorset Naga is hotter than that, and the Michaud's aren't quite sure why. Their site features several articles about similar strains of absurdly hot peppers. According to the Telegraph article, there isn't a whole lot you can do with the Dorset Naga. Some of the Michaud's customers have actually complained that the peppers were too hot to cook with. A chef quoted in the article says that some people simply brush their foods with the pepper before eating.

I'm always surprised at how folks find ways to "improve" upon chocolate. What you see here is a chocolate Russian roulette game. In each chamber is a bullet-shaped chocolate. Of the dozen, 11 have praline centers, but one has a spicy chile instead. You get the idea. The product description on Firebox.com begins: "Eating chocolate is not something most of us usually associate with raw, buttock-clenching tension." Yeah, you can say that again.

I've just discovered fd's flickr tools (you should, too) and I keep coming across great examples of their use. Like this great photo of a heart-shaped string of hot chile peppers created and uploaded by Gill Seyfang. And perfect for Valentine's Day! Now, what to do with all my conversation heart photos... surely I can come up with something clever. Got any suggestions for a good slogan?