“Sauce Makes the Food, Love Makes the Sauce”
Sweet. Savory. Spicy. Tangy. There are many options when it comes to sauces and marinades, and, this summer, I encourage you to try the full range offered by husband and wife team Gregg and JoAnn Marsh. The couple’s Burnin’ Love Sauces, each unique in flavor, are uniformly delicious, excite the palate, and come backed with over 30+ years of experience in the restaurant industry. I happened upon the Burnin’ Love Sauces booth at the Coolidge Corner Farmers’ Market, and happily spent about 15 minutes tasting the sauces and talking food with Gregg. As he took me on the tour of the Burnin’ Love Sauce family, I found myself not only enjoying them thoroughly, but also immediately dreaming up ways to incorporate each distinct variety into some of my dishes at home. A visit to their website will also give you ideas as to how to best take advantage of the flavor profiles of each jar of sauce. As I tried each of the sauces, I attempted to rank order them in an effort to land on the one I liked “the best.” After sampling each of the five sauces, I realized that a rank order was nearly impossible as each one was excellent, and so different from the others. I am all for proclaiming a victor, but this was a legitimate five-way tie. Try them all for yourself and see if you disagree. I started with the sweet and spicy Heartbreak Sauce. The name of the sauce alludes to the fact that “an empty bottle will break your heart”…brilliant. And true. This sauce is your perfect addition to pulled pork, chicken wings, or just about anything on the grill. It is nicely balanced, has a bit of heat on it, but it isn’t at all overpowering. “Do you like hot?” Gregg queried. After I responded with a definitive, “yes.” I was given the Torch-ered Heartbreak Sauce to try. The Marsh duo didn’t eliminate the sweet on this one, but they certainly put the heat right up front. It is fantastic for those who like a little burn along with their BBQ. A bottle currently resides, two-thirds empty in my fridge. The next two sauces I will pair together as they were both superb sweet and tangy additions to this sauce “flight.” The 1919 Molasses BBQ Sauce and the newer Sassy Mo’ Lassy are both delicious in their own right, and work well with barbecued meats, both as a marinade and a baste, and as enhancement to a traditional meatloaf or burger. The last sauce I tasted was the most intriguing to me because it was so different from its four “sister sauces.” The Sweet Onion Blues tasted perfectly tasty on the cracker, but I wanted to know how the makers of the product would use it. “I use it on sandwiches, almost like a relish,” Marsh began, “or on top of a grilled steak, or even just as a compliment on a cheese plate.” Sold. There is no question that these sauces are here to stay, and with new additions to the sauce family, there is really no limit to the success of Burnin’ Love Sauces. With a tagline of, “Sauce Makes the Food, Love Makes the Sauce,” how can you go wrong?
