Blane Taylor

Who or what inspires you to cook?

I’m from Texas, so Mexican food and culture are ingrained in most aspects of life, plus my wife is from Mexico. So we cook lots of Mexican food, interior and not Tex mex, or use Mexican ingredients/techniques as inspiration in a lot of dishes. She’s northern Mexican too so it meshes well with Texas cooking, grilling, BBQing and hearty dishes.

What's your all time favorite dish to make?

That’s like asking my favorite child. I’ve been BBQing most of my life, and the restaurant we owned in Chile was BBQ, first in the county. So it would for sure be grilling, BBQing and using our clay oven. I guess cooking with wood rather than an exact dish; using the aforementioned Mexican inspiration. When we cook for large parties (house parties) it’s almost always grilled/smoked products. Or Aguachile de camarón en Salsa Negra - total opposite of BBQ

What would you do with the $25,000?

We have a small side gig of selling hot sauce, St. Blane’s Hot Sauce. We sell at multiple markets around Austin and a few brick and mortars. 25 Grand would enable us to really step it up to the next level and buy larger better equipment, better kitchen spaces, better discounts on bulk buying, getting shelf life stability tests done ( they were shockingly expensive ),upgrade website and the list goes on. We got a good little following but would love to really reach out to more people.