🌶️ It’s gettin’ hot in here

It's Thursday, Boston.

😬 Describe your experience riding the T with a TikTok sound. We’ll go first …

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Gen Z says GTG

• Flights to Amsterdam

• A fortune teller bill

Up first..

OUT & ABOUT

This festival brings the heat

Boston’s second annual hot sauce fest kicks off this weekend, and it’s going to be bigger, better, and spicier than before. If you’re obsessed with the “Hot Ones” series on YouTube, you’ve come to the right place. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

🌶️ Over 20 hot sauce companies from across the Northeast will be there. If you don’t think of spice when you think of Boston, festival co-host John Kasper, of Whitehouse Station Sauce, begs to differ. “There’s a lot of great sauce makers in the Northeast and New England area,” he said, “and there’s a lot of chili heads in Boston.” Local vendors at the festival include favorites like Craic Sauce in Lowell, Decimation Hot Sauce in Worcester, Chappy’s Pickles in Charlestown, and Yaz’s Table in Abington.

🏆 It’s the first year they’ll be giving out Boston’s Spice Awards. The “Green Monster Award” will go to the best verde sauce; the “Fenway Fire Award” will go to the best sauce on a hot dog; and the grand prize — “The Wicked Pissah” — will go to the overall best sauce of the festival. Hot sauce connoisseurs Kyle Seip and Anthony "Hot Sauce King" Merenda will be judging the events, with Merenda taking part in some of the spicy food challenges (more on that later).

🤌 Making a good hot sauce is a balancing act. The judges have four main criteria: heat, flavor, appearance, and balance (this one is key). A sauce can be seasoned well, but if “all of the heat comes in and [the flavor is] gone,” it’s probably not a balanced one, according to Kasper. If you’re a spice newb, Kasper said to remember that “some people are built differently than others” in terms of heat tolerance, so don’t assume that one vendor’s “mild” sauce is mild by your standards.

🥵 But if heat is your thing, you can take part in the spicy food challenges. There will be your classic hot wing eating competition, a spiked pizza eating contest, and a “marshmallow from hell” challenge featuring hot sauce from the team behind Hell’s Kitchen Hot Sauce out of Manhattan. Definitely be a sadistic watch. 

👍 Need a rec? Kasper’s favorite sauce at the festival is Rockin’ Rasta by Hell’s Kitchen. “This is my desert island sauce … It’s like a coconut curry … ugh … it’s that good. I get the bottle and it’s gone.” 

👀 Interested in going? The festival will be at Garage B at The Speedway in Brighton on April 29 and 30.  Tickets are only $10 and there will be plenty of food and drink options, too. Just not milk. Kasper suggests bringing your own.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🏠 Can Gen Z thrive in Boston? A new series from the Boston Globe looks at how many young adults can’t imagine actually settling down in the city as they navigate debt, a high cost of living, and the challenge of saving. Typical homes in Boston go for $700,000 or more, and a recent study by mortgage company Freddie Mac revealed that one-third of U.S. Gen Zers believe owning a home will always be financially out of reach. And the high rents aren’t a much better option. Want to see how you’re doing in meeting your financial goals? Try out their Reality Check Calculator, which can help determine how close (or far) you are from owning a home.

🗯️ It’s an inside job. Someone using the Globe subscription account shared by city council staff has been using it to attack local leaders in Globe story comments. The commenter uses the name “Interested Party,” and has left messages that range from snarky to derogatory and threatening, particularly on stories related to council members and local leaders of color. Dozens of the comments have been removed for violating Globe guidelines. Councilor Brian Worrell, who has been the target of some of the comments, is calling for an internal investigation into the user. 

🥐 Have you tried this popular bakery yet? Videos of Lakon Paris Patisseries, a bakery in Newton and Brookline, have taken off on Instagram and TikTok, fueling a huge demand for their picture perfect sweets. The demand is so high that people line up around the block to get their hands on pastries like their geometric chocolate cream cube and stuffed croissants. The shop started baking their goods at 4 a.m., two hours earlier than before their Internet fame, and announced recently that they’re expanding into a bigger kitchen to keep up with the hungry customers (and influencers). 

✈️ JetBlue is once again expanding service in Europe. Logan’s biggest air carrier is offering flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Amsterdam starting August 29. Service from Logan to the Dutch capital is set to kick off Sept. 20, but seats are already on sale, with roundtrip tickets starting at $479. JetBlue began offering flights to London in 2021 and will begin flights to Paris in June.

QUICK POLL

🥐 How long would you wait in line for a pastry?

ONE LAST THING

Fortune tellers on Beacon Hill

Would you believe me if I told you that there’s a bill in the works regarding fortune tellers in Mass.? Better believe it!

HD.645 is a bill that would take away part of a state law that requires fortune tellers to live in the town they want to practice in for at least a year before getting a fortune teller license. We reached out to Rep. Susannah M. Whipps, who filed the bill, and she pointed us to Dani Letourneau, the Greenfield mayor’s chief of staff. 

Letourneau told us in an email that she brought it to Rep. Whipps’ attention because the old law makes it so that her community can’t approve events with tarot card or palm readers from small towns just outside of Greenfield. 

Rep. Whipps said she looks forward to getting rid of this and “other archaic laws.”

🌈 Thanks for reading! The more you know!

🚇 The results are in! Over 83% of respondents to Wednesday's poll thought that all MBTA officials should live near Boston. *Pretends to be shocked.*

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