Romantic Roads

In a little shop on a sunlit cobblestone street stood on a shelf a clear plastic bottle with a green twist top. Held inside this bottle was a simple, thick red recipe consisting of chilies, sugar, salt, garlic, and distilled vinegar. When the day began, we didn’t expect to find this bottle, in fact, we weren’t even looking for it. But when we found it, we realized how much we missed it, and eventually, when tasted, we realized our mistake. Mistakes happen all the time, and we learn from them.

No mistakes can really be made when traveling to the beautiful Cretan sea-town of Rethymno, Greece. The early morning was filled with the invigorating sea air from the Mediterranean, and we were strolling off our morning breakfast with our two newfound friends from Germany and Albania, both of whom had visited the island of Crete in the past. Rethymno was their old stomping ground, and today they were graciously showing us around in search of deals from charming small shops and delectable gelato.

We followed them along the cobblestone street of Antistaseos through the remains of Porta Guora, a 16th century Venetian white stone arch. A thick looking piece of architecture that has been integrated into the surrounding walls of the shops. As we continued along this arch-adorned street, we passed the street’s linings of tourist trinkets, clothing boutiques, inviting cafes, and other remnants of tourism. Our tour guides for the morning knew where to go—to the little sunlit shop.

Upon entering the shop, the air was infused with the fragrances of anise, cinnamon, and various Mediterranean spices. At this moment, it is hard to recall precisely what we were originally seeking or why we had ventured into this particular establishment, but serendipity had brought us here. As we wandered through the shop, we turned a corner and there it was, that iconic, elegantly shaped bottle with its distinctive bright green cap – Sriracha. We had missed it dearly.

There was a time before we traveled the world that the land we lived in was filled with bottles of Huy Fong Sriracha. Plentiful as the universe has stars. We had been world traveling only for a couple of months at this time and had eaten a vast number of Mediterranean dishes of fish, vegetables, fruits, and local butcher’s meats. We had been immersed in the new way of eating. But little did we realize when this bottle popped up on its shelf that there was something missing in our diet from back home. Until our recent travels, we put that sauce on everything, and with this new Mediterranean diet, not a lot of hot sauce is needed to be placed on things to make food taste quite delicious. We grabbed the bottle, threw our money down, and ran out of the store.

We brought the bottle back to our hotel room, and there was an amazing sun cast in the room that begged to have the sriracha photographed with. I was so excited, the shadows cast just right, the red-filled bottle and sparkling green cap, and the goose. A goose? No,  not a goose, it’s a duck. That’s weird. I’d never seen a duck on a sriracha bottle before.

Our mistake. You see, there is a symbol on the sriracha that we know and love, it is a drawing of a white rooster. The rooster labeled red sauce is Huy Fong, whose beginnings come from Vietnam. Its creator, David Tran, used a recipe from Si Racha, Thailand’s Sriraja Panich, the O.G. of srirachas. David adjusted this recipe a little, and created a unique version that became iconic. Did you know that there is a sriracha with a flying duck on it? Such are the little details that can lead to bad choices.

Hot, just hot, a lot of heat, and hot. This was not our sauce. This was not quite licking the sun hot, but maybe the point where Daedalus’ son Icarus had that “oh, shit” moment when flying towards the sun. The flying duck was not our sauce. Of course, the heat of the sauce was unexpected, so with that, it probably felt worse than it actually was or is. Learning from our mistakes can be a great thing, and this was one of those moments. I’m sure I could take many lessons from this experience. Checking the details comes to mind.