pass the peppers (raw, please, and hot)

See this little orange pepper? It's the last one hanging from the Carribean Red Hot Pepper plant I purchased out at the Feed'n'Seed [?]with my friend, MaGreen, over the summer. Since the weather has been so chilly, I brought it indoors to hang out in the sunroom. At its most fertile, the plant was bearing seven full peppers at once. We've eaten all of them. Hank ate one or two raw, right off the stem, and they are incredibly hot (nearing the Habanero-level of heat), but when you cook one of them, seeds and all, into a pot of vegan chilli or just some black or pinto beans, it lends the food a hot smoky flavor, almost chipotle tasting. It's astonishingly good.

You know, I grew up eating baloney and ketchup sandwiches on white bread, with a side of spaghetii-o's. We shook oregano flakes and garlic salt on our frozen pizza, and it was "spices." I remember when I first moved to Texas, I was invited to a Sunday brunch with a bunch of graduate students at my friend Louise's apartment in the Heights. Salsa, for me, was a ketchup-y sauce that came in a Tostitos brand jar. More sugar and vinegar than anything else. But at Louise's brunch, one of the guests, a Texan, made pico de gallo with fresh jalapenos, seeds and all. I remember being so hungry, and probably a little hung over, and going for this chopped tomato and onion concoction with drool coming down my chin. When I bit into the first scoop, a blast of hot pepper burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth like nothing I had ever experienced before. Trying not to be a rude guest, I stepped outside. The fire was so intense, I thought I would hyperventilate. I began to cry from the pain. My panic escalated everything. Something horrible had happened, and I wasn't sure what it was, but it was now in my esophagus and headed for my belly. As I was having this physical breakdown, Louise, good hostess that she was, came outside and found me red-faced and in tears. When I explained what happened, she reached up and patted me on the back (she is a full two-feet shorter than I am) and said, "Oh, it'll be okay, darlin'. Think of it this way: You probably knocked out every cold you might have had coming for the next couple of months just with that one bite." And she went inside. Cold? What?

Since this time, I have become more acculturated to hot food, especially peppers. A few years ago, before my friend Cake's apartment burned down, she had a potluck with a few friends -- black beans, tortillas, guacamole, etc. etc. Cake had a dish of freshly sliced jalapenos in a dish, and I think it was our friend KP who popped one in her mouth after the meal was over, saying something cavalierly, like, "Mm! O yeah, this will suck all of the heavy metals right out of my system." Really? Heavy metals? Hank, Cake, KP and I went, watery-eyed, through several rounds of whole pepper eating, registering the heat and the intensity of the fire, the oiliness of the chili, the sweetness lingering after the heat, and the crispiness of the flesh itself. I pictured all of the lead or copper or whatever heavy metal I might be storing in my cells sizzling as it came into contact with the pepper's oils. Each successive pepper was not quite as hot as the last, but still something to remark on as a flavor outside the realm of the ordinary. It was a severe high, elevating us into a realm of strange calm and sheer experience that lasted for about an hour or two. I will never forget how serene and communal the intensity of the experience was, and how we struggled to describe all of it in words.

The transition between the two pepper experiences was a weird and shaky road, but now I feel like I can savor the differences between these shockingly hot fruits. And I am proud of this little plant in the back room, bearing its last little fruit like a miniature sack of healthful dynamite.