Clyde Frog writes:

I smoked chile once. Or rather I scored a bag of pot that apparently
had been smuggled in packages of ultra-hot chile, so hot that the
capsicum leeched into the pot (along with a few seeds), and made it
unsmokable. It was so horrible, each toke burned my mouth and lungs,
yet any druggie knows he will continue to use his drug no matter how
adulterated it is (even snorting meth that is mostly drano). And I've
also been in a kitchen where chiles arboles were being sauteed for
some kind of salsa, it should be considered a chemical weapon.

Yesterday I decided to make my own hot sauce, since the stuff I
like seems to be hard to find (like at produce stands a couple
hours away) and/or expensive, and because I wanted to try doing
it. So I bought a mess of jalapen~os, habaneros and a couple of
serranos, got my gloves on, washed and destemmed the peppers, and
was getting ready to blanch them in vinegar when I thought "Hey,
roasted peppers taste better; why not stick these under the broiler
for a few minutes?"

You should probably only do this if you have a working gas mask
handy. It was a lot like the time I was in a bar where someone
had been pepper-sprayed earlier that evening. Lots of coughing.

Anyway, the flavor of the roasted peppers really does come through,
but as it's mostly habanero it's too hot for me to even think about.

ow.


--
Joe Bay Leland Stanford Junior University
www.stanford.edu/~jmbay/ Program in Cancer Biology
The white zone is for loading and unloading only. If you have to load
or unload, go to the white zone. You'll love it. It's a way of life.