Your Lesson For The Day

Here's a handy formula you may want to write down: Finger food + Tabasco sauce + itchy eye = Danger. Very very danger. You may want to stick it on your refrigerator to remind yourself. I know I will.(from Deans World)

Which reminds me of another lesson: Here in the Southwest many of us follow the tradition of buying large quantities of green chili every fall. To process the chili for use throughout the year, the pods are roasted (usually at the point of sale) in large wire mesh drums that rotate over a propane flame (to me this is the best smell of autumn). The chili is next dumped into plastic garbage bags and taken home. We generally let the chili rest in the plastic for several hours. The next step is to bag the chili into usable amounts and then freeze them (we double bag in quart zip-locks; single bagging tends to leak when thawed). Depending on how much you buy, this can be pretty time consuming. Not only do you have to be careful not to scratch your eyes, it's best to wear gloves to keep your hands from burning (not from heat but from the chili).