hot stuff

Some of you may remember that Marc does the cooking around here. Well, he does the dinner cooking and often provides lunch as well.

Since he's usually had a couple of drinks before he gets started in the kitchen (we eat dinner late), sometimes dinner is, well, unusual. But I always eat what is presented and always say thank you because I am thankful.

And he's become a pretty decent cook.

Fast forward to last night. I was working late filling a mold when he came through and out the back door, flashlight in hand.

Directly he comes back in again with a handful of small jalapenos.

We've been enjoying the peppers off our two plants all summer. He stuffs them with cheese, wrapped with bacon and grilled (or broiled) and they have been really good. Lately though, we haven't been getting much from the garden. The only things left is the okra, bell pepper and jalapeno peppers. As the drought deepened, the fruit has been slow to grow and is not getting half the size of what we got earlier in the summer. Well, except for the okra. It would grow three inches overnight.

When he called me for dinner, he had fixed a pizza with pepperoni, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and jalapenos.

Here's a thing you probably don't know about me. I have a sensitive spot in my throat that when something stimulates it it sends me into a paroxysm of coughing and eye watering followed by sneezing and my vocal chords seizing up so I can't talk to reassure people that I am, in fact, not choking for all the world that that's what it looks like is happening and I'm OK followed by more coughing until it finally eases up and goes away.

This is not to be confused with the times when I actually am choking from having aspirated whatever I'm drinking or in some cases the syrup certain candies make when you eat them (weird, I know, that candy wants to get in my lungs) or the time I was just dreaming I was eating candy and my mouth started watering and I aspirated my saliva. Let me tell you, that wakes you up in a heart beat. Things got a little woozy and Marc had to give me the Heimlich.

I think these two things are related in some weird way. Maybe I was hanged in a previous life or was a glutton that finally choked to death. I am a Taurus and I read somewhere that the throat is the body part assigned to that sign. And all my stuff seems to happen in the throat. In addition to the whole choking/not choking thing I have had to have my tonsils removed and my thyroid is cranky about working too hard.

Generally, jalapenos (or really any kind of pepper but hey, oatmeal has done it too) will stimulate this reaction. And usually, once I make it through the seizure, I can eat whatever set it off with impunity.

So last night when I saw the jalapenos on the pizza I didn't really give it a second thought. I'd been eating them all summer and they had only set me off once or twice. And they were small, maybe only as big around as my little finger. I did notice that he had not seeded them. I usually avoid eating the seeds but I shrugged it off.

I'm sitting down with my plate and he's pointing out to me the jalapenos...easy to see and pick out, he says.

Yeah, yeah, I say. I'm not worried.

Famous last words.

About a third of the way through my piece of pizza, I felt that tell-tale little tickle or scratch and knew what was coming. I always know when it's coming and there is no way to stifle it like you can sometimes with a sneeze. Marc shoots me the 'I told you so' look and keeps eating.

So, calmed down I continued to eat thinking I'm good to go now.

About two thirds of the way through my piece of pizza, I thought I was going to die.

I chewed and swallowed the hottest piece of pepper I have ever eaten in my life. My head exploded, coughing, gasping, rivers flowing from my eyes as it continued to get worse. Burning, oh man, burning. I have my head in my hands, wheezing, when he asks me if I'm OK.

NO. I am not 'ok'.

We don't keep milk in the house so I got up and got some salt out of the kitchen and dissolved that in my mouth. A little tea and I felt like I was going to live.

Oh, man. That was seriously painful.

I went and got my second piece of pizza and carefully picked off all the jalapenos.