[stylist] what I've been reading...

[Chris Kuell]

Hey Vejas,

I love reading. My dream job would be as one of the Choice Magazine 
Listening editors (they read through hundreds of newspapers and magazines 
looking for excellent writing to include in their quarterly publication). I 
got a VR Stream for Christmas in 2010, and that has made listening to books 
even better for me.

I'm glad you enjoyed my story. The part about the main character getting 
Dave's Insanity Sauce from his brother and using it in chili is a snippet of 
my own life. My brother, Dave, gave me the sauce, I really did use it in 
chili, and although I love spicy food, it was so hot it was inedible.

Here's another true, spicy story. I enjoy gardening--not flowers so much, 
but I like to grow my own vegetables. I have a closet in the basement that 
I've turned into a grow room, where I start various tomato and pepper plants 
in early spring before transplanting them outside. I've grown a variety of 
peppers, but my favorite hot peppers are jalapenos and Serrano's (they are a 
little smaller and about10 times hotter than a jalapeño). This past summer, 
I had a good crop of peppers, and of course, couldn't use them all. I gave 
some to my neighbors, my wife gave some away to people at her work, but 
still, come September I had maybe 150 or so hot peppers that I couldn't just 
throw away. So I had an idea. I decided I'd chop them up and put them in an 
old pickle jar with some water, vinegar and salt, which should keep them 
from going bad. I'd keep the jar in the refrigerator and just take a 
spoonful or two out when I cooked this winter.

I started chopping peppers, listening to whatever book I was listening to at 
the time in my kitchen, and all was going well. I'm right handed, so I held 
the knife in my right hand, the peppers with my left, and I'd scoop up the 
chopped peppers with my left hand to put them in the jar. After 15 or 20 
minutes, I noticed the fingers and palm of my left hand was burning. No big 
deal, I thought, and kept chopping. After about a half hour I washed my 
hands several times and kept chopping. In all, it took me maybe 45 minutes 
to chop the peppers and make my pepper concoction, which I was quite proud 
of. My hand was still hot, so I washed it thoroughly. And it was still hot. 
We ate dinner, my wife and daughter went out to the store, and my hand was 
still hot. Not hot, exactly, but it was more like it was on fire. Like I'd 
heated up a pan on the stove and put my hand down on it. So I washed it 
again. I washed it with dish soap, laundry soap, Ajax... and still, it was 
on fire. I remembered how you are supposed to drink milk if you eat 
something too hot--there's some sort of protein in milk that is supposed to 
bond to the oil of capsicum from the hot peppers, so I took out a bowl, 
filled it with milk and stuck my hand in. Oh, sweet relief! I kept my hand 
in the milk for maybe 5 minutes, rinsed it off and dried it... and before I 
knew it, my palm was on fire again. The milk felt real good only because it 
was so cold--it didn't do anything to take away the heat. Now I was what the 
medical books refer to as severely bummed. I took a breath, and tried to 
think logically. The heat in a pepper comes from oil of capsicum. In 
chemistry there is a saying--like dissolves like. In other words, something 
polar will dissolve in something polar. Or, something non-polar will 
dissolve in a solvent which is non-polar. So, if an oil was burning my hand, 
I'd try an oil to get rid of it.

I filled another bowl with olive oil and washed both my hands with it. It 
felt really weird, but I was desperate. I then washed them with soap and 
water, and it seemed to feel a little better. I washed with olive oil again, 
repeated the soap, and definitely felt the heat was diminished. I did it a 
third time and then decided I could live with it. And you know what? The 
following morning, more than 15 hours after I had chopped the peppers, my 
left hand was still a little hot.

I voted myself dumbass of the week. Note to self: next time wear a glove.

chris