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

[Ashley Bramlett]

oh no, hope that boy was okay.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jacqueline Williams
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 3:45 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] what I've been reading...

Chris,
Your story of the peppers brought another memory of Africa. A little English
boy was visiting us, and we had a pepper plant in a row of other bushes. He
started picking the little red pepper. I am not sure what he did with them,
but before I got to him, he was rubbing his eyes. Thank goodness you did not
do this. We ended up taking the boy to the hospital.
An interesting story.
Jackie

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 9:11 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] what I've been reading...

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


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