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Good peeples:

I regaled you-all about the red savina habanero chillies a few weeks ago, and now dere is mo' noos. Not as interestin' as las' time, but not bad notwit'standin'.

I got a good harvest of the evil li'l red devils, and started drying dem to get de seeds out of dem. They is not big, maybe one-an'-a-haff inches diameta when dey is full size, an' dey don't seem to produce a lot o' seeds. Mebbe 8 or 10 seeds per berry in a good froot. Well I split the nasty li'l devils and put them out in de sun to dry for a while. I wuz reel careful-like doin' dat, coz last time I handled any after de skin wuz broke, I found out jus' how nasty dey is on de inside, and de "nasty" don't wash off to easy either. Dis time , I found out that dey is even nastier than I tho't befo'e.

When these t’ree things wuz jest abo't dry and stiff, I decided to extract the seeds from them. An' I tho't that bein' dry, the spice in them would not rub off too easy. That wuz my first mistake. Second mistake was to not use implements to scrape de seeds off de pulp. Then de height of stoo-piditee, I uses my thumbnails to separate seeds from pulp. When I wuz finished, I goes and washes de hands with de super cleaner soap t'ree times, and uses de nailbrush first and second washes as well. A few hours later, I starts to get a burnin' sensation on de shoulder, and (ya, yo' guessed it) under de thumbnails. So I goes and uses de nail brush ag'in. Mebbe that wuz a bad move, not sure, but it sure didn't help the nails. De only way relif came wuz when I cut de offended nails reel sho't and administered a generous application of anhydrous lanolin (wool grease). Dam', that was a pain, the words "Japanese bamboo torture" passed through my mind mo' than once.

Then there was de customer in de restaurant. I takes de dried husks, an' a few freshly deseeded ones, to de chef, and tells him to keep dem for the smart-ass customer what always complains dat de food ain't pet enuff fo' him. Chef says that de round froots can't be too pet, but I promises him they is. He won't believe me and proceeds to get a piece of de not-dried froot, pop it into his mouth, and chew reel vigorous-like. Now the taste buds for pet are mostly on de back of de tongue, that is why de spicy taste of chillies is sometimes called "afterburn". Dat means dat the swallower don't get the really pet taste until some has been swallowed. After de chef spat out de bits dat he cooden't swallow, I asked him if I should get him some yoghurt from de nearby soopermarket, but he grabbed a spoon from one of de cutlery trays and went to de soopermarket hisself, di'n't wanna waste time waitin' for me to bring it back.

So den there were 2 believers.

Chef tells me dat de smart-ass customer came in a few days after and wanted somethin' or other, pet maak. Chef extracted de rocket fuel from de ice-box, chopped it real fine, and added it to the dish at the first stage. Chef tells me that the earlier the chillies is added to de dish in preparin' it, de mo' thoroughly the pet gets cooked into the other ingredients. He's de chef, I believes him. So he's got the oil hot in de wok, and adds the rocket fuel first. Good recipe for revenge.

Chef tells me that de smart-ass customer couldn't finish de dish, and asked for an extra serve of steamed rice. You all can make up yo' own mines about what the guy wuz feelin.

Goin' back to me de-seedin' dem un-dried froots, I wuz gonna be reel careful. No mo' sizzlin' scrotum, no mo' havin' to cut de nails short, no more pain of any kind. So I tho't. I got me some of dem high-jeanic plastic food preparation gloves and donned de things, and I got out de old industrial safety glasses. Out with de chef's knife and insert a few slices in de froots I wuz about to de-seed. I uses a small spoon to scrape out de seeds, puts all away where it goes, then off's de gloves. Don't know how it happened, but I got pet on my fingers. Lucky, no damage was done, but I grabbed a bit of sticky rice straight after, and as I licked my fingers, there was the faint pet taste.

Mebbe nex' time I gotta handle them evil li'l devil froots, I should use de heavy-duty type gloves. De ones that is good to wear for cleanin' out de bowl of a toilet when some ass-hole has dropped in a mudslide that won't move nowhere when de toilet gets flushed.

But what is we gonna do wit' dese seeds? First, we don't wanna give dem away for others to grow and cruel de market we has potentially got, dat's why we removes dem from de flesh and pulp. Den de wife sez her muvva likes *really* pet, but I is not sendin' no froots to Thailand! So we send her muvva some seeds. We got 19 seeds from de first batch of froots we dried and de-seeded, and we is sendin' dem. Havven' counted de rest of de seeds, but dem ones is stayin' and goin' in de planta pots here. Plant dem out when dey is strong seedlings.

So I sits here and looks at my shortened thumb-nails, and feels the burn every time I thumb the space-bar. But wife can make pok-pok pet with just a half of a chilli, and she is happy, so she is all over me at every opportunity. De uvver Thai women what live ‘round here hold her in awe at bein' able to make pet pok-pok with so little chilli.

But dem ladies don't know about the rocket fuel. Yet.

 

Santa