Updated August 14, 2019 Jalapeño Fire The first time I ate a jalapeño pepper was when I was about 16 years old. The friends I had dinner with warned me not to eat one raw, but I ignored their advice and did it just to prove I could handle the heat. I couldn’t. I made the classical mistake of eating the whole thing raw, and then my mouth paid the price of that ardent foolishness. The next popular folly was to run my mouth under the kitchen […]

Grits Tales One of my all-time favorite movies is “My Cousin Vinnie“. I love the scene where Joe Pesci goes into a small Alabama diner with Marisa Tomei and asks the chef what a “grit” is. He describes “grits” to Pesci and the staid New Yorker receives his first lesson on the main ingredient in a classic Southern staple. Our son Eric lives in upstate New York and he loves grits as much as I do. Since the food item is not known in his neck of […]

Stomach Flu Inspiration One day I wasn’t very hungry and decided to take some leftover egg salad mix that I had made and added some extra eggs, mayo, mustard, and paprika. Then I ate it without bread. It was rich, but tasted really good. Later that night I started to get stomach cramps. I could taste the acid in my stomach welling up into my esophagus and thought I made a big mistake. Twelve hours later, I still had the same symptoms and now I was feeling […]

The Ubiquitous Taco Tacos in their simplest form are everywhere. The curved and molded hard shell stuffed with seasoned ground beef seems to be the standard starting point. Chopped tomatoes and lettuce seem to fill out the requirement, and there you have it. Bump it up with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream, and you have what I call a “Spanish Sandwich”. From Taco Bell to the standard Mexican Restaurant, that is what you get. Throw in some salsa or hot sauce and you add a little […]

Memories Of Days Gone By I have recently been haunted by the memories of days when I tasted a hamburger that really had true flavor. I mean the flavor was in the meat, the sauce, the buns, and fresh toppings. I can’t find that anymore in restaurants, drive ins, or specialty hamburger outlets that I seek out. I remember once eating one at a Hamburger Hamlet restaurant in Beverly Hills, California many years ago. The flavor of the meat was incredibly flavorful and cooked just right. Seared […]

Chile Peppers And Heat I remember the first time I ate a raw Jalapeño. It was like fire against my unseasoned tongue. I was only a teenager and had no idea what to do to relieve the heat in my mouth. So I made one of the worst decisions of my life! I put my mouth under a kitchen faucet and let water run through it. What I didn’t realize was that the water actually made the whole situation worse. It just moved the un-absorbed Capsaicin in […]