NIGHTTIME STARS, WRITING, PEOPLE

The chilly air has returned but from what I have read it is not permanent. It is extra dark tonight, heavy overcast and the moon ceased to exist. I don't like not being able to see the stars. I love to stare up at the various constellations and know that they were the same ones that Homer and Shakespeare wrote about, Apelles and Van Gogh drew, that Galileo and Copernicus studied, that Mozart saw from his carriage traveling along the rustic dirt roads from show to show. History's great minds and lives and events all took place beneath the stars that I stare at. The beams of starlight that hit my eyes are old, older than time, I wonder sometimes how old? How much of the very distant past do we really understand? I wonder sometimes if Atlantis was a real place and if so, what did the people think of the constellations? How many did they see that have since burned out and no longer exist for our lifetime? And then I get to thinking about life and how much actually occurs in the span of our short lives and how many emotions we feel, happiness and sadness, fear and frustration, rage and betrayal, hopelessness and pure confidence, euphoria and despair. It is incredible and hard to reason through in only one night, in only one life. Why did say, John Kennedy Toole who worked so hard on his writing, die only to then have it become internationally read? Or why did someone like Van Gogh who spent his meager funds on paint and canvass producing some of the worlds most beautiful art die and then the work becomes immortal, or Mozart who was in desperate financial straits in his life go on to sell over a billion dollars worth of compositions. Not to be morbid tonight but the stars in general get the wheels in my head running on over drive. Sometimes there are so many thoughts it's hard for my pen to keep up. Some days and nights I write so frantically my hand begins to cramp and then just plain paralyzes from over work. When it comes to writing for example I have a compulsion. I have an innate desire, more like an animalistic, primal urge and no matter how much I write I never feel satisfied and thus I have to write more and more. I could sit and write for twelve hours a day, seven days a week and after the twelve hours each day I would try to sneak in some more writing time that night, but of course that isn't feasible because life happens and there are responsibilities that require attention. Not to mention I enjoy the time I get to spend with my family. I hear deer in the woods but I can't see them, the darkness is blacker than oil, thicker than tar and smells of wet leaves and curiosity. Everywhere I sit, every road I drive along and every sidewalk I wander down I see and feel the past, never the future. I wonder if other people are like me? I don't think it is a bad thing, it makes me realize I am a living. I think one of the most challenging things in the world is to put what you see and hear, smell and taste and think down on paper so that it makes some ounce of sense. People don't realize how hard it is to write and how much work it takes. Next to raising children, writing is the hardest thing I have ever done. I mentioned it before and I will say it again, I love to read and learn about people's lives and the most interesting aspects to me, are the mundane everyday parts of people's lives that most people wouldn't ordinarily notice or prefer to read about. I love to read, for example, diaries when they talk about what they ate that morning and the birds they watched during a stroll to the library. I remember reading about Glenn Gould one evening, the piano player, who used to go to a Canadian restaurant at night, I think in Toronto but I can't recall, and he would always order scrambled eggs. I love that. Another time I watched an interview with John Grisham the author who writes the legal thrillers and he stated how he drinks the same kind of coffee out of the same mug every morning. I like to see where people lived, I try and find actual pictures, and where they worked and if they used for example a type writer what kind it was and what it looked like. Someday I want to go and visit all the different places where different people who I find interesting lived and worked for example, William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi and Jackson Pollock in Springs, New York, Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Florida and Piggott, Arkansas, Archimede Seguso in Venice, Apelles in Sicyon, Van Gogh in St. Remy, Mozart in Salzburg, Galileo's villa at Arcetri, Cicero's hometown of Arpino, etc. That is just something that interests me. It's interesting the behavior and nature of people from all walks of life but particularly those who have something that drives them like a mad fog. Maybe that is because I have something that continually pushes me without restraint, the constant need to work, work, work, and yet the next day and the day after that there is still work to be done, and though the work is tedious and I often fall severely ill from lack of sleep and too much coffee, I find the work very enjoyable. Maybe my need to constantly study other people comes from a basic need for me to understand myself. I have strengths and weaknesses and I am very aware of both of them though I shant bore you. Despite the chilly night I have enjoyed very much a cigar and a glass of wine. In about fifteen minutes I will brew a pot of coffee and work. It is starting to get late and the lights from cabins in the distant mountains are beginning to extinguish. Let's hope tomorrow has less wind and more sunshine.

WHEN IT RAINS IN THE MOUNTAINS, CARUSO

It's a funny thing in the mountains, when it rains it seems everybody and their mother heads out to the car for a drive. The roads, all the roads, even small backwoods short cuts are packed with people out driving. Should the sun suddenly come out 85% of the cars on the road would disappear. Today a desperate rain fell, saturating the landscape, the birds on the old oak trees out by the lake huddled together in clusters, the squirrels dashing and peeking out of their leafy nests. My jacket was a light blazer and I headed for the car through the drenching and found a small river separating me from my dry sanctuary of warmth. Unlike Moses I was not able to split the rapidly expanding sea before me and I was forced to wade the wretched stream and upon reaching my parked car I proceeded to remove the minnows that had taken refuge in my loafers. It is on those chilly, dreary days when the rain is determined, I like to turn on the song Caruso, because it's a song that makes me think of the rain in a romantic, poetic sense, falling through the fog into the mountains, like the rains I remember in the countryside of Tuscany. You turn up the rich tenor voice of Pavarotti or Bocelli, the thick, glassy blue and gray droplets plummeting down from the dark clouds enveloping the tops of the dark green mountains. The song is beautiful and nostalgic, cabins lit by candle light and warmed by wood stoves glow on the mountainsides like lanterns along a Venice canal at dusk.

MOUNTAINS AT NIGHT

Well I was driving home tonight, around 9:20 pm. It was dark and I was on an open road looking out at the mountains and the twinkling lights along the mountain slopes, like landing in an airplane and it was beautiful. I felt like I was reading a page of poetry. It reminded me of flying into Quito Ecuador at night and seeing the sparkling lights on the mountainsides like fire flies. One of my favorite things in the world is to fly, particularly at night and in a smaller plane, but I also like the jumbo jet. The only thing is that I feel a bit claustrophobic on large jets that are filled to capacity and people are sitting on top of you, hacking lung, reeking of cheap perfume and talking loudly about their boring lives which they feel is the most interesting thing since Reeses peanut butter cups. My last flight was incredible. I sat in the very last seat on the plane. The noise was so excruciatingly loud I couldn't hear anything but it was a steady rumble so I was able to concentrate on my book while sipping a twelve year old scotch. As the plane began to descend over the lush, warm landscape of Florida I shut off my small reading light and watched the lights of the world glimmering growing closer and closer.

There is something magical and remarkable about driving around the mountains early in the evening when the lights of people's homes are still burning bright and the warm balmy air of a peculiar winter are blowing through the window. In a way it is soothing, somewhat calming and times like those always send my mind reeling back in time to moments in life that I have experienced and in a way the sensation triggers brief mental flashes. It was a pleasant evening. I picked up my daughter and we spent the night watching tweety and sylvester until it was time for bed.

SIMPLE DELICIOUS DISH

SIMPLE DELICIOUS DISH

This dish is one I created and it is absolutely delicious. I am a food junkie and occasionally I will try different combinations of ingredients, some work, most don't. This one worked and it is so simple to prepare.

OCTOPUS PROVENCE
Octopus about the amount of a handfull, make sure its chopped up into bite size pieces. (If you use octopus from a can make sure to wash off well the sauce because it affects the dish and not for the better).

1 teaspoon herbs provence

1 tablespoon olive oil

2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

black pepper

sea salt (not too much)

1/2 cup white rice (unseasoned)

Preparation:
Cook the unseasoned rice first and one ready turn off burner and keep top on rice so the steam keeps rice warm. Sautee the octopus in a skillet with olive oil, chopped garlic, herbs provence, black pepper and sea salt. Cook until octopus is cooked 5 or so minutes (if using cooked octopus cook until garlic is soft, make sure not to burn garlic). Once the octopus is ready take skillet off burner. Place rice on a dish and sprinkle with herbs provence and black pepper (don't add salt, will be salty enough). Then pour the seasoned octopus including the oil over the rice. Let cool for about 2 minutes and ENJOY!

POETRY

Though the weather today was sublime, 60 degrees with scattered sun, I came across a poem I wrote one bestially cold night, first sipping wine then rum. I figure there are a few romantic saps out there who secretly read poetry in dark basements to candle light. It is on those cold blistery nights when the wife is working and the tot is counting sheep when I pull out my old Anthology of poems from numerous poets compiled over the last 300 plus years, pour myself some wine, sit back in my recliner and read. Eventually when I am good and drunk and feeling ambitious I grab a notebook and a pencil and begin to scrawl. The poem I have for you I wrote while sitting outside in near sub-zero temperatures for effect. I wanted it to be as authentic as possible.

GOODBYE WINTER

Written November 28, 2010 at 1:40 am., high in mountains

My bones are chilled beneath chapped skin

my fingers stiff as carrot sticks

the frigid night warms my ears

the wind it howls, pierces and pricks

An inch of wine remains in my glass

An ounce of sleep in my eyes

A day of reckoning is due

The whippoorwills to cold to fly

Goodbye winter, you bastard ruse

And trick us with sweet pumpkin pie

If I play your game I'm sure to lose

So I'm heading to Florida or Kadoesji

RICHARD NIXON, SECRET SERVICE, NEW YORK KNICKS, COLLECTING

I was around 13 or 14 years old and my father had taken me to Madison Square Garden to watch a New York Knicks basketball game. Attending those games are some of my fondest childhood memories. We had great seats, very close to the action, at mid-quart facing the team benches. The electricity at the games was incredible, like sticking a paper clip into an outlet as child and zapping yourself to the moon. And when we attended the playoff games the energy was bumped up that many more decimals. I used to walk into the arena from the tunnel and goose bumps would form on my arms. Those were wonderful times when America was the world powerhouse and hot dogs still cost 25 cents at Grays Papaya. I recall walking into the Garden that night and taking our seats and low and behold, two sections over to the left and one down was no other than Richard Nixon himself. It wasn't the first time I'd seen big names at the ball games and years later while working for the Knicks I met many but never was I so close to a former President of the United States. Eventually the game started and I became distracted by the rough play of the New York greats. It was still during those golden years when players remained on one team for their entire careers and the rivalries were often bloody and venomous. The games were gladiatorial knife fights and the names bigger than life: Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas, John Stockton and Karl "the Mailman" Malone, etc. At some point during the game I had to use the restroom and I descended to the lower floor lavatory. I did my duty and as I was returning to the seat I figured that maybe I would go over and give the old Nixon a shake and perhaps pick up an autograph to auction off at Sotheby's. Nixon was seated two sections above the ground floor and I began climbing the short two flights of stairs to his seat. He had an entire section cordoned off just for him. I was no more than 15 feet away when I was nearly tackled to the floor by a Secret Service agent in silky gray suit wearing a black ear piece. A large caliber nickel plated pistol was holstered beneath his blazer. A few other Secret Service men seemingly appeared out of nowhere and surrounded the former Commander-in-Chief. I was roughed up pretty good but held my composure and didn't fight back. I figured had I laid a knee to the groin of the bestial blond fellow I would have found myself in a Bronx basement and I wanted to watch the 2nd half of the ball game. There were a thousand tense eyes on me, strangers intrigued and wondering the outcome of the confrontation, I could feel them, hoping to watch good old fashion beat down but it didn't happen. I refused to give the barbarous drunks the satisfaction. I circumnavigated the political retinue and returned to my seat and mini cheese pizza which I always got while at a ball game. New York pizza is the best in the world and Madison Square Garden mini pizzas back then were at the top of the list. They cost an arm and a leg but to a 13 year old it was worth it. Needless to say I didn't get my shake or the autograph but it was some kind of donnybrook and very well may have gone down as Madison Square Garden lore. Well there's a first hand account of my run-in with Richard Milhous Nixon, and the Knicks won! As I think I've mentioned before, I am an avid collector, I've always been. As a youth I collected basketball, baseball and football cards, comic books, seashells (conchologist), books (bibliophile), stickers and postcards, autographs (philography), coins (numismatist), quotations, and small flags from a myriad of countries. I studied flags with an obsession and became so knowledgeable my mother called me a "junior vexillologist." I could stand before the United Nations or Rockefeller Center and name all the countries of all the flags. I still love flags, none more so than Old Glory. These days I am still a numismatist, but also a notaphilist (the study and collecting of paper money) and philatelist (the study and collecting of postage stamps), three lovely hobbies I find fascinating and fun and one perk is that it's not expensive. Some day when I have a lot of time I will dedicate three days, one to notaphily, one to philately, and one to numismatics, all three of which I know a great deal about. Well a rerun of the first round of the Northern Trust Open has begun. Nine players sit tied at the top at -4. Mickelson is Even, Padraig doing great at -3.

JESSE DUNCAN, DAVEY CROCKETT, WINTER

It was a day probably not much different than this one, the warm rays of the sun sifting through the tree canopies, the colors of nature vibrant and alive, the scent of the forest soft and earthy, perfumed by wild flowers. The symphony of bird songs everywhere carrying in the gentle mountain breeze. Bluebirds and red birds, yellow speckled with white bellies and beige ones, cawing and chirping, fluting and whistling. The year was 1765. A scouting party of pioneers were making their way from Buffalo Mountain, today located off Highway 23 near the town of Erwin in the Appalachian Mountains, to an area called Boone's Creek, the former hunting grounds of Daniel Boone. A young man named Jesse Duncan was a member of the rugged assemblage. I think of Jesse Duncan as an inquisitive mind, scientifically curious I suppose for he fell behind the rest of the party possibly picking mushrooms or perhaps sketching birds when he was ambushed by a band of feral injuns, slaughtered and scalped. It wasn't long before the others in the scouting party realized young Jesse was missing and backed tracked only to find him butchered along the trail. Legend has it he was the first white settler known to have died and been buried in the state of Tennessee. His grave can still be viewed today. The mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, like slumbering bear, a wild sanctuary of peril and the unknown where families are said to have disappeared into thin air. There is a true story of the family of Davey Crockett. The elder boys of the family were away fighting the red coats in the Carolinas and one frightful evening Davey Crockett Sr. and his wife Elizabeth were killed by a Cherokee raiding party. Davey Crockett's two younger brothers were taken prisoner and his younger sister was scalped but survived. These are wild and unpredictable lands. A buddy of mine told me the story one day of how he was out in the wilderness wandering when he came upon a mother bear and her cubs. He froze and they froze. Both parties eyeing each other when to his horror the cubs began to approach him. He whipped out his knife and prepared for a hand-to-hand battle to the death with the beast like the young Daniel Boone in the backwoods of Boones Creek. My friend said luckily the bear clan moved on and left him alone without a confrontation. It would have saddened him to take down a mother in front of her chillins. With the way the weather is holding up it very well may be near time to plant some crops and hope for a balanced spring and summer of sunshine and rain. The winter has been hard for folks here as well as around the country and particularly in the Northeast where my sisters were snowbound for months forced to trek miles in knee deep snow for bread and milk. Disease ravaged us here in the mountains, fevers of 103 and 104, chills and dry coughs that rattled the lungs like consumption. Good folks perished. Many tears were shed. This afternoon I placed my lemon trees out in the sun. They've been indoors for six months while father winter tipped the scales upside down, laughing hysterically, gusting winds up to 50 mph through the valleys and lowlands, tearing tin off the roofs nearby cabins, shredding umbrellas like origami, sending two ton tree branches hurdling through the air like an apple sapling. But today was beautiful and the birds were out in force, the gofers peeking from their holes, mist still present on the mountain slopes and the deer sniffing about, jumping the wooden fences and bounding through the creeks.

CHIAPAS, HISTORY AND AGRICULTURE OF THE HABANERO

I have a late start today because I was working my fingers to the bone. I work like a mule in the mines. It was a quarter after two and I found myself sitting near the front of an operations management lecture on issues in facility location. It's not quite the attention grabber of say, the history of Blackbeard or Cherokee raiding parties so to say I lost interest is a confident assumption. I lasted though forty-five minutes before my mind finally said, "enough of this rubbish," and left my body there, stiff, my eyes heavy, my ears fried from a linear programming tutorial, gasping for breath, disoriented and fairly hungry. I opened my eyes and was back in 1994-95, standing in the orange glow of a central Mexican bus depot. We spoke with a heavy set, hairy Mexican bus driver with gold teeth who reeked of cheap booze and marijuana cigarettes. We could see pickpockets and perverts in the shadows circling us like jackals. Before long we were herded onto a bus filled with fugatives and gun runners. It was a Comedy of Errors from the start. Those present at the time were myself, my mother, my twin sister, my younger sister, my aunt and my cousin. We were in our seats and the bus set out into the desert night. Earlier my mother had noticed that one of the rear tires of the bus was in questionable condition. In retrospect it was down right hazardous to travel on the tin happy meal. The thug driver at the time only laughed as if we were about to join him at the Russian roulette table and said the bastard wheel was fine, we will move like wind. To me the tire looked to have been knawed by a group of fractious piranha or hacked with a jungle spear. The bus was soon flying brakeless through the night, we said our prayers. Our destination was east to the Yucatan Peninsula. Warm sweet air hit our faces from a lone open window up front and pretty soon we all drifted off to sleep clutching our valuables. Everyone on the bus was jolted awake as the lunatic pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. It was around 3 am and we were in the middle of the thick jungle. Nothing was visible but inky blackness. The mad man was calling in a frantic maydey, "we've broke down and there are Americans on board." We were in northern Chiapas and it was during the time of revolution. The federal government was at war with the EZLN, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, better known as Zapatistas. The Zapatista guerillas were Tzotzil Indians and Tzeltal Mayans. These rebels were working out of jungle strongholds, cut off economically and politically by the Mexican government. We were sitting ducks. The bus driver radioed again for a "maydey," advising again that the bus was broken down and vulnerable and that he had American tourists on board. My aunt overheard passengers in the rear of the bus speaking about Americans being slaughtered and buried in shallow graves. It was quite a precarious situation. The air was tense, the mood restless. I could hear excitment in the peons' voices reminiscent of the spectators awaiting bloody conquests of Ullamaliztli. It seemed like forever before the Mexican Special Foreces arrived armed with AK-47's, Uzis, more grenades than I could count and all wearing dark green bandanas and camouflage fatigues. They surrounded the bus, weapons at the ready while the blown tire was replaced. I figure it was minutes before the bus was overrun by rebels and God only knows what would have become of us. Eventually the bus began rolling again. By morning we were in Merida in the heart of the Yucatan, the land of habanero pepper plantations.

CHAPTER 8: HISTORY AND AGRICULTURE OF THE HABANERO

Very little concrete evidence is known about the origins of the habanero pepper. Some believe it originated in Cuba, the name habanero in Spanish means "from Havana," though the pepper was most likely not originally from Cuba and today is not found in Cuba.

            Barbara Pickersgill PhD, a British botanist, who studies the evolutionary biology of Capsicum, stated that a small habanero was found in Pre-ceramic levels in Guitarrero Cave in Peru, dated 6500 B.C., the pepper thus has been in existence for at least 85 centuries.  Barbara says that since most species of C. Chinense grow wild in South America, that they most likely originated in South America and made their way to Central America and the Caribbean.

            Whole Chile Pepper Magazine wrote in the1989 July issue that the habanero pepper is the only pepper grown in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico that doesn't have a Mayan name.  That is interesting and possible evidence that the pepper was imported to Mexico from elsewhere.

            Others believe it originated in the Amazon basin or nearby coastal regions in Mesoamerica or South America (http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/135231).

            Richard S. MacNeish, an American archaeologist, in his 1964 work titled, Ancient Mesoamerican civilization, claims people were consuming hot peppers as long ago as 7, 500 B.C.

            Dr. Bosland stated in his book, Capsicums: Innovative uses of an ancient crop, a French taxonomist in 1776 orignally mistook the habanero for originating in China, where he attained one of the seeds which is why it is still called today, Capsicum Chinense, meaning the Chinese pepper (Smith and Heiser 1957).

            Seeds were found from a Black Habanero (which is the dark brown colored pepper) that were possibly as old as 7,000 years.  This pepper supposedly has a very unusual flavor and when cooking with it requires using small amounts because of its pungent, different flavor. 

            About 1,500 tons of habaneros are harvested in the Yucatan Peninsula every year.  They are also
grown in Costa Rica, Belize, Texas and California but not to the same extent.

An ancient Greek named Theophrastus (371-287 B.C.) wrote numerous books and a couple on the study of botany.  His two most important works are Enquiry into Plants, and On the Causes of Plants.  He mentioned capsicum, and I am only mentioning this because I find the knowledge of the ancient Greeks fascinating.

            Explorer Christopher Columbus came upon chili peppers in the Caribbean and named them red peppers, believing he arrived in India, after the old world black pepper in the Piper genus, which by the way, is not related to the Capsicum.  Physician Diego Alvarez Chanca sailed on Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493.  He collected chili peppers and returned them to Spain.  In 1494 he stated that they had medicinal properties, wrote Joy Schantz from the Pheniox Historic Destinations Examiner. 

            I think that when it comes to history, the origin of things, and life at various extreme increments of time we are naive.  I think the habanero pepper or an ancestor of the pepper, like the giant palm trees of Easter Island, now extinct, has existed for 50,000 or more years, possibly even 20 million years.  Why do I believe this?  Because of the nature of life, the divine mathematics that, for example, the engineers of the Great Pyramid discovered, and Luca Pacioli taught to Leonardo Da Vinci and other superior intellectuals.  It is that same principle that Mozart used to create the Requiem.  The growth of a plant, like the habanero, and Fibonacci numbers, and its relation to the golden ratio, how the pepper will grow to two inches long and one inch wide, three inches long, two inches wide; its leaves five inches long, three inches wide.  If either the pepper or the leaves continued to growth larger they would gradually get closer and closer to the golden ratio.  Life corresponds to a cyclical phenomena that is ever present everywhere from the swirling of smoke off the cherry of a cigar, to the orbiting planets, to the birth, life and death of living organisms, to every rotating horizon on every known and unknown planet, to the seeds of the habanero plant.  Why is this so?  Because of divine mathematics and simply what was and is and therefore will always be until it is destroyed and forced once again to recreate.  Someday science will be able to, metaphorically speaking, extract from the rings of trees, images of times past.  But by then most of the natural trees will have been destroyed and, like the burned books of the Mayans, we will regret our human instinct to destroy, outweighing the highly intelligent few who long to preserve.  I'm sure there are many books, from many ancient civilizations dating back hundreds of thousands of years that have simply turned to dust over time, been destroyed, or are waiting to be found and will speak of the fiery habanero pepper, rewriting the history books.  Maybe our civilization is still too young to accurately understand that what we know about the past is only the thin layer of something far more complex that hasn't yet been discovered.  The theories and questions are endless.  The mystery of the origin of the habanero pepper lives on.

APPALACHIA, LIFE AFTER DEATH, DRYING AND STORING YOUR HABANERO

Appalachia, a ravenous and beautiful panorama, tucked away in the thickets of history, untouched and untamed, crawling with injuns and wild game, and militias of Overmountain Men like ghosts in the morning mists moving slowly through the lowlands on eternal patrols. Shrieks of loyalist scoundrel like deer feasted upon by bands of coyote, and across the holler, beneath the Georgia pines, the unmistakable smell of stills, tin liquid chicken coops glistening in the moonshine of balmy summer evenings; light bugs like fairies twinkling in the valley yonder, dancing through the branches of two hundred-year oaks to the twang of a granddaddy banjo. The aroma of jasmine and fresh gravy, cured ham and Carolina tobacc-a; Appalachia, where the bacon fat is used in place of olive oil, and the southern drawl’s thick like hoards of July mosquitoes, where the southern bells are sweet like cotton candy at the country fair, and yeoman till and hoe their crop, sow their seed, knead their dough, and love their guns. Appalachia, the last frontier, the final glimpse of America, from the tops of Roan Mountain to Kings Mountain, a fading echo of the glorious ringing bell of liberty, under God to preserve the great doctrine of freedom, and the right to brew beer and hunt squirrel; to distrust in shadows whose execution of sinister design relies on the naivety and tomfoolery and confusion of the multitudes, whosoever may wear that bloody crown in these times of peril and arduous discussion, felt from the surf of the Outer Banks to the weeds and reeds of the Clinch River. We gaze like rummies toward the twinkling heavens, to the Almighty Supreme Being who rules over this vast pimpled landscape of fields and forests, prickly thistles, thousand acre dairy farms and meadows of for-get-me-nots and beds of twenty foot high sunflowers with seeds the size of walnuts, crystal clear mountain springs like liquid glass, glimmering in the sunshine the nuggets of undiscovered gold and grave yards with bald headstones of Revolutionary rebels, former negro quarters, vines and old wine cellars, distilleries and train trestles that touch the clouds; Appalachia.

CHAPTER 7: LIFE AFTER DEATH AND THE HABANERO

It is a question that has intrigued and baffled humans since the beginning of time, is there an afterlife?  And if so, what does it entail, how does the tangible world and the intangible world quadrate?  It is a touchy subject that can separate a room like dueling clans.  Most people I have talked to have varying opinions about the afterlife.  Some follow the beliefs of certain religions, and some have their own ideas.  The poet, Horace, for example, didn't believe there was anything after the mortal life.  He, like many people, think that once a person, animal, insect or plant dies then that is it, and yes I am including animals, insects and, strangely enough, plants because they all have an individual spirit, in my opinion.  Your garden is full of living organisms.  Just because certain living organisms don't have the power of thought and reasoning doesn't mean they are not divinely blessed.  Some say that if you don't believe in heaven or an afterlife then you won't go to such a miraculous place. In my opinion, that is not true and I will try to explain here, though I don't believe there is only one route to the afterlife.  This essay very well may make me liable to confinement in a hen house, but until then, let's run the gauntlet.

            Many have read how Odysseus traveled to the underworld, where he was to offer blood and speak with the dead so they could inform him how to get back to Ithaca.  Odysseus learns about the fates of fellow Achaeans following the fall of Troy and relays the information to King Alcinous.  That is Homer's take on the afterlife for the ordinary soul which he calls "burnt-out wraiths," and it is an interesting one though nothing of plant life was mentioned.  I think that is because the plants go to a place where Zeus' descendants would go after death, a beautiful oasis called Elysium.  Similar to the glorious heaven of Christian belief and "The World to Come" in Judaism in the Talmud, and the heaven where the soul is sent after being judged in Plato's The Myth of Er.  In nearly all the religions it seems the soul is judged on how the mortal lived and either sent to a place of righteousness or despair.  The fact that the sounds of Homer's underworld is filled with wailing and weeping is an uncomfortable thought.  In Judaism hell is called Sheol and the lack of description of such a place, left for the guilty mind to ponder is terrifying.  Surly it is no place for such a beautiful plant, as the habanero, to reside.  In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, "For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals, one thing befalls them: as one dies, so does the other.  Surly, they all have one breath, man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity.  All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust.  Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which go upward, and the spirit of the animal which goes down to earth?  (Ecc. 3: 19-21 NKJV).  From my experience humans, animals and plants arrive in similar fashion to the same destination.  Also all is vanity can correspond to a habanero plant because when two plants are growing side by side in a pot, one of them will dominate the other.  Its desire to grow and survive and be noticed and bear fruit is like the painter who desires his work to be placed on display in the MET or the Louvre.  All is vanity.  One of the most fascinating books of any related to the afterlife is the Talmud.  This is because except for the usually wicked and evil who are eternally punished or cease to exist in any spirit form upon mortal death, both Jews and gentiles are welcome into The World to Come.  The prejudice is left behind on earth and if you were a decent person regardless of your belief you are rewarded. One of the earliest beliefs in the afterlife was the ancient Egyptians.  When the mortal body died, the soul, called ba, which is your personality, and ka, which is your spiritual body go to a place called The Kingdom of the Dead (In Zoroastrianism the soul is also sent to the Kingdom of the Dead).  Osiris would then force your spiritual body to work for restitution for protection in the spirit world.  To reach the afterlife was tedious and one must understand the Book of the Dead, and have a pure heart.  People will say that plants do not have a personality and obviously no heart.  Of course they don't, because the definition of personality refers to the characteristics of a person.  The personality of a plant is yet undefined so shall we define it?  We will call it plantaeality.  They do have plantaeality, for example, they react differently to certain kinds of music and familiar voices. It is an unexplained phenomenon. The ancient Egyptians believed after the Kingdom of the Dead your soul then entered the Hall of Two Truths and your heart was weighted against the Shu or feather.  If you heart was lighter than the feather you go to on to a heaven, if it was heavier it was consumed by the demon Ammit.  The Egyptians also believed that being mummified was the only route to the afterlife and that medicinal plants passed with the Pharaohs to the afterlife where they were utilized.

            In Hinduism the belief is that the old body leaves its shell and takes on a new body.  Though the body dies eventually the soul inside is indestructible.  They believe in Karma, "As you sow, so you shall reap," that is common in other religions as well because of the final judgment.

            Buddhists believe that your actions on earth determine how you are reincarnated.  The worse you were in mortal life the lower on the "totem pole" of life you will be reborn.  In Tibetan Buddhism if you are a pure soul you are guided up into the light.  Those who haven't been briefed or fear the afterlife because of something evil they did on earth do not follow the path to the light and instead are reincarnated into the animal, ghost or hell realm.  I can't imagine a habanero plant would go anywhere but into the light.

            I was baptized a Methodist but I practice Catholicism and like Albert Einstein, I too believe in the afterlife where I will walk amongst flowing fields of habanero trees, giant palms with rich fruits, African violets, lemon trees, while smoking cigars, drinking coffee and wine etc. surrounded by family, friends, and pets.  I was contacted in spirit by my deceased dog during a particular tough period of time only weeks following her death.  It was during this revelation that I was privy to truths regarding the outer limits.  As a man of science and spirituality I was intrigued.  The vision was short-lived, mere seconds but eternal.  For months afterwards, and currently, I sit in the darkness of the mountains and study the celestial motions because the answers to the mysteries of life, to the mysteries of the habanero repose in the heavens.

           

CHAPTER 8: DRYING, STORING AND GRINDING YOUR HABANEROS

To dry your own habanero pepper, tie the stems to a piece of string.  You are going to want to hang the peppers in a dry area that has sufficient air circulation.  The way I do it, is by tying a string to the ends of two thumb-tacks.  I then hang them between a doorway, at the top of the door frame, in a well-ventilated area.  Also you don't want the doorway to be used very often so the peppers won't accidentally get pulled down by any child.  That would not be a pretty sight.  After a few weeks the peppers hue will fade and they will be ready for storage or grinding.  To store them I use freezer ziploc bags.

            Or if you own a food dehydrator, what you do is cut off the stem of the pepper and cut them in half, removing the seeds and placenta.  Halving the peppers will speed up the drying process.  You then place the halves in single layers on the food dehydrator screen within the food dehydrator and turn on.  It can take up to a couple of days to fully dry the peppers, though some will dry within 12-14 hours.  Make sure they are completely dry because if moisture remains in the pepper it will mold once in storage.  While drying the peppers will give off a pungent aroma so be sure to dry in a well-ventilated area.

            If you live in a hot, dry climate, cut up your peppers and stick them out in direct sun.

            You can also place your halved habaneros in an oven at 200 degrees, leave them in overnight, or during the day and after about 6-8 hours you have dried peppers waiting.  Make sure the oven temperature is low so not to brown the peppers.  This method is especially useful for people who live where the air is not dry enough and don't have a food dehydrator. 

            If you are someone who likes to grind your peppers, once they are dry toss them into a coffee grinder.  I recommend purchasing a second coffee grinder for your peppers, especially if you drink high-end coffee like Kona or Jamaica Blue Mountain.  I would recommend the stainless steel mortle and pestle set for grinding, mixing and crushing.

            The best way to master drying, storing and grinding your peppers is through experience and

experimentation.  Find the method that works best for you and it will become a wonderfully addictive

hobby.  You may even begin to concoct your own habanero sauce or spice blend.


P.S. Happy Valentine's Day. I love the Holidays.

2-YEAR-OLDS, WHERE IDEAS COME FROM, RANDOM SULTRY WISDOM & A COUPLE RECIPES

I stepped hesitantly onto the scale this morning, wary after raiding the fridge at 2 am. and again at 4. I was in search of basted quail but settled on pig. I rang in at 201 lbs.; up two pounds from yesterday. My weight fluctuates like the mood of a two-year-old after chocolate. The mountain air is dry, the deer are restless, everything is still, the branches, the grass, still and nostalgic like an '80's polaroid. The weather girl says no less than 50 degrees for the next 10 days. "And hopefully humid," I shout at the television screen, my first words of the morning. I step outside to recycle a can and I'm nearly knocked from my feet by an arctic blast. The warm front had not yet arrived I guessed. The cold air makes me feel barbaric. I headed over to the local market, disheveled and demanded the most non-lean, sodium rich bacon in slices thick like the tongue of an elk. I cooked it crispy with onions and paprika. I drained the stodgy pieces on paper towel and then, in a linear fashion, placed them on top of over-easy eggs sprinkled with parsley and ground black pepper. On the side, home fries, Russet potatoes cubed and sauteed in olive oil, red onions, habanero, black pepper and a little sea salt. The act of cooking well is a fundamental necessity in life for happiness and in my case temperance. My wife, two-year-old and I have long and animated converstaions about food and its artistic properties, which lead us into discussions about wall art, Mickey Mouse, toe jam, and properly sculpted play dough. The terrible twos they call it. I can't disagree. But in a way she resembles not a bi-pedal homosapien, or even a neandertal, but instead the Napoleanic birds on the feeders tearing each others' feathers out for seed, or the mad, somewhat rabid giraffes on Animal Planet banging skulls over territory and sex. Of course I say it all in good humor, my "chewy" is the M&M in my bowl of peanuts and raisins, she's sprightly and vastly intelligent for being 20 inches high. In a wily moment of infant genius, the other night, the tot handed me her empty glass of milk and vociferously stated, "more wine!"

CHAPTER 5: WHERE THE IDEA TO WRITE THIS WORK ON HABANERO CAME FROM

I don't believe I have mentioned yet where the idea to do this research came to me. I needed to write something. The creative juices were flowing and once this happens it becomes a sort of obsession.  I began writing about something or other, then put it aside and started on a different idea, trashed it, started another one, trashed that one, and this went on for five or six attempts over the course of about two weeks and about 250 wasted pages before I began the habanero research.  I don't continue writing something unless the work begins to write itself, and sometimes I am a quarter or half way finished with a project before I realize that it just isn't working and I scrap it.

            My epiphany occurred on the first day of a statistics class.  "Statistics, why do we need it?" The professor asked.  The silence that followed that question was deafening.  But I knew what answer was pictured in every student's head in the class.  It was the first day of what I suspect might be the start of a fifteen day journey through unadulterated hell.  I enrolled in a summer business statistics course, 3.0 credit hours on my way toward graduation in May of 2011.  I am an accounting major.  Symmetry, balance, thinking on a rational plane is what I am being trained to do.

            If you are not familiar with the discipline of statistics, it is nothing less than, in my opinion, unmitigated muss! A mixture of dissimilar ingredients: words, numbers, and sounds, data, symbols and random shapes plugged into what appear to be either formulas or medical mysteries, producing endless strings of decimal points, parameters, guesses, etc. which lead not to an answer but what may be or may not be right but also could be close or might be close later.  I survived Problem/Stats, the first level of statistics, did O.K. but not without losing a piece of my God given sanity, not without questioning the purpose of life and the reasons behind obscure things like fluid friction's effects on fluid motion and logograms and syllabic glyphs.  The thought of the habanero pepper had not yet crossed my mind.

            Statistics, why do we need it?  In business as in anything people have to make decisions.  We have to make decisions even though uncertainty exists.  Will we always make the right decision?  Of course not. Do we also say no to wine on a school night? Never! And because we don't always make the right decision, proves that statistics has an advantage to practical life and business situations as well.  The advantage of statistics is that it enables us to make a decision even though we don't have 100% of the information.  How about the decision of whether or not to mince habanero peppers and then rub your eyes?

            We were to focus on two branches of statistics:

1) Descriptive Statistics- Describing a collection of data quantitatively. What does it look like, what is the middle point, how much valuation?

2) Inferential Statistics- I'm going to tell you what something is by using other sets of information.  For example I infer about a population by using a sample from that population.  The population is the larger group of interest.  The sample is only part of the population.  It is a subset of the population.  But when using a sample you have to be careful.  You must use a Random Sample.  To be a random sample the probability of selecting that sample should be equal to selecting any other sample within the population.  There are two necessary assumptions in order to do inference; one of those assumptions is that you need a random sample.  If I take a sample that is not random, I can't tell you anything relevant about the population.  Another assumption, that is accurate 90% of the time is you have to have a Normal Distribution.

            How are we going to do this?  There are tools that we will use to assist us through the formulas to reach the necessary information.  They may also be referred to as symbols representing something.

            x - is called x-bar.  That is the sample mean.

            s - is the sample standard deviation.

            m - is called mue - is the population mean - (the average that corresponds to the whole population).

            p - is an estimate

            ii - is called pie and is the proportion of the population.

            o - sigma - the population standard deviation.

            The parameter is the characteristic of the population (pie, mue, sigma)

            How do we decide about the population parameter?  There are two ways a question is asked which identifies which method you use to solve the problem.

            Question 1: What do you think the population parameter is? (A question with the population parameter unknown, you will have to estimate the value of pie, mue or sigma).

            Question 2: This is the population parameter. (Statement)  What do you think?

            If it is Question 1, and an estimate is needed we use a Confidence Interval. If it is Question 2, a statement, we use a Hypothesis Test.  The key thing to look for is what is the question.  That will determine what is used.

            Say I tell you that mue equals 8.  You have to take a sample of the population because it is too expensive and time consuming to draw a conclusion using the everyone in the population.  You take a sample.  What is your best guess that mue equals 8.  For this you would use x-bar.  mue equals 10 and x-bar equals ? (a number).  x-bar doesn't have to equal 8 because it is smaller than the population, remember, it is only a sample of the population.  Say mue equals 8 and x-bar equals 8.  You will then have a pretty good chance that mue actually does equal 8.  If mue equals 8 and x-bar equals 7.7, you are not sure mue equals 8 but it most likely is equal to 8.  If there is a small difference between what mue equals and what x-bar equals you are likely to believe that mue equals, in this example 8.  If mue equals 8 and x-bar equals 50, most likely mue doesn't equal 8.  x-bar equals 50 is not representative of the the population.

            Here is a wonderful question and answer that pretty much sums up statistics.

Question:  "How much difference does it have to be, to be small or large?"

Answer:     "It depends."

            It is at this point my mind began to drift and the image of a habanero popped into my brain.  I started pondering whether or not it would be possible to genetically mix a habanero and jalapeno pepper, creating a jalabanero pepper?  Then I started to wonder if I would be able to write a book focusing on habanero peppers but also talking about life all across the spectrum without losing the reader along a wild river of stream of consciousness.

            The rain was pouring down outside and strangely enough the time was flying by.  When the professor awarded us a 10-minute break I have to say my hand was cramped, my brain was next to fried and my back was having mild spasms.  Should I remind you that this was day one.  At first I suspected caffeine withdrawal, then cursed myself for staying up until 2 am the night before reading about Minoan Civilizations by Stylianos Alexiou.  Sooner or later one must except the fact that one is taking on four months worth of statistics in three weeks and one just has to grit and bear it.  It is an ominous reality.  Once I regained control I realized that there was still an hour and a half to go and we weren't even through Confidence Intervals with sigma given.  I exited the classroom to use the Lue.  Standing in front of the urinal I could think of nothing but habanero peppers.  Upon reaching the sink to wash away any germs that were sent airborne on water particles during the flush, I noticed the sink water stank so bad like sulphur I soon forgot about the peppers and instead tried to justify the use of sulphur in university sink water.  I returned to my seat and spoke briefly with another classmate about the World Cup.  Before long the professor returned to the front of the classroom, my friend Lincoln returned from filling his water bottle, other students returned from smoking cigarettes, retrieving snacks from a nearby vending machine, or fooling around in the student parking lot and it was time to continue Confidence Intervals with sigma given.  It was at that point I decided that I would write an essay on habanero peppers and life in general in the formula similar to Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists from the 3^rd century A.D., in my opinion one of the greatest books ever written.  I only tell you this because I know out there in this big, brutal world there are inquisitive people, like myself, who like to learn about how and when writers first decided when they were going to write whatever it is they decided to write.  What was the ambition, the show on television, article in the newspaper, everyday madness, or moment in a statistics class that inspired the research and work?  Sitting in a statistics class high in the mountains is one way to find inspiration, worked for me.

            For me, writing is a very enjoyable hobby but I also am very regimented in how I go about it.  The preparation, research note taking etc., though, is done often at any time and anywhere an idea comes to mind.  I am always scribbling down notes and ideas.   I keep pens and scraps of paper in my pockets and book bag, and I used to keep them in my briefcase while working at the bank as well.  When it is time to begin the work I will wake between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning, brew a pot of coffee, sit in the same spot everyday and drink it black while I write. I can work all day long until it is time to pick up the little one. Writing is a much more difficult task then people realize.  Once you get into it you find that you are soon sleep deprived, practically malnourished because you spend all your time concentrating on your work and forget to eat, the laundry piles up, the lawn becomes a jungle, the house slowly begins to fall to rack and ruin and it takes so much out of you to keep everything balanced. That was a joke. So all in all that is where the idea for the paper came from.

CHAPTER 6: A COUPLE RECIPES

The recording of recipes and their use has been around since the 1600 B.C. and was discovered on an Akkadian tablet from southern Babylonia.  Ancient Greek recipes have survived the ages and they had cookbooks.  There are also ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics about food preparation.  Roman recipes are known, the most well known is Cato the Elder’s De Agri Cultura (Manual of Farming), an essay of Cato’s knowledge and experiences including a section that consists of recipes for farm products like Coan wine, which is wine from the Greek Island of Kos.  It is made with sea salt which gives it its distinctive saltiness.  According to Pliny it was created accidentally when a slave added sea water to the must trying to meet production quota.  What he invented became a popular drink with a solid reputation in Classical Greece says Greek Historian, Strabo (63 BC – ca. AD 24).  It was held in the same regard as the popular wines Lesbian and Chian.  Cato also mentions a recipe for Vinum Graecum, which is an imitation of sweet Greek wines exported to Italy during the Roman Empire’s rule.  Cato the Elder was a Roman statesman, soldier and author.  He was born in 234 BC and died 85 years later.  He is the one who made the famous quote, “This corn is well grown and Carthage must be destroyed.”

            A large collection of recipes called “Apicius,” from between the 4^th and 5^th century, according to Samuel Pegge possibly authored by Calius, written in Vulgar Latin, is the only surviving cookbook from the classical world that is complete.  The name Apicius corresponds to a “love of food” after a Roman gourmet and indulger of luxuries, Marcus Gavius Apicius, who lived around the 1^st century AD.  The text is arranged into ten books.

1) Epimeles – The Chef

2) Aeropetes – Fowl

3) Cepuros – From the garden

4) Pandecter – Various dishes

5) Ospreos – Peas, beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc.

6) Sarcoptes – Meats

7) Polyteles – Gourmet dishes

8) Tetrapus – Quadrupeds

9) Thalassa – Seafood

10) Halieus – Fish

            Interestingly at the time in Italy, tomatoes and pasta had not yet been introduced to the region, which create recipes for Italian cooking so well known today.  Antiquary, Samuel Pegge (1704-1796) who, in 1791, the year of Mozart’s death, published an edition of the Forme of Cury (a compilation of old English cookery that we will talk about next) said, “As to the Romans; they would of course borrow much of their culinary arts from the Greeks…”

            In 1390 King Richard the II of England commissioned a book of recipes titled “Forme of Cury.  A Roll of Ancient English Cookery.”  It is a collection of approximately 205 recipes (depending on version) authored by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II.  The name, Forme of Cury, was penned by, above mentioned, Samuel Pegge.  Here is an example of one of the recipes, written in Middle English originally on vellum.  I selected an oyster recipe since oysters are my favorite food.

XIV. FOR TO MAKE OYSTRYN IN BRUET

They schul be schallyd [1] and ysod in clene water grynd peper safroun bred and ale and temper it with Broth do the Oystryn ther’ynne and boyle it and salt it and serve it forth.

[1] Have shells taken off

           

            Just so you know, I don't add to much: salt, sugar or butter AND NO lard to my cooking and you would never know (except maybe for salt) when eating one of the dishes without being privy to the ingredients.

PAELLA WITH HABANERO

3 cups of rice

5-6 cloves of garlic minced

1 orange habanero pepper minced

5 tbls. olive oil

7 cups of water

2 bouillon cubes

1 tbls. oregano

1 small yellow onion

2 tsp. black pepper

2 tbls. of parsley

1 tsp. taragon

1 tsp. sweet paprika

fresh rosemary (for garnish)

1/2 cup of peas

1 generous pinch of saffron

1/2 red bell pepper chopped

1 green bell pepper chopped

1 lb. chicken 1-2 inch chunks (optional, can also use duck, fish, rabbit, etc)

10-15 clams (optional, can also use mussels)

1/2 lb. shrimp (optional)

1/2 lb. scallops (optional)

5 oz. tomato sauce

  In a large skillet, saute the onions, garlic, parsley and oregano in olive oil until the onions are transparent.  Add the chicken, red and green bell peppers, habanero, black pepper, sweet paprika, taragon and saute until the chicken becomes white.  Add the tomato sauce and three cups of uncooked rice and cook for 3-4 minutes.  This will give each grain of rice a nice flavoring.

            Pour the contents of the skillet into a large pot.  Add the 7 cups of water and two bouillon cubes.  Add the peas.  Turn the burner onto high until the water begins to boil, cover and lower the flame so you have a simmer.  Cook for 15-18 minutes.  Stir in the shrimp and scallops and place the clam on the top.  If the rice appears to be getting dry add more water.  Cover the pot and continue cooking for another 3-6 minutes.  When the clam shells open they are cooked.  If any of the clam shells do not open discard them.  DO NOT PRY OPEN AND EAT!!  Turn off the flame and let sit for five minutes.  Serve and enjoy.

            The practice of eating rice mixed with vegetables and fish, chicken, fowl, etc. came from the Moors around the 15th century.  The paella that people are most familiar with today originated in Valencia, Spain in the 18th century.  It was on special occasions that paelleras would cook rice in their orchards near lake Albufera.  Marsh rat was one of the early ingredients for the dish, along with eel, land snail, and butter beans.  The eating of marsh rat was mentioned by novelist Vincente Blasco Ibanez in Canas y Barro.  Depending on country or personal preference ingredients vary from dish to dish.  Often the paella is prepared from whatever vegetables and meat is around combined with rice and spices.

MANGO COD WITH HABANERO

4 fillets of tilapia

1/4 - 1/2 cup of blended mango (about 2 - 4 mangos)

1/2 orange, red, white or pink habanero pepper minced

3 cloves of garlic minced

olive oil

1 red onion cut into strips

fresh parsley (for garnish)

lime juice

            Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

            Blend at least 1/2 cup of fresh mango (about four mangos).  Smear each fillet with the blended mango and drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle the minced garlic on each fillet.  Wearing latex glove, sprinkle minced habanero onto each fillet (Be careful not to add too much.  EXTREMELY HOT!!) Place 3-4 strips of red onion onto each fillet.  Three drops of lime juice evenly on each fillet (one drop on the left end, one in the middle and one on the right).  You don't want to taste the lime juice but rather for the fillet to have a hint of lime.  Place into the oven uncovered and cook for 20-25 minutes or until cooked all the way through.  Remove from oven, garnish each fillet with fresh parsely, serve and enjoy.
Tilapia is a fresh water fish usually found in lakes and rivers.

LAWS OF THE JUNGLE- FACTS AND FABLES & GROWING YOUR OWN HABANERO

I sat in the living room sipping my first cup of coffee in seven days and watched the legion of birds at the feeders like a hungry reptile. They are graceful in flight, zigging and zagging with marvelous percision, landing and taking off, never colliding as if impressed with alien navigational control systems. I was a vigilant lookout for the neighbor's devious and portly cat who sneaks in and around the brush like Sasha Siemel in the Matto Grosso. This is no ordinary cat. Its intelligence rivals that of an elephant. I have noticed the beast, long-haired and black and white in color, hanging from nearby tree branches, watching, measuring. I've seen it perched volumptuously on the roof of an exotic car just observing as if in a sickly daydream. I've chased it down through the hollow like an injun set on a scalp. This cat would arrive upon the feeders in a parachute if it had the financing. In this situation the optimal foraging theory goes out the window. I've never seen a predator expend so much energy, regularly, on a hunt. It is no longer about food for survival, or the blissful quest for satisfying some sexual privation, but sheer, unadulterated obssession, unquenchable like Sir Thomas Phillipps.

I watch the birds and sketch them and realize that their favorite dish is not the minced matsutake mushrooms, the sevruga caviar, nor the Devon crab but instead, the orginial bird seed. I was intrigued. They seemed content with the simplest of the variety. I as well lean toward a dish with a simpler combination of ingredients, though my appetite is boundless. I particularly enjoy those dishes that have been passed down and perfected for generations. I also love the stories behind the different recipes and I push for people to pick their brain for the origins and adventures that all recipes come from, both the romantic and tedious. They are the manifestations of people's lives, culture, and individual preferences, people who today are only memories, pictures and mysteries, but all who were once living and breathing. I am fascinated and study often and in depth the lives of people, both the princes and peons, pie-maker's and patriarchs. Speaking of yarns, I have some strange tales and facts about the habanero pepper, a continuation from yesterdays wild row down the Croton River of my mind.

CHAPTER 3: MYTHS AND LORE

I came across a great article from Fiery-Foods and Barbeque Magazine written by Dave Dewitt titled "Chili Peppers: Legend and Lore."  I was intrigued by what I read and kept it in the back of my mind and when the idea to compile this research came to me I remembered  this article.  Though it doesn't focus on habanero peppers the habanero could be associated with a few of the legends.  Here are a couple of the great ideas and stories from the article.

            Capsicums are located in the dominion of Mars in astrology.  Mars is the ancient Roman God of War, and to me, a well educated and voracious reader, it made sense because, as I mentioned earlier, capsaicin extract had been used for thousands of years as a weapon in battle.  Whether that has any relevance to the astrological title is only my opinion, but it would make sense.  Others might say that it is cayenne pepper that corresponds to Mars because Cayenne pepper is red.  It seems everybody has their own opinion and they have a right to that opinion, if they are well armed.

In the year 1690, Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman wrote that people who ate red chilies were protected from poison.  From this I can't draw any conclusions because I don't know what kind of poison they are referring and maybe there was a kind of, for example, mushroom that was used as poison where capsaicin worked as an antedote.  Who knows, that was 400 years ago, but I believe with every myth and legend, if you go back far enough you will find elements of truth.  Too bad we don't have more details about this so called poison. Fuentes y Guzman was born in Guatemala in 1643 and was the great-great-grandson of the Indies historian Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a member of Cortez's expedition that destroyed Montezuma and the Aztec Empire. Cortez once said, "We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure."  I'm sure the Cortez expedition also stole from the Aztec's, their habaneros. 

A cure used for children, and possibly adults as well, for the evil eye, or bad luck, is when parents mix chili peppers with annatto seed in a cloth bag and pass it over the child's body while making the sign of the cross.  The bag is then thrown into a fire.  Whether or not that has any effect on a child's future luck is up for debate but it is an interesting concept.  I associate it with how the chemical compounds in soap adhere to the chemical compounds of grease thus cleasing the pan of the grease once rised by water.

Dave also wrote about how in Trinidad a similar practice was used except the people use seven red

peppers, salt, onion, and garlic wrapped in paper and pass it around a baby seven times to remove the evil

eye which they associate with unnecessary crying.  Green chili peppers are then dropped around the

doorway to keep away evil spirits.  Now I am a firm believer in the spirit world, in the afterlife if you will, but

I don't dwell much on the evil spirit world.  In fact I have never given evil spirits much thought, but I have, in

the deepest layers of my dreams and at the heart of my belief, entered a transcendent reality.  Absorbed in

the Infinite Light, and with me was my deceased dog who passed away last February, God rest her soul. 

Call me crazy, call me zealot, I call it remarkable.  Anyway some of these practices, to me, don't seem all

that far-fetched in concept, but scientifically speaking I guess you have to view them subjectively and

formulate your own opinions.  It is funny how something as simple as a pepper can open the conversation

and thought process to encompass something so complex and inscrutable. Genesis 1: 11-12 Then God said,

"Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it,

according to their various kinds."  And it was so.  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed

according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.  And God saw that it

was good.

In the Southwestern states of the United States, two nails are tied together in the shape of a cross with a piece of wire.  It is placed in a fire and when it is hot, it is removed from the flames and placed on a rock.  A string, also called a ristra, of small chili peppers is placed on top of it, and then rock salt is sprinkled on top of that.  The vapors from this concoction are said to chase away any witchcraft in the area.  Once again you can believe this practice works or you can be skeptical and assume it is old fashion attempts to make sense of what we scientifically can prove today, it is up to you.

R.N. Chopra, in his book, Poisonous Plants of India, claims that if you eat too many chili peppers you will die.  In a way Chopra is correct because too much capsaicin is, as mentioned earlier, toxic, but in incredibly large doses.  Supposedly the Bajak natives of Borneo used chili pepper extract as an ingredient in their arrow poision.  Again, poision is mentioned.  Maybe if it is mixed with other chemical compounds there is a chemical reaction that causes the poisionous qualities of chili pepper extract are magnified?

There are many legends and myths about chili peppers and their uses both for good and bad.  I find it all fascinating. I came across an article one evening by a person who wittingly calls him/herself Detective

Habanero.  Just the name alone I thought was grounds for a pulitzer nomination.  The article was titled, A

Short and Sordid History of Pepper Spray.  The article, it says in a small preface, first appeared in "Fire in

the Eyes," a chemical weapons primer insert in the (Dec/Jan) 2000 issue of the Earth First! Journal. 

Interestingly the article states that the ancient Chinese used to grind up pepper, place it in rice sacks and

throw it into the face of enemy combatants in battle.  Detective Habanero lists the pepper used as cayenne,

and not habanero, but, habanero could also be used in a similar fashion and would burn even hotter.  Once

again and I believe for the third time, pepper has been mentioned in the same line as war.

CHAPTER 4: GROWING YOUR OWN HABANEROS

Whether you are interested in growing habaneros from seeds or from an already growing plant, you first need to decide whether you want to cultivate your plant in a pot on the deck, patio, window sill or out in a garden.  Myself, I prefer to grow my peppers in a pot on the deck because I live in the mountains of Tennessee so winters are freezing.  I have to bring my plants in-doors for the winter and then they really slow down in growth rate.  It is amazing to see, it is as if they go dormant once the cold sets in even though they are receiving sunlight, water and live in a comfortable temperature.  There is just something about that spring and summer sun.

            My choice of potting soil is Miracle-Gro, usually whichever bag is onsale.  It is affordable and it works just fine.  There are better soils or so I have heard but why change what works.  I have not experimented with soil other than planting a few peppers in the thick copper-colored Tennessee clay mixed with fertilized soil and it worked just fine but come autumn and winter, good-bye plants.  My one warning to you is never use anything with peat.  I never have and I don't know why it doesn't work well with your pepper plants but they will not grow very healthy.  An old sage from the Appalachian Mountains once gave me that advice and I have never used peat.

            I am telling you about soil that is onsale because I started becoming heavily into gardening while a dirt poor college student.  I barely had two nickles to scratch together but all you really need to get started is a .99 cent pack of seeds (though I have found that seeds from a fresh pepper work better) or a $2.95 habanero plant in its infant stages purchsed from your local nursery works wonderfully.  Use a plastic maxwell, folgers or any plastic or glass container with holes in the bottom for drainge, a $6.95 bag of soil and then you are ready to go.  As your peppers mature and you begin to consume them, save the seeds and plant them.  They will grow into beautiful pepper trees.

            Once you have all the supplies you fill your pot with soil, about 90%.  I always leave about an inch at surface, but it is not really necessary if you'd rather not.  With seeds I usually sow 2-4 seeds per one gallon pot, more or less depending on the size of the pot, about five or six inches apart.  I bury the seeds about an inch below the surface of the soil.  Eventually the trees will need to be placed in their own, medium to large pots.  In the ground they should be spaced from 2-3 feet apart.  Water well initially but not too much.  I moderatley water my seeds everyday during the germination period and especially if it is in a pot outdoors and the weather is dry and hot.  Germination can be anywhere from 14-30 days.  The habanero is a slow germinating seed.  Using liquid fertilizer helps with germination and also sprinkling a teaspoon of bonemeal over the soil every 2-4 weeks helps with germination.  Bonemeal is often used with growing roses as well and can be found in any hardware store or nursery.  And I am talking about a plant nursery for you beginners out there, not a nursery for children.  You would be surprised at how many non-gardeners or beginner gardeners misinterpret that word.  If transplanting a plant, keep watered well for the first week until the plant is established and then when needed.  When growing from seeds, after approximately one and a half to two months green peppers will appear where the flowers had been.  These are immature peppers.  After around 3-5 months you will have full ripe habanero peppers ready to consume. 

            The seeds prefer warm soil so keep the pot or container, if possible, in a room or outside temperature in the high 70's to mid 80's.  If the plants are outside and able to be relocated and the temperature drops below 50 degrees farenheit, bring them inside.

            The habanero is a perennial flowering plant.  If taken care of it will produce flowers which means it will bear fruit, and you can enjoy peppers from the same tree for years.  If you live in a tropical or sub-tropical climate your tree will produce year round.

            Knowing when to harvest your peppers is easy.  Once they are orange, red, pink, white, or

chocolate brown they are ready to be picked.  Once they are picked it is best to keep them at a cooler

temperature for preservation.  They have a thin skin and don't fair as well at room temperature.  I usually will

freeze the peppers I don't plan to use within a week or so, and they are just fine when I am ready to cook

with them.  I will wrap one in wax paper, place it in the microwave for 10 seconds and then it is ready to be

sliced.  When cutting up a habanero I recommend you wear plastic gloves or baggies covering your hands. 

As I mentioned in the first chapter I learned the hard way why covering your hands is a smart idea.