Confessions of a Chilihead

A healing meditation for Sally.

2011-04-10T12:01:00.002-04:00

Sally is my helpmeet and one of my best friends. We have some important plans together to save Haiti or at least part of it, and the whole world by spiritually overly-optimistic intention. She and I met on twitter and became fast friends during the Haitian Earthquake crisis. Sally is very dear to me is an absolute angel to everyone whose life she touches. And I need her. So, I'm asking for your help to save her. Melody is sitting with her now and holding her hand, except she looks like a little old woman, who Sally will recognize instantly as her mother. (There are literally tears streaming down my face as I describe this vision I have just been blessed to feel.)

Anyway, I'm already late, so let's get this out there!

Sally is currently in a battle for her life with pancreatic cancer. The doctors have given her two months. We want to call their bluff and go all in. So, we're calling on lightworkers everywhere to participate in a global healing. The more people we can get praying, the more effective the efforts will be, so please, pass it on.

You can use your own healing meditation/prayer if you are more familiar with one, but this is the Meditation I will be doing. I welcome you to follow it.

Please, share this prayer/meditation request with anyone and everyone you know who might comply and ask them to pass it along as well. The power of prayer is the most powerful tool we have.

In light and love,

Tina (and Melody).

Full credit for my meditation must be given to Copyright © 2003 - Guru Rattana, Ph.D. Learn more, by clicking here: http://www.kundaliniyoga.org/kyt23.html

Here it is:

Healing Meditation Instructions

Yogi Bhajan has said that the mantra RA MA DA SA SA SAY SO HUNG is one of the most powerful healing mantras on the planet. The power of this mantra comes from its ability to connect earth and ether. This mantra is used in many meditations taught by Yogi Bhajan. Below I explain one of the most popular meditations.

RA MA DA SA is the earth mantra.

This part of the mantra pulls the healing vibration into the physical plane.

SA SAY SO HUNG is the ether mantra.

This part of the mantra resonates with the universal healing frequency.

RA - Sun
MA - Moon
DA - Earth
SA - Infinity
SAY - totality of infinity
SO HUNG - I am Thou

Activating the Chakras
The mantra can be vibrated up the spine, chakra by chakra. Slightly pull on the energy centers as you chant each sound. This internal stimulation helps activate and align the chakras.

RA - base of spine
MA - belly (ma aa)
DA - navel center
SA - heart
Pause - hold at heart
SA - heart
SAY - throat ( say ay)
SO - third eye
HUNG - out the top of the head

To Begin
Set your intentions and ask for healing for yourself, others you wish to include, the Earth and Yogi Bhajan. Then release these prayers to the universe. During the meditation concentrate only on doing the meditation, the mantra and the effects you are experiencing. Get into the sensory experience and awareness. The more you are present to your experience, the more effective you are in creating a sacred healing space. You will use the space that you have created at the end to share healing energy.

Position - Mudra
Sit in Easy Pose (or full lotus) with your upper arms resting against your ribs, slightly in from the sides. The elbows are bent, and your forearms
positioned upward and slightly angled out from the upper arms. Your palms are flat, facing upward and pointed out from your body at a 45-degree angle.
(to form a 45% angle point the hands are over the legs toward the knees.)
The fingers are together with the thumbs stretched out towards the side away from the fingers.

It is very important to stretch the thumb away from the fingers. The stretch in the webbing keeps the hands flat and helps maintain a stretch at the wrist. You can use one hand to push down the other hand in order to get a feel of the correct stretch in the wrist. It is this stretch that helps balance the brain. When the thumb is not stretched, the wrist relaxes, the hands move upward and the mudra and its effects are compromised. When the mudra is accurately done, you will feel energy or a pull in the center of the palms. This creates the power to heal with your hands.

Your eyes are focused at the tip of your nose and the eyelids are nine-tenths closed. The focus at the tip of the nose, creates the pressure to cross the optic nerves at the third eye. You should be able to feel an awareness at the third eye and be able to hold your attention there.

Chanting
The mantra is to be chanted in either of the following two versions:

Inhale deeply and chant the mantra all in one breath. Ra Ma DA SA SA Say So Hung. There is a pause between the two SAs, but NO breath. Adjust the speed so that you can chant the full mantra on one breath, without a cheat breath on the pause.

MA and SAY are slurred making two notes each, "MA AA", "SAY AY". The first SA is short. HUNG is forcefully vibrated in the skull and out the top of the head.

Chant for 11, 15, 22 or 31 minutes.

Effects and Powers
This meditation gives one the power to heal long distance and to heal with the hands.

To End:
Now is the time to use the healing space that you have created.

* Inhale deeply and hold the breath. While the breath is held, concentrate on yourself and feel the sensations in your body. Feel or allow the vibration of the mantra to penetrate every cell of your body. Feel the mantra continue to resonate in your body. Become the healing vibration. Allow yourself to be healed.

Repeat the above process 3 or more times with the following variations.

* Inhale deeply and hold the breath. Feel the healing love pulse in your heart. Invite in friends, members of your family and situations and allow them to be bathed in the healing vibration. Hold them in your body, in your heart and in the healing vibration that you now resonate with and embody.

* Inhale deeply and hold the breath again. Feel that your heart is so big and the love so infinite that you can hold the whole earth in your heart. Let the earth pulse with the mantra and be healed with this love.

* Inhale deeply and hold the breath for a last time. Invite Yogi Bhajan into your heart to be healed. Be very attentive. I personally find that my heart space increases dramatically when I invite Yogi Bhajan in. I feel he is also healing me.

The above sequence can vary according to what you are intuitively directed to do

Another thing to do is to feel the Sun or a golden light in you heart:

* Chanting RA creates this energy.
* Expand it to fill every cell of your body. Then merge with the group's light if you are doing this with in a group.
* Feel the light expanding to radiate through the room, the vicinity, the area, country and then the whole earth.
* See/feel the earth healed.
* See/feel the hearts of every person penetrated with love and peace.
* Merge everything into Universal Light.
* As you come back, i.e. focus only on yourself, know that you can maintain this healing energy and light in your being.
* Intend that simply by smiling and greeting others, you share this love and light with the world.

End with the prayer "God bless this Earth with peace." Repeat five times.

2011-04-08T17:55:00.004-04:00

If you don't know Elyse Bruce or Thomas Taylor of Midnight in Chicago, reading this blog is a waste of time. But you're welcome to read along.

Elyse Bruce, the musician is a very old friend of mine. She and I go way back. In fact, she would have been the maid of honour at my wedding to my current husband had her son not gotten ill. Well, she used to read tarot cards with me regularly. In fact, it was her tarot cards that predicted that I would be getting married to a "magician". Click here to see a tarot "magician" card. But later, she met this guy Thomas D. Taylor and things changed, a lot.

Because of Thomas, Elyse put away her tarot cards. Said she had to hide them from Thomas because he didn't like them. So, MIC's suggestion that they know nothing about my "magic" is an outright lie.

Eventually Elyse broke up with Thomas, or rather she told me that she had, but she kept him as her business partner.

I haven't had reason to think of Elyse since last July, the week before my step-daughter's wedding. And I'm looking forward to having no further thoughts of her once this blog is written.

See, what Elyse knows is that last July, she took it upon herself to write a letter to a fruit company with whom I was helping negoticate a win win situation for a Haitian farmer. That result was published in the Montreal Gazette, and Chenail Fruits, helped out someone they didn't have to help out. A little paperwork error, one might say. But the win was negotiated contrary to what Elyse tried to do; which I might add, could have her charged in a criminal court. I decided at the time that I would not press charges BECAUSE she had been my friend for so long and also because I believed, and mostly still believe that she is under some form of control of Thomas D. Taylor. But trust me on this, if ever the question comes up in a court of law, Elyse, whether it be me or someone else, I've still got your email in hand and Libel is a pretty easy thing to prove when untruths are written in emails. I've also got the email you sent me telling me to stay away from Ari Ne'eman of ASAN because he was bad news. Maybe Ari can use that in his lawsuit if you two don't knock it off?

For the record, this is the wonderful hot sauce project that should have been: http://www.thehotzoneonline.com/2007/12/14/raising-the-heat-for-autism/

Yes, it ended up selecting Autism Speaks, but Thomas tells the story just a little differently from the truth, we call that obfuscation and Thomas is really good at it. I had no clue that AS was supporting eugenics, and through what strikes me as creative ostracization now, then struck me as a really good reason to NOT work with AS. And we cancelled the project, but that wasn't good enough for Thomas. Thomas and Elyse believe in guilt by association. See, people aren't allowed to be ignorant of things like Eugenics as pertains to AS because well, you should know that they're into eugenics, EVEN THOUGH, it is written NOWHERE on the AS website or in any of their documents. But you know, that's enough for Thomas to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Now I bet you're wondering... What do they think of YOUR friends and family? Do any of your friends or family support AS? You best disown them because if not, you're in Thomas' target sights.

Interestingly, in the last 24 hours, since I became the target of the attacks, I have learned of a frightening history of MIC going after people, as is repeatedly seen in her blog, like a dog after a bone. Elyse believes that if you do something, like allow your autistic son to go somewhere, and he somehow ends up murdered, its YOUR fault for letting him go.

I should mention that although it's pretty easy to guess which one of the two of them is writing because I know Elyse so well, for someone else, it's hard to tell which of the two of them is posting on the Midnight in Chicago blog, because neither of them sign their posts other than as "Midnight in Chicago". So, it's not really Elyse or Thomas that is doing this, it is Midnight in Chicago. Odd to not separate THAT from your "company". At least what I'm posting is personal, on a personal page in Facebook and here on what is clearly labeled as my PRIVATE blog.

But then, they've done this to how many people?

So, now we come full circle and the possible reason you've landed on this blog... What you want to see is my response to her last post with all her acknowledgements about my company, because, it seems, although she'll allow posts that say I'm a devil worshipper, she won't allow this one... Well, here is that response:

I really appreciate the publicity, Elyse. We’re very proud of our company. It makes great products and is actually changing things for people which is more than I can say for MIC.

You see, if someone wants to do business with me, it will be because Brooks Pepperfire Foods makes amazing gluten free hot sauces and other food products. And frankly if the only reason for not doing business with me is because I have friends who DO support Autism Speaks, then by all means, go find another gluten-free hot sauce. I’ll help. :)

So, I’m curious, how many people do you think will read this? Should I be concerned that my sales will drop off? You’re awfully full of yourself.

I could take the time to rebut your BS and obfuscation, but I’m not going to bother, my Daddy taught me long ago that when you roll around in the mud with pigs, you get dirty and the pigs like it. I prefer not to roll around in the mud with you, I have a business to run and I’m going back into that little forum that you and your bully friends are so not welcome in and I’m going to continue to find support and succor and share it with the other people who are in there. And I’m going to do a lot of other things that are way more important than what you think you have to say.

And if you’d like to report the group to Facebook, by all means do so, but the reason the lock is on the door is so that people can post in security. Self-help groups require that as a key to their effective operation. But you knew that.

Which reminds me… I have to wonder now if maybe the reason that Brady White, DDS got so angry at Sympatico because you were doing exactly THIS to him back then? Maybe I owe him an apology for defending you to him? Say did you save any of THOSE screen shots?

You make your own bed in life and you choose your path, Elyse. Try to choose a better one. This one is just ugly.

Now, I've had about enough this, Elyse Bruce and Thomas D. Taylor of Midnight in Chicago. So, it seems has pretty much anyone and everyone in the autism community that you have previously targeted.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Autism Speaks or any other autistic support/advocacy group, we as aspies, Dx'd or not, with friends, family, and connections on the spectrum, owe it to each other to work together to make autism awareness, support and advocacy number one.

If Elyse and Thomas think that this goal is best served by going after and attacking everyone in the autism community, by being nasty and divisive, then, that is their path. We each get to choose our own. If they think that calling in the troops to attack me, make fun of my company using lies and obfuscation is going to knock me off my game for more than a short while, then, they think far too much of themselves.

Finally, since I've logged onto your blog no less than 20 times in the past 24 hours just to see what shite you've been posting, the calculated repeated activity by someone else you've targeted for ostracization, means that nobody but those posting here are actually reading your blog.

And guess what? Given the ridiculously low number of hits THIS blog has gotten. You're stirring this stuff up amongst basically nobody.

So...

Stick a fork in this issue, it's done.

For those of you who are more interested in awareness, support and succor of each other, well, just keep doing the work required, because this divide and conquer the autism community ridiculousness isn't doing anyone any good and sadly, as a result, neither is Midnight in Chicago.

Elyse and Thomas, I have one suggestion... Start figuring out why you feel the need to ostracize all these people and maybe then you'll realize that you've both got far better things in life to do than this and if you don't, go find something!

Maybe plan your wedding... Happy things make life much more pleasant, don't you think?

Bless you both.

Welcome to my blog!

2011-04-08T17:24:00.005-04:00

So nice to have you.

I hope you find your visit here most pleasant.

Why stop here? My home website is http://www.pepperfire.ca my flagship brand, is http://www.peppermaster.com and finally our latest Pepperfire Initiative project: http://www.haitianfire.com

I hope you're having a wonderful day!

Let me know if you'd like a Tarot Twreading. They're free.

Of course, it helps if you're on twitter, so feel welcome to follow even more of my insanity there!

Thanks for stopping by.

Yours,

Tina Brooks

Tea and little boys and why stories are meant to last forever

2011-03-15T21:33:00.005-04:00

One of my best friends in the whole world, one Ms. Ali, aka, All in One on Aeclectic Tarot and one of my Soul Sistas, has at the ripe old age of, well, slightly older than me, learned how to drink tea. Snicker says the newfie.

Well, I told her to get a brown betty. There is nothing else in the world that one should, could or would make tea in, so that is what I recommended.

Well, I was at a tradeshow last week and in the booth next to me was Al Cadenas' tea company. These guys were pretty cool, they must have had a hundred different teas. In the booth they had a whole bunch of teapots and I thought of getting Ali a teapot, except that, Greg and I haven't had a bodum since the fire, and they had one... so we traded. I got my bodum and Ali is on her own for a Brown Betty.

So, then, here we are.

The whole point of this post is not my new bodum. It is in fact a showcase for a cute little story for cute little Nico (Ali's boy, who I suggested should have been a dog, although, she turns out to have been 100% absolutely suited to being a mother... lovely thing. But, ahem, I digress.)

So, here goes...

Once upon a time there were a pair of Peking ducklings. Their parents had been killed in a natural disaster and they were all they had left to the other in the whole world.

These ducklings were loved and coddled by Tina who lived in Montreal. Montreal is a city in Canada, the land of true freedom, way up north where the entire country freezes over in the winter and so much snow falls that everyone has to move into an igloo built on top of the snow until the snow melts in the spring.

Well one morning, the ever so slightly older Peking duckling heard that Alison had learned to like tea. So he shook his slightly younger brother awake and quacked, "I have to go to California! Alison MUST learn to LOVE tea!".

At first the slightly younger brother Peking duckling was surprised but he came to accept the idea quite readily when he realized that the two beloveds could stay in contact, as often as they wanted, daily, several times a day even and all they had to do, as a team, was to have both Tina and Alison turn on their PCs every so often enough that they could say a quick hello and how-goes-the-duck-race, if you will. So it was decided. Slightly older brother Peking duckling would go to California.

So, Tina put Slightly older brother Peking duckling into a little box, along with a little surprise for Alison to enjoy with her tea and sent it off via Canada Post.

Btw, you can track the voyage of Slightly older brother Peking duckling by going to http://www.canadapost.ca and track this package: (insert CP tracking number here).

When Alison receives slightly older brother Peking duckling, she is most graciously asked to Meme in kind by completing the tale of Tea.

On the Topic of Ferrets as Pets; not to be Confused with the Topic of "Familiars".

2011-02-26T12:23:00.003-05:00

Before my first child was born, I had two ferrets. They make great pets. I like running a dog, so I hestitate to say they are the best, nothing beats a dog.

Things you should know about Ferrets:

They are explorers and are able to get into the oddest places. You won't be able to figure out HOW they got into them, so you need to ferret-proof the rooms where they are going to be released. They also like chewing on things, like wires, so you have to keep those away from the ferrets as part of your ferret proofing. Interestingly, they use ferrets to wire airplanes because their natural inclination is to go into tunnels. When you see a ferret running into a pipe in a movie, it is not because anyone trained them to go in there, it is because they LIKE to go into tubes, so your cage or room in which the ferret will live needs to be a mini jungle gym for ferrets. Your daughter will really enjoy "building" this space because the funkier it is, the better the ferret will like it. I'll explain why... Ferrets have two speeds... asleep and whirling dervish. There is nooooo middle ground. When they are awake, if there is no-one around, they will play with their environment. Kinda like giant gerbils or mice. Probably why people think they are rodents, but they aren't.

Ferrets, like cats or dogs, need to have shots and be spayed or neutered. The male is much larger than the female of the species and because they are pack animals, are better happier pets if they are part of a pack. In other words, get two ferrets or become an alpha ferret. You can get a ferret manual at the local library or on Amazon. I recommend DD read a couple before becoming the mama ferret. But, it sounds like this is right up her alley if she really likes animals.

Ferrets eat like cats, so feeding a cat is the same as feeding a ferret, EXCEPT, you have to feed it ferret food or ASH-FREE cat food, because the ash in dried cat food is bad for ferrets; it's probably bad for cats too, but it expressly causes respiratory problems in ferrets. You can purchase the food directly through your vet, they get good discounts. If you buy the food in bulk, it's cheaper. Btw, there is a small-animal vet that will have better knowledge of ferrets than other vets, so choose carefully. Ferrets are like cats in that they like to poop in the same place all the time. So they will tell you where to put the litter box once they've explored the room. Btw, the bigger the area, the more litter boxes you will need. They don't like to travel very far when they want to poop. Like cats they like to cuddle and need to wear a harness if you're going to walk them outdoors on a leash. Like cats, who also like to explore on a leash, they are freaking lazy, so don't expect long walks... but more on that in the "like a dog section".

Ferrets are like dogs, so you can train them to do things, like come when they are called and they are fun to play with. Please know though that you do not need to train them to do what they do in the movies, because those things are just things that the ferret will do naturally, they are highly inquisitive and really intelligent little buggers. They're FUN! Now, as lazy as ferrets are, they "tunnel" when they do not want to be awake anymore too, so they will cozy up inside your jacket or wrap themselves around your neck like a fur stole or even curl up in the inside pocket of the carrying purse you bought for just such purposes and it will hang out of the back content to let you do the walking while its nose explores the environment where you take it. Then, when you stop, they love to sniff around the ground exploring wherever you've stopped until you're ready to go again, so they're fun to putter around with. Much better animals for talking for walks and chillaxin the way teens do than cats who mostly don't like to be carried for long.

Ferrets need to have their talons clipped (or sanded down) regularly, (I walked my ferrets on pavement, we lived in the city, so that took care of a lot of the talons, but I still had to clip them once a month. That is like one would do with a dog. You can use one of those teeny buzz sanders made for manicures to do it yourself.

Ferrets are blind as bats like moles but not quite so bad because they are diurnal (I think that's the right word) -- they are mostly day creatures, when they're awake. Because they don't see very well, you never want to move really quickly near their faces, they will bite out of instinct.

Ferrets sleep 17-20 hours a day, so they need a nice safe dark place to go to during the day, that's where their cage comes in. My ferrets had their own room, rather than a cage, and that room had shelves and ramps and ladders that the ferrets could climb and play on. They love to jump and play.

The hammock is just another playplace for the ferret, they might even sleep in it. They are community-oriented, social animals who like to sleep in a lump, so they are accustomed to sleeping in a pile. The hammocks are simply unnecessary, but make for a comfy place for the ferret to nap. (Did I mention, they sleep a lot!).

Ferrets are great pets for high school kids because they'll curl up in your lap while you study or play video games, and when you want to be interested in them, they're totally ready to play.

Ferrets are mustilidae (sp?) like skunks or weasels, they are NOT rodents, so they have to be de-scented. You get the ferret de-scented BEFORE its first heat, which is also when you will get the ferret fixed. You have to fix them. I recommend getting all domesticated pets fixed though. It's hard to be natural and wild when you are a pet so hormones are not good for it.

If you've ever got into any video game for any reason, you are going to LOVE your daughter's ferrets. They really do make great family pets, and they will make a point of sleeping when there is no-one around to play with.

Oh, and did I mention, they make GREAT pets!

A little background.

2011-01-30T18:08:00.001-05:00

My course began when I was really little. I didn't know it then, but with 20/20 hindsight I can see it clear as day.

When I was about 18, I had my first vision. I was walking along the beach with Jesus. And he was telling me that I was here to do something important, although he didn't say what. But he basically told me to trust that no matter what happens, he would be with me all the time and that in the times that I felt most alone, he'd be carrying me, even if I didn't know it.

About 17 years ago, I had another vision. My husband was killing himself on drugs and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I had been attending al-anon and had shared that night that every time I shared my anxieties, I felt better. In the vision I saw myself reciting those same words to the women in the group and stood up and looked behind me and each time I saw that when I had made good choices, those choices had been guided by the hand of God. So, then and there I made a commitment to God to look for those pathways that would lead me to the good choices and so long as God made it clear to me, I would follow.

So far so good, or so I thought.

Then my husband committed suicide, leaving me destitute with two small children and about $120K in debts that could not be written off.

And there I was thinking... But, I'm doing what you said, I'm going where you say, why arent, things getting better... But I couldn't see what was good and right and coming for me in the future.

I was so taken up with my husband's death, and the way that even my own family behaved because of it, that I moved out into the middle of nowhere to be alone with my kids.

Then about a year later, I met my current husband. I wanted nothing to do with him, but my heart had other ideas.

When he asked me to marry him, I thought, "what are you nuts, you have nothing, I have less than nothing, what good is this going to do?" but my heart thought "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes"...

We were married five months later.

Everything doesn't go exactly according to plan. Things are not always bright and rosy, but I actively look for the good in things. Doing the exercises in the ACIM helped me to realize the lack of real value to things and the real value to my emotions.

I think, although, even for me, it would take a lot of work, that I could handle just about any strife that God chose to throw at me. I swear to God, I say to my husband regularly, I am Job. I truly am.

But, I have to trust in God's plan anyway.

In the meantime, what happens is that I have come to grips with the knowledge that I am not my credit rating. That any morning, no matter how bad yesterday was, today has the potential to be better and so, my first thought is, today will be a better day.

Sometimes, when I'm slogging through a hell of a day, it's all I can do to find the good in what is going on, because I want to pull my hair out, I ran out of gas, filled up, forgot the fill the windshield washer reservoir, got turned around, was a half hour late for my appointment, ran into traffic that would make me an hour late for another appointment, then get home after a really stressful day to learn that I have a choice of tea or tea to calm my nerves because my beloved drank the last glass of rum.

Life isn't easy, it isn't meant to be.

Melody has taught me that we are here to experience these things because WE CAN. God cannot step into this illusion and do any of what we are doing, because God knows that at the wave of a hand, his riches would be right there on the table in front of him. He does not fear, he does not feel pain, he does not desire riches or even comfort, for he HAS all these things.

What we as humans fail to EMBRACE is the knowledge that WE are God and as such, We do not fear, we do not feel pain, we do not desire riches or comfort for we HAVE all these things...

EXCEPT

That in order for us to EXPERIENCE the richness that life has to offer, we CANNOT know who we are, so we have this curtain that draws down that keeps us from knowing the truth. Even when it is right in front of us, our ego refuses absolutely to accept it for if it did... WE would cease to exist, for as Gary Renard described it, the Universe would just disappear.

Now, when Melody started introducing me to the Law of Attraction, things got interesting.

But that's another lesson plan altogether.

Both of these "Grand Designs" work because at the end of the day, WE are who we are.

BUT, if we allow our Ego to fight the good fight, we will not believe it and no manner of desire or wishing for the peace will allow it to be.

We must convince our Ego that in following the lesson plan, the ego will become all that it can be and life will be wonderful... even when it is horrible.

New Year's inspiration

2011-01-01T14:17:00.003-05:00

I've been reading my pals' posts on Facebook about their New Years' resolutions and what they are planning for the coming year and I figure it's a good idea to share what I'm going to do with the coming year.

Perhaps you can help?

First let me tell you how I got here and why I am going to do what I am planning, it'll make more sense.

When I first met Melody I had no clue about the Law of Attraction or the Course in Miracles or even about where she was leading me. All I knew was that she had been leading me quite well on a pathway that I was quite willing to follow.

I have gone from being a stressed out, overworked lunatic with very odd idiosynchracies to being a calm, happy, loving person. At least most of the time. As I say when I have the few moments I still do, be patient, Melody isn't finished with me yet.

Well, about the time, I had begun planning my career as a professional Tarot Reader, but Melody had different plans. Or I, at least, had a different pathway to walk before that could happen.

Well, things have happened, I have grown and changed. I have stepped through the aperture of a black hole and seen beyond the event horizon, or, in the words of my friend Gary Renard, I have seen the universe disappear.

And then I have willed it back into existence, because I'm just frankly not ready to step on over and stay there. I rather like it here.

AND, I might add, given the number of people who have come to rely on Melody for guidance, she isn't quite done over here yet either.

This year, I will be launching a spiritual guidance club. Said club will be open to all comers, and will provide them with unlimited access to Melody. I am planning on writing a newsletter and daily blogs that will come straight from Melody through me... I don't know how that is going to go, so I'll be finding a couple of "guinea pigs" for the project. I've already asked a couple of people, who know who they are, and they have accepted. There are a few people to whom I have yet to make the invitation but they will receive that soon enough.

The goal is to make it so that I can afford to bring Melody's wisdom to people without putting me into a position where I am doing more tarot readings for free that are encroaching on my income making time. Those who find value in Melody's guidance will, I believe, agree that this is the right way for me to go.

The project will involve the receipt of an email message specifically for the reader direct from Melody. I haven't figured out exactly how this is going to happen, especially if the mailing list gets too big, but that is the general gyst of it. This message will be free for all those who want them, but for those who need more, they will be able to subscribe to a paid system where they can have all the immediate access to Melody they need. Subscribers will be able to request a message from Melody on any given day, and have access to full personalized readings.

Anyway, there will be way more to it than that, but that's the gyst of what I'm working on right now.

Any thoughts on which way I should go? Feel free to comment.

Profile of a Tarot Reader

2010-03-28T12:39:00.003-04:00

Tina Brooks comes from a long line of gypsy Tarot Card readers. Her Grandmother was Madame Laurette. A well-known professional reader and psychic who passed away in 2008.

Tina began reading cards at the age of 14, under the Tutelage of Madame Laurette and began with the very difficult task of memorizing the meanings and imagery of 52 regular playing cards. It was not until many years later when Tina saw her first Tarot deck, a Crowley Thoth, that card reading began to have real meaning. The painted pictures in the Thoth deck gave way to images, thought patterns and ideas that the regular playing cards could never invoke.

In 2004, Tina's much read and much beloved Thoth deck was lost in a house fire. For a year, Tina didn't even think to pick up her cards. But one day, she found herself searching for her cards, to no avail and realized she would have to purchase a new deck of cards.

That was when Tina discovered the Revelations' deck, the cards she currently reads with.

They say all things happen for a reason, this discovery was no accident. Tina could suddenly see and hear the thoughts, images and ideas displayed in the tarot quite clearly and with great emotion. Shortly thereafter, Tina discovered that these cards were a window to the essence of the universe and she began to discourse, through the cards with the spirit known as Melody.

Melody has explained to Tina that although she can be described as many things, a spirit guide, an angel, perhaps even a demon by some, she is none of these things. Melody is, purely and simply, Tina's direct connection to Source. Source can be described as the energy that is life.

With the help of the Revelations Tarot deck, Melody whispers messages to Tina that she can translate into English or French, giving new insights and meaning to the people who sit for her readings.

Whether it be about love, work, money or health, Tina's readings hit uncannily close to home.

Tina can be found reading and teaching tarot on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum, a haven for many of the world's best tarot readers as well as on Twitter, where under the Twittername "Pepperfire", Tina and Melody offer 140 character Tarot Twreadings.

We invite you to open your heart and your mind to the messages that Tina and Melody have to offer and hope that you walk away with insight and love in your heart. Failing that, we hope you find the readings entertaining, for life is meant to be fun.

On Shifting your Vibration

2009-12-31T20:07:00.003-05:00

On shifting your vibration...

Why do you want or need to shift your vibration?

Well, without getting too weird, "vibration" is what we all do. That is how we manage to "exist", mostly because we don't really -- I'll explain that in a later blog, though. The more in tune you are with the Source energy, the more strongly or "louder" you can vibrate. Surprisingly, very much like the Force in the Star Wars Saga.

Vibrations dictate what is. Our intent alters those vibrations to how we want things to be, but Vibrations take time to shift. One does not vibrate "I am fat" every day of their lives suddenly to "I am thin and vivacious" and physically become so immediately. It takes time for the lifetime of fat to dissolve itself from your body. And according to Deepak Chopra, every single cell in your body recreates itself once every two years. So, with that as a rule of thumb for something known and something physical, I contend that it could take up to two years for a particular intention to materialize.

Ultimately, One needs only to set an intention into motion and it will come to be. Adding more vibration to the idea will alter and change how the idea can or will come into being. The more focused your intention is on the outcome, the more focused the ability of the intention to manifest.

Esther Hicks' Abraham in describing this truth, likened it to setting your vibration to; "I want to be in San Diego": And so you begin travelling to San Diego. You have set your mind on going to San Diego and are on your way. But suddenly, about halfway along the road, you've stopped to realize that you aren't in San Diego yet. Unfortunately, now you've set the vibration to become: I am not in San Diego. And until you reset your vibration to I want to be in San Diego, you cannot BE in San Diego. Some people become so focused on the idea that they are still not in San Diego, that they end up going back to where they started from.

Being in vibrational alignment, one needs to keep the faith. When you speak about what you want, focus on what you have towards that goal, rather than on what you are missing. If you feel good, it is good. If you do not feel good; something has gone wrong and you are not in vibrational alignment.

Example. Hey, my clothes fit better than ever! I really am a skinny-ass bitch, is a positive affirmation that you are on your way to becoming the skinny-ass bitch you so desire becoming -- ie vibrational alignment. "Damn, my favourite jeans still don't fit.", is a one-way ticket to them never fitting - vibrational misalignment. Ooh, I look good -- vibrational alignment. "I still look a little jowly" -- vibrational misalignment. Are we getting the picture?

The trick is to notice when you are saying things that are vibrationally misaligned with where you want to go. A little game I heard about on a mid-afternoon talk show; Put a rubber-band, bracelet or watch on your wrist. Everytime you notice that you've said something negative. Switch the "bracelet" to your other wrist. Consciously recognize that the thought is not in keeping with what you desire and spend the next 17 second creating a We Good statement about your body shape and size; this will get you back into alignment; and as hard as that sounds, it only takes 17 seconds of focus in order to activate a new vibration.

The idea is to recognize thoughts that make you feel good and thoughts that make you feel bad. It is the thoughts that make you feel bad that keep you from your goals.

Your intention is to truly get to the point where you can say "We GOOD" and understand what I mean. Although, hopefully by that point, my "WE GOOD" will be some other sound or expression that is altoghether your own. Rather like the concept of the now mistakenly commonly-used meditation tone; OM, you use WE GOOD until your own feeling sound becomes more apparent to you. Then use THAT. That is YOUR vibrational tone. Use mine until you find yours.

How will you know when you've found it? You'll know, because you'll feel-hear it.

Oh wait a minute; I'm getting ahead of myself here. Can you even feel-hear the vibration? No?

Here's how you can feel it:

You're going to spend 17 seconds finding a vibration. First I'll show you a good vibration.

I want you to remember one of the happiest moments of your life. One where you felt loved, all-important, totally taken care of, well-fed, etc. Remember if you've ever felt "bliss".

That is a good vibration. And in order to counter any negative vibration (this is easier with practice), all you have to do is focus for 17 seconds on a positive vibration and you can shift vibration.

Now, because it is actually "contrast" that you are looking for, you need to know and understand what a bad vibration is, all you have to do is think of something that gives you any emotion other than bliss. Bliss is where you want to go. Easy.

All good and well while you're sitting here unannoyed reading what I have to write for you, but what do you do when someone really ticks you off?

Well, here is the law in action: Set an affirmation that says: "I will reach for the best feeling thought I have access to right now. And I'll be proud of myself when I find even the slightest relief." Then do it and keep doing it until you find your way back to bliss.

When you try to feel better, you will. And here is where the greatest words ever spoken by a character in a science fiction movie come into play; There is no "try". There is do, or don't do. So, FEEL better. When you feel better, you release resistance. When you release resistance, you are in vibration, to stay in vibration, be appreciative of everything that you have, and everything you want will come to be. THAT IS THE LAW.

You don't have to actually DO anything at all. You simply have to vibrate. I vibrate WE GOOD and it's bloody well working! When you are fully completely utterly and totally vibrating and in the moment, and one with everyone and everything that you perceive, then you are in WE GOOD.

Our true self is a state of pure bliss. Love, Peace, Fulfilled. In being in that state, we live in that state and the Universe disappears. In desiring to become one with that state, we set our life focus to maintaining our level of bliss the more we feel bliss, the stronger our vibration. The better everything becomes.

21st Century Tarot

2009-05-31T14:51:00.004-04:00

For some of you, it may come as a shocker to learn that I read tarot cards professionally. For others of you, it's a given. It's just something I do, something I've always done and it's not a big deal.

I started posting on twitter a little while ago, using the tweetname Pepperfire. When I created my profile I posted that I read tarot cards professionally. Someone asked if I was any good, so I tweeted a couple of cards I pulled for them. It's snowballed since then.

That's when I got the idea to use Twitter as the medium for practicing my craft. I created the concept called Tarot Twreading. Essentially, a Tarot Twreading is a tweet that in and of itself is a tarot reading. I began with three cards, read them, then reduce the reading to a tweet.

A tweet? Well, for those of you living in the dark ages, a tweet is a 140 character statement made through the Twitter.com website. For ordinary tweeters, it's a way to have conversations with each other, to share relevant and sometimes irrelevant information and sometimes it's just a way for people to advertise (read spam) their particular business, whatever that may be.

The beauty of twitter, for me, is that I am required to reduce my thoughts into the tightest most concise space possible. That's not easy for someone as verbose as I, but being pedantic has always been one of my things, so it's a glorious place for me to spend time. Reduce, rewrite, retweet.

Add me on twitter and request a Tarot Twreading. I'll add you to my queue. Don't worry, I'll tweet you just before your twreading comes up in the tweetstream so you will know it when you finally receive it.

Blogging...

2008-10-17T10:10:00.001-04:00

It seems it's almost a year since I last posted a blog... I've been so busy, that my writing seems to have simply fallen by the wayside.

Called to my attention by a friend, I shall make an effort to find my way back to the blogboard... I have so many words rattling around in my head, they must somehow find a way out.

In the meantime...

I have to run, I have a meeting.

Me out.

Why I no longer post at Ryze.

2007-10-29T20:17:00.000-04:00

If you actually read my blog... and why would you? You'd know that I use it to draft stories and articles and sometimes just to write about stuff.

I don't require commentary, but I like it when my friends do. I don't solicit commentary, but I like it when people point out things I may have missed or give me new information that didn't exist when I originally wrote the blog, I even like it when people point out that I made an error in calculations.

Those are the great sorts of commentary that one expects to receive as a blog-writer.

What one doesn't typically receive and I wonder why people feel inclined to write them are commentaries that are deliberately insulting. Recently I received a comment, signed "anonymous", of course, telling me that the reason I was having a hard time with ex-employees was because I wasn't a kind person. Right on the heels of another comment suggesting that they didn't like the colour of my blog and therefore it wasn't worth returning.

Well, for starters, my ex-employee didn't leave because I wasn't kind and I really couldn't care less whether or not the person commenting, likes the look of my blog. I didn't create it for them.

That said.

The commenter hails from California; Fountain Valley, in fact. And the even more interesting thing is that I actually know someone from Fountain Valley... Isn't that weird? And to add insult to injury, something happened shortly before these two posts that would lead me to believe that this person was mad enough at me to want to get back at me.

But for some unknown reason, that person isn't wise enough or savvy enough to know that NOTHING you post on the internet is anonymous, even if you make a point of not signing your name.

So, I bet you're wondering what happened to cause this woman to hate me so much that she'd post hateful things to my blog?

Well, I'm not proud and since libel is only libel if it is untrue... here's the story, because frankly, the whole incident was childish, insulting and never should have been given the light of day.

Back in August, a woman by the name of Althea Garner got into a flame war with a couple of fellows on Ryze. Althea claimed to Ryze Administration that they were harassing her, and both of them got suspended; no questions asked.

Well a horrific, uproar ensued and Ryzers began a write-in campaign asking for either the reinstatement of the two men or the equal suspension of Althea, since she had given as good as she got in the flame war.

Well, the suspension was granted by Ryze Admin.

Shortly thereafter, I came up on the receiving end of Althea's radar and she sent a misplaced email to Ryze Admin, calling for my suspension. Without question or explanation. I found myself on the receiving end of a suspension.

Two months later, I was lurking, still waiting for my "suspension" to be lifted or even acknowledged by Ryze Administration, when Althea went into a network and posted the outright lie to everyone and sundry who could read it that she had no idea who had complained about me to Ryze Admin, but that she had nothing to do with it and she went so far as to suggest that I had upset someone else on another network.

I lost it.

Me losing it isn't pretty.

Well, I decided that since Ryze Admin was blatantly ignoring me anyway, and that at this point, I really didn't care whether or not I ever got back into Ryze because anyone that ran a network like that didn't deserve any hit generation that I might be party to. So, I created a persona and I named it: Althea Garner is a bold-faced liar. And then I posted this story and included a copy of the email that Althea was stupid enough to have forgotten that she'd cc'd me on, when she complained to Ryze Admin calling for my suspension. Duh!

Well, before I knew what had happened, Althea had finally shown her true colours publicly, had insulted the owner of that network and everyone who posted there, gone into her own, now no longer existent network, and posted how outraged she was over the indignity she was being made to suffer at my hand. She made nasty hateful PMs to the owner of the network, threatened her children with horrible diseases, etc. And ultimately came in here and posted those two hateful posts.

Well, suffice it to say, I was right about never being allowed back into Ryze. I apologized for losing it, and asked to be let back in.

Well, I've more pride than that... So, here I sit, receiving hateful posts to my blog, that will never see the light of day and the only thing Althea Garner can do about it is pout.

So now, Ryze Admin is in the unwelcome position of having been used to further Ms. Garner's ends, of having acted on her lies and made to look foolish and of losing my business, although truth be told, they hadn't received any yet, because I'd made my decision to become a paying member at the beginning of the tight cash flow period and as such, hadn't given them any money yet.

But I'll be damned if I'll do so now. Well, truth be told, and all humility aside (I did write the admin and apologize for my "you're a liar" post. I also asked if he could let me know when this suspension (which was based on a liar's lie and uncalled for to begin with), would end...

I was told to come back in a year or two.

Guess what...

Ryze Admin... You can feel free to share this with Althea Garner: THIS is for you:

In Search of Fair Trade

2007-02-07T13:48:00.001-05:00

I’ve been using fair trade coffee and fair trade for many years in my home kitchen, but had never thought of actually using these products on an industrial level until one evening watching George Stromboulopolous on CBC tv’s The Hour talked about Fair Trade chocolate. The two most important things that caught my attention were that FT cocoa beans are not picked by children nor sprayed with pesticides.

In passing, I asked my husband why we weren’t using FT ingredients in our business, he replied that sometimes we did, but he hadn’t really thought about it. Discussions ensued and we realized that we were going to an awful lot of trouble to find great quality chillies in countries where Fair Trade was probably already working and we could save ourselves a lot of trouble by letting them do the work.

We were wrong.

When I contacted the Fair Trade Certification board in Germany I learned that there are currently no standards set and no market for Fair Trade chili peppers and in fact the reason for this is because nobody with the expertise required was involved in Fair Trade. Well, we use several thousand pounds of chillies a year, so in my eyes, there certainly is a market for them and we’ve already established standards for the peppers we use, so I took the leap. I volunteered Brooks Pepperfire Foods Inc. to source peppers for Fair Trade. Well, I quickly learned that every country has a regional board called TransFair. Here, in Canada, it’s TransFair Canada, in the US, it’s TransFair US, well, you get the idea. I also learned that the reason that each country has it’s own regional board is because of regional government import rules differing. I also learned that in order for someone to sign on to Fair Trade as an importer, they need to be sponsored by their regional board. So, I contacted Rob Clarke, the Executive Director of TransFair Canada and told him I wanted Fair Trade peppers. Some discussions ensued and lots of learning began, and several months later, here we are, well on our way to creating Fair Trade standards for chili peppers, registering farmers and creating a market.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent a great deal of time studying the prices at which other vendors are selling peppers. I’ve learned more about pesticides than any woman has a right to know and learned that there is a serious need for fresh clean peppers year round. It’s a daunting task infiltrating a well-established market with produce that surprisingly has never been available, even though there is a huge demand for it.

So far, I think the most exciting part of the entire project is discussing the opportunity for certification with the farmers. Explaining to them what is possible for their future and how Fair Trade is going to benefit not only them, but their families and employees as well. We’ve run into some pretty scary situations already in sourcing our peppers. In some countries political unrest becomes an issue when we’re trying to get peppers out of the country, we’ve actually been told that armed guards are required to get the peppers to the airport.

What is so moving about the entire project is what can happen with the social premium that the fair trade farmers will receive for their peppers. As buyers, we are expected to work directly with the farmers to develop commercial relationships, trust and mutual support. We are expected to adhere to what seems to be an extensive list of criteria established by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization, aka FLO-Cert.

We buy a lot of peppers for our own needs over the course of a year and because we have to source fresh peppers all over the world it isn’t much of a leap for us to source the same peppers for FLO. After all, the questions we need to ask for ourselves seem to be the same questions we need to ask for FLO. We are expected to give the farmer a fair price for their commodity and that price point provides a living wage for the farmer. In addition to the price, we offer a commitment to developing a long term business for the farmers so they will be capable of future development and investment in their farms.

They in turn agree to provide good working conditions for their employees, and ensure safety procedures and adequate health standards for all workers. In addition, farmer/producers must employ democratic working processes. The democratic standard ensures that democratic decisions are made concerning how the fair trade premium will be spent. Who better to decide how to improve their living standards, than those living them. Finally, the farmer agrees to use environmentally sound production methods.

Fair Trade generally helps promote human rights, especially those of women, children and people with disabilities and as the local situations improve, they are expected to continuously improve upon these standards.

As we have announced our intent regarding Fair Trade, many people have asked us how this impacts local farmers. Fortunately, it’s not just about where we buy our peppers (or other ingredients), it’s a way of life. Originally, when we first started buying peppers, rather than growing our own, we gave priority to local farmers. We make a point of buying peppers of great quality, with few to no pesticides at a fair price - fair, not just to the farmer but to ourselves as well. We’ll buy local peppers, when they’re ripe, and that’s a huge benefit to our community. It defends our sovereignty, saves us the costs of fuel and energy, helping us lower our environmental footprint and provides us with the freshest peppers we can possibly get. Unfortunately, our community can only give us five weeks worth of peppers in the October, if we’re lucky. The rest of the year, we have to go where the peppers are ripe.

So for us there was only one question left to answer. Does Fair Trade really do anything or is it simply a way for us to feel good about what we would like to think our pepper dollars are doing?

Activists who are against globalization criticize huge companies for not being altruistic enough, because they can probably afford to be even more altruistic than they are. One example of this is Starbucks who, although they are the largest roaster and retailer of fair trade coffee, by far, is heavily criticized, because less than 10% of their bottom line is in Fair Trade coffee.

Visiting Fair Trade plantations, one finds better housing, better facilities and better schooling than in neighbouring plantations. Critics feel this is unfair because neighbouring plantations aren’t benefiting directly from the social premium that the Fair Trade plantation receives.

Critics of Fair Trade suggest that fair trade products are going to cost the consumer more than the non-fair trade equivalent commodity. Generally, this is untrue because the Fair Trade purchaser in going directly to the farmer succeeds in cutting out, occasionally, several levels of middlemen who add a premium to the price of the commodity every step of the way. Fair Trade often succeeds in increasing the price the farmer receives while still leaving ample room for the Fair Trade premium and a decreased cost to the purchaser. Of course this point, in and of itself feeds yet another criticism of Fair Trade. If you had taken economics 101, you would have learned that increased prices tend to stimulate production. Increased supply will decrease prices in the receiving market, thus, an increase in supply will lead to a disproportionate drop in price for North American farmers. So, for our local farmers, it is suggested that Fair Trade isn’t fair at all. What these critics neglect to realize is that our local farmers have no difficulty getting a fair price for their commodity. Where an american farmer might receive $7 lb for orange habanero, farmers in Haiti, India or Africa may only receive .45 cents.

Fair Trade isn’t about giving farmers something to which they are not entitled. It is about justice. It is about giving second and third world farmers the same price they would receive if there were a level playing field. It is about treating farmers on the other side of the world exactly the way local farmers demand to be treated. Fair Trade farmers are often on the receiving end of an unfair trade system. One where their competition is given tax subidies that allows them to flood the market with below cost commodities. Such subsidies make it very hard for second and third world farmers to compete and is truly, for them, an unfree-market system. Fair Trade helps level that playing field.

We’re going to buy peppers to make our sauces and in helping get these commodities fair trade certified we can empower farmers and farm workers to lift themselves out of poverty. It is our goal to help these farmers develop the business skills necessary to compete in the global marketplace. We’re hoping that the peppers that we bring to market for these farmers will be competitively priced with other gourmet, specialty peppers. We do expect though, that they will be more expensive than mass-produced general quality peppers. It is possible, depending on the farms’ locations that the peppers could be more expensive. Many of these farms lack the extensive shipping and logistical capabilities of the vertically-integrated, multi-national fruit companies from whom North Americans traditionally buy peppers. Also, we expect to see variances in the price at market of peppers depending on the demand the markets put on the various breeds of peppers we manage to get certified.

In the end, though, regardless of TransFair or FLO, it is Brooks Pepperfire foods who will set the price at which we make these peppers available and our pricing won’t be controlled or influenced by either of these organizations. We do expect, though, that the more purchasers we find for these peppers, the larger the market we can create for these peppers, and the more companies, retailers and consumers who support us by joining us in bringing these peppers to market, the more ability we will have to lower prices.

I expect it’s going to be a wild ride and we look forward to sharing the project with you.

Sourcing Peppers, another adjunt to the Naga Saga

2007-02-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

We found a supplier in India for the local variety of this pepper. In this area, the pepper is known as the Raja Mirchi, or king chilli.

We sent an agent into the neighbourhood to procure the peppers for us. He tells us that he camped out for three days and found the climate to be freezing, people untrustworthy and a very insecure life for residents. Our agent bribed some people and managed to arrange a meeting with the agricultural minister who shared with us the following information about the product, its quality, the people and transportation issues.

I thought we’d share that with you.

The normal growing season for raja mirchi is between April and October both in plains and hilly areas. During this season the chilli is of good size, weight and has the required pungency and aroma. He also noted that in Northeastern India the chilli is consumed for its flavour rather than for it’s heat. Which is what our friends in England, the Michauds’ had told us.

The chillis grow better in the valleys and hilly areas than on the plains and is mainly found in amongst the bamboo. The first peppers take 6-8 weeks time and the first peppers are never eaten because the locals feel that their colour and flavour is lacking. These first peppers are used as compost. Interestingly enough, our agent tells us that the plants grow to a height of 9 feet! He also tells us that after a couple of fruitings, the plants are cut down and fully renewed. The natives feel that any longer than 18 months and the peppers deterioriate very quickly. The natives then plant new peppers.

At market this chilli is more expensive than other chillies for various reasons. Picking the chilli is difficult because of where it grows, it is difficult to get to and thus is a herculean task. The aroma and pungency of the pepper is so intense that few people can stand it enough to pick them.
Local transport is a major problem so the peppers are transported to the bus terminal, where the public transit system is used to bring the chillies to the marketplace, picture the dreaded Mexican schoolbus, albeit Indian style. At market, the peppers are graded between good ones and ordinary ones based on the size and texture of the chilli. At this point, there is an average 30-45% rejection rate. It is at this point that the peppers are packed for export to us. The entire process from plant to us, takes about 10 days.

The peppers are purely organic and no fertilizers are used. Hence the peppers are SKAL certified organic.

Our agent informs us quite readily that the area is full of thugs and that because of insurgency in the area, it is difficult to move the produce at will.

The email was signed as follows:

“Overall an experience I won’t forget”.

And, I might add, overall an experience we won’t soon forget either.

As you can well imagine, buying something that Americans find mysterious is a source of great amusement to Indians and Bangladeshis who are quite familiar with these peppers.

This quip from a subcontinet forum: credit a poster named “vAtraT”: I recall reading about habanero (pronounced haabaanyero) peppers, which are among the hottest around, that they’re 40 to 50 times as hot as jalapeno peppers, and jalapeno (pronounced haalaapenyo) peppers are not tame. In that article they mentioned a northeast Indian pepper as being the hottest ever. This must be the Naga pepper.

I had wondered how they go about ascertaining the hotness. Turns out they dilute the juice N times and then apply it to a certain part of the anatomy. Then the average distance of the first hop made by the subjects (multiplied by N, of course) determines the strength of the pepper. It’s all very scientific.

Me out.

Dorset Naga update...

2006-10-23T14:07:00.000-04:00

I just received word that a show has aired on the BBC in England that announced the results of an HPLC test done on Dorset Naga peppers grown by BBC “Gardeners’ World”. The group took to the airwaves on Friday to announce the results live.

According to Joy and Michael's Website, the peppers grown by Gardeners' World scored a whopping 1,598,227.

The results of the test as published on the BBC Gardeners' World website read as follows:

Gardeners' World's hottest chillies

Over the course of this year, Gardeners' World has grown a variety of chillies to find the fieriest fruits. The chillies were all tested at Warwick Horticulture Research International (HRI) and the results are shown below.

The hottest chillies

1. Chilli 'Dorset Naga'
2. Chilli 'Caribbean Red Hot'
3. Chilli 'Orange Habanero'
4. Chilli 'Fiesta' (grown outdoors)
5. Chilli 'Scotch Bonnet'
6. Chilli 'Fiesta' (grown indoors)
7. Chilli 'Apache'
8. Chilli 'Paper Lantern'
9. Chilli 'Etna'
10. Chilli 'Adorno'

I have to say that at this point, it's relatively easy to state that the World's Hottest available chili peppers is still a C. Chinense, but I think until someone comes up with something close to this incredible heat level, the Dorset Naga is going to be competing for the Guinness Book of World Records' title very soon.

For those interested in growing these chilies, you can contact Peppers by Post. According to their website, the seeds will be available for sale beginning in 2007. And yes, you can get them shipped to the US.

There and Back Canada...

2006-10-19T17:40:00.000-04:00

I drove out to Cornwall this morning to set up our Christmas show taking place this weekend and on the way back we saw the oddest looking thing. A man was trudging along the highway dragging a cart behind him. He looked for all intents and purposes like he'd been walking for a while, and indeed he had.

We didn't initially stop as I was in a hurry to get home and we still had to pick up Mike's dog. Needless to say, after picking up Pepper, we turned out onto the highway and I spotted the odd looking man and his cart, and I told Mike were going to take a bit of a detour.

I figure if God puts such things in your path once, it's for a glimpse, if it's twice it's for a more important reason and should be investigated... So, investigate we did.

It turns out that the man's name is Trevor. That's how he introduced himself. He didn't give me his last name. He did post his name, almost as an after-thought on his website. Trevor Redmond is taking steps for cancer prevention and boy is he stepping.

This is Trevor:

He started on his journey in British Columbia, back in March, 2006 and has been walking now for seven months. He expects to end the "there" part of his journey in Halifax when he will stop and plan the "back" part.

I asked him how he was doing the trip and he said that he was using a combination of camping, in a tent, staying in motels and taking advantage of some of that good old Canadian hospitality that we are all so proud of up here. He choked me up. Mike gave him our business card and suggested he look us up on his way by. I'll gladly cook him a meal or give him a bed depending on the time of day he goes by.

On October 9, Trevor passed through Kingston. He wrote on his website:

"In challenging myself, I have now taken 6,586,353 steps as of Kingston.

In challenging Canadians, I have received over 11,000 dollars towards my efforts.

This works out to about $2.20 per kilometer over the 5000 Km stretch I have already walked.

I am looking for a dollar a step. Help us to take those steps.

Catch me!

I would also ask that you get your friends involved in this effort. The more we step, the further we will come.

The more we move...the more we move others.

To all... I'm still pulling for you."

I read Trevor's website after returning home and it choked me up. I had asked Trevor if he was taking donations and all I had in the car was $1. So I gave it to him. I felt really good coming home to discover that I had taken one of Trevor's steps. I challenge you to take one as well, he's got a lot of them available.

Tellicherry Black Pepper

2006-10-18T16:33:00.000-04:00

Every time we introduce a new customer to our
Tellicherry Black sauce, we inevitably get asked the
same question: "What's a Tellicherry".

Tellicherry is not a "what", it's a "where". Located
on the South-Western coast of the tip of India, near
Cochin, Tellicherry is in the heart of pepper
country.

Both Tellicherry pepper and Malabar pepper come from
the same plant and are harvested at the same time.
Tellicherry pepper are the larger of the two and
will have matured further before the harvest,
benefiting from a better location on the vine and
thereby receiving more sunlight. Only the largest
10% of these peppercorns are good enough to bear the
name Tellicherry, making these peppercorns very,
very special, indeed.

In India, pepper is part of the cultural heritage of
the people. Growing pepper is seen more as an art or
a craft than as a metier. Even though it is a
cash crop, pepper growing and grading is taken very
seriously in this part of the world. Farmers take
advantage of centuries of skill handed down from
generation to generation to grow and harvest these
tiny black seeds of flavour.

Once picked, it takes about a week for the
peppercorns to dry in the sun. During this time,
they will lose a share of their flavour in the
process. Until recent years, all pepper drying was
done this way. Although, nowadays it is not uncommon
for pepper to be rapidly air-dried indoors.
Interestingly enough, this new technology brings
with it the benefit of less flavour loss. Thus,
today's peppers are fresher, cleaner and more
full-bodied than ever before and allow the farmers
to fetch a higher price.

Although the size of the peppercorn is very
important to garnering the name, "Tellicherry", the
maturity of the peppercorn is the ultimately
all-deciding factor. It is the extra-ripening time
that the Tellicherry peppercorn receives that
increases the percentage of essential oils in the
fruit and makes it taste so aromatic and why the
Peppermaster chose these peppercorns for our black
pepper sauce.

Peppercorns although not chillies, are often a
chiliheads first foray into the world of pepperfire.
As children growing up in North America, what would
setting the table be without a shaker of pepper?
Well, it wouldn't be rightly set, now would it? As
we grow up and our tastes become more cosmopolitan,
we are introduced to the splendours of the
peppermill. Once having experienced the glory of
fresh ground pepper, who would return to the dusty
dryness of the pepper shaker? From the peppermill
with ordinary Madagascar black peppercorns, (sold
most commonly as "whole black pepper"), one
eventually discovers the perfume and wonder that is
Malabar and hopefully as well, Tellicherry.

I had opportunity to read of the adventures of one
who visited India to research the true art of
peppercorn manufacture, as I researched this article
and he tells of his visit to Mount Tellicherry
India.

Picture sweeping mountain slopes gazing down on a
lush untouched jungle. Imagine the perfumes and
odours of the world famous outdoor markets and all
the spices wafting on the air. He describes a
landscape very different and exotic, than ours, one
ripe with cardamom and cinnamon, their perfumes
carrying on the breezes and fields and fields of
wild pepper bushes.

Pepper bushes grow to about 3-5 feet in height. They
dangle their berries much like tiny bunches of
grapes and although they have been known to grow
well in other climates, the soil and climate of this
region of India produces the best peppercorns in the
world.

Interestingly enough, it is in the drying of the
peppercorns that they get their distinctive colours
ranging from green-yellow through red and brown to
jet black. The long bunches of berries are picked
almost ripe and allowed to dry to their familiar
shape and colour as we know them. Even more
interesting is that what we know as "white
peppercorns" are not another species of pepper at
all, but instead they are the de-husked center of
the ripe peppercorn.

I learned in my research, too, that the varieties of
peppers that we know as "pink, long and Szechuan"
peppercorns are all different species of plant and
indeed are not true peppercorns at all.

As the Peppermaster already knew and I learned,
Tellicherry is synonymous with the absolute best
grade of peppercorns. They are of better quality,
the flavour is richer, and more varied and you'll
discover that this black pepper is well worth the
time it takes for us to use it in our sauces.

Here at Peppermaster, we get our Tellicherry in
airtight light proof pouches which we only open
right before we will use the peppercorns. We grind
them fresh and only process what we will use
immediately. Although hand mills and mortars and
pestles are recommended for the average kitchen, we
use a high speed blender to crush the corns for our
sauces. It is this last minute grinding that gives
our Tellicherry Black sauce its distinct flavour.

If you haven't had the opportunity to fill your
peppermill with Tellicherry black peppercorns, we
suggest you do. And in the meantime, pick up a jar
of our Tellicherry Black sauce and introduce
yourself to the rich intense flavour of Tellicherry
pepper. We've married the Tellicherry to three of
the richest flavours we know; fresh roasted garlic,
rich dark Guatemalan espresso and to bring into full
bloom the flavours of all of these ingredients,
French Cognac that completes the bouquet.

Peppermaster Pepper Steak

Easy Salt & Pepper Shrimp
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp Butter or Cooking oil
1 Tbsp Tellicherry Black Sauce
1 lb peeled, veined Shrimp (with or without tails)

Directions:
Heat butter (until melted) or oil in saute pan. Mix
in Tellicherry sauce. Saute shrimp until just
cooked.

Serve with steamed vegetables and wild rice.

Easy Pepper Steak
Ingredients:
2-3 Tbsp Tellicherry Black Sauce
1/4 Cup heavy cream
2 New York strip loins (or your preferred cut)

Directions:
Combine cream and pepper sauce with a whisk. Bring
to a simmer over low heat, keep warm.

Grill steaks to desired doneness and spoon on the
pepper sauce or serve it on the side in a gravy
boat.

Serve with baked potato and grilled vegetables.

About kicking puppies.

2006-10-01T18:12:00.000-04:00

If you've started following this blog, it's possible that you got here because I left one of my comments on your blog. I suppose it's a hobby of mine, but I like bouncing through blogs when I want to blog but can't focus on a topic worth blogging about and all I want to write is something cheesy and personal -- which absolutely goes against my very idea of blogging and begs me to go buy a journal.

Something always motivates me to blog... I have something cool that I found that I want to share or I'm walking around emotionally struck looking for an outlet and frankly don't think it's any of your business why I feel like kicking a puppy. Of course it's days when I feel like this, that I blog bounce looking for someone to rip a strip off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Today, I learned two new words... Political Terrorism and White Privilege and decided that the puppy I want to kick is a privileged white Republican who likes to practice political terrorism.

Political Terrorism ran chills through my spine and flipped my stomach over a few times as I came to understand what the bloggers were talking about. White Privilige had my stomach flipping over, but running fewer and fewer chills down my spine as I came to understand what those bloggers were talking about.

Political Terrorism is the fear forced down our throats over and over again by those who want us to swallow their politics no matter how incredulous the basis for that political stance might be. One such stance is the one that we're unpatriotic if we aren't 100% behind the war in Afghanistan (The American equivalent of this is that you're unpatriotic if you're not 100% behind the war in Iraq -- or the ahem... war on terrorism).

White Privilege is the privilege that I as a white woman enjoy and that no person of colour anywhere will ever be able to enjoy because they aren't white. And that although, it's not something for me to have to feel guilty about, it is something that I have and any pretense that I am not privileged in this way is short-sighted and ignorant to the extreme.

Being a slightly facist feminist pacifist humanist like me isn't easy when blogging. I see commentary by people that I just want to take and shake. And then of course good sense kicks in and I either post something, that only I could ever possibly think is witty, in their comments or bounce away from their blog, shaking my head instead. Fortunately the latter happens far more often than the former, but the former, more than likely caused YOU to be here reading my gibberish.

What I discovered while bouncing today is that there is an awful lot of political terrorism being practiced by the white privileged who are calling for the blood of some faceless Islamic terrorists on the other side of the planet and who at the same time are in abject disgust with those of us who would like a face put on our aggressors before we are willing to give up our rights and freedoms for the sake of being protected from their aggressions.

The thought that comes to my mind... Who are you calling a terrorist, you freaking terrorist??? I just happened to notice as I was blog bouncing that the worst political terrorists are, more often than not, privileged white republican men.

So, really the two words, today anyway, go hand in hand.

What is interesting to me is the thought in my mind now, is what the heck am I going to do about these new words?? I can't really go around smacking all the privileged white republican men who are practicing political terrorism, can I?

Oh wait! I can blog.

So, here's a personal message to all you fat cat privileged white republicans with your brains stuffed so far up your bums that you are willing to give up your freedom for the sake of security.

It is not in support of terrorism that I am unwilling to have my luggage searched by the TSA. It is in protection of my rights and freedoms, which are not up for grabs simply because someone blew up the World Trade Center.

Jesus loves me, homosexuals and Belinda Stronach regardless of whether you do or not -- He said so himself.

Protecting Darfur from their Government is JUST as important as protecting Afghanistan from the ~~druglords~~, I mean, the Taliban.

There is nothing wrong with trade with Cuba or trade with China and Vietnam they are all EQUALLY vital to a spirit of international harmony.

The United States should simply get out of the United Nations. That way, their highest national priority; enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq; won't be in direct contradiction to everything that the UN stands for.

If multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation then a woman can be trusted with decisions about her own body.

The best way to improve military morale is to improve veterans' benefits, equip our men better and give them better combat pay.

Condoms won't keep adolescents from having sex, but it will help stop the spread of STDs and lower the incidence of teen pregnancy.

Belittling your allies and then demanding our cooperation is no way to make friends.

Making fun of Canadians for providing health care to all citizens, while providing it to Iraqis but not Americans really is hypocritical, not to mention mind-boggling.

Global warming is not junk science. And "Creationism" like all other religious theologies, should only be taught in schools with the consent of the children's parents.

Who a Government official is sleeping with should be NONE of OUR BUSINESS and lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die should be a criminal offense.

Government should get out of people's bedrooms most especially their own.

White men are privileged individuals, whether or not you want to accept that fact and someone countering that privilege with equality is not now nor will it ever be "reverse discrimination".

And last but not least, women are not second class citizens. We are better socialized than men are, think faster on our feet and are able to empathize better with our fellow man in order to find solutions that will protect and heal the entire planet and not just the bit run by privileged white men.

So there it is.

If you're a privileged white republican, consider yourself my kicked puppy.

And if you're not... forgive me for kicking puppies, they are after all only puppies.

Some people just don't understand "courtesy".

2006-09-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been so unhappy in a job that you felt you had to quit? Have you ever hated it so much that you simply went home from work one day and never went back? Did your boss have any inkling whatsoever that you were unhappy???

My assistant quit on Tuesday morning; no warning and no notice. She's left me in the position of having to figure out what she's done and what she hasn't. Worse, she's left right before the three busiest months of the year, when I haven't the time to train someone new.

She never complained nor gave me any idea that she was unhappy. In fact, she'd gone all over town (I live in a small town) telling people how much she loved the job.

She quit in an email. She said the job was too physical for her.

If I'd been in the frame of mind to fire her, I would have had to give her a week's notice, BY LAW. The Labour Board says I can sue her in civil court for the "reasonable amount of notice" that she is required to give me.

I wonder if she'll be so foolish as to give my name as a reference?

Terrorists hell, I'm more afraid of the local psychos!

2006-09-14T00:05:00.000-04:00

It must have felt like Baghdad central in downtown Montreal today.

A man walked into Dawson College with three guns, one a semi-automatic, and simply opened fire. Two people, one of them the gunman, thankfully, are dead and reports vary on how many were injured or treated at hospital.

Offhand, I don't know anyone involved (I don't think). Although, I do have an acquaintance who works there; I have a dear friend who passed away earlier this year who was a much beloved counselor there for a long-time and I've attended classes in those hallowed halls. Heck, I wrote my Jeopardy! application in one of those classrooms!

Dawson is a beautiful old campus on the corner between Westmount and Downtown Montreal and is a beautiful Cegep not a University, as the US press is calling it. This is essentially the equivalent of Grade 12 and 13 here in Quebec. So these kids are all 17 and 18 years old. Watching the newsclips of Montreal's babies running in fear from the building hit so close to home.

Here we are the day after the anniversary of 9/11 thinking about all the people who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that day, some of whom I knew personally. I was wondering about the insensibility of the disaster that occurred that infamous day and about all of the things that have happened since then, when this occurs. What a mindf*ck! Pardon the expression.

My nephew (Father of my Great-Niece) is a Captain in the Air Force and because of his position, has a slim chance of going to Afghanistan and yesterday, because of his job, he was in my thoughts, repeatedly. But today, after hearing the news, I thought of his sister, she's a member of the RCMP, off on maternity leave (new Mother of my Great-Nephew) and she could have easily been one of those cops who had to deal with that gunman today.

Apparently, two cops on a routine call just happened to be nearby when the gunman started shooting. They acted very quickly and in a very short period of time, had him cornered and "neutralized" so he could do no more harm.

It's funny, for the last few years, when I'd see stories about Afghanistan on the news, I'd fear that my Nephew would get called up and sent overseas to kill potentially innocent Afghanis in the guise of protecting us from Osama Bin Laden and the Axis of Evil. But everyday my Niece and her co-workers are out there on the front line dealing with all manner of psychos right here at home. And those psychos could far more easily kill you or I than every single one of Bin Laden's creepy friends.

All I can think today is thank God for people like my Niece. Those are the front-line members we need to have protecting us. Policemen.

And before 9/11 that's what our military were; policemen... Peacekeepers.

Today I saw the new recruitment commercials for the Canadian Military and it looked like an advertisement for one of those video games that I don't let my son play.

It's like they're trying to recruit people who will enjoy killing. People who will do what we have never wanted our military to do.

It breaks my heart and makes me wonder... Do we need more killers or more policemen?

The 12 steps of Chiliheads Anonymous

2006-07-18T10:33:00.000-04:00

These are the Twelve Steps of Chiliheads Anonymous.

1. We admitted we were powerless over chili peppers — and that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity; or at least make it stop burning!

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Dave DeWitt as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of our hot sauce fridge.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being that we really did like the taste of scotch bonnets.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all the Tobasco from restaurant tables everywhere and replace it with REAL hot sauce.

7. Humbly asked Him to not remove our seeds.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to try even harder in the future to turn them all into chiliheads.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would keep them from really enjoying the burn.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were deficient promptly bought another bottle of hot sauce.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with capsaicin, as we understood it, praying only for knowledge of the fact that there are only 15,000,000 SHUS in pure cap and the power to carry that message to the rest of the world.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of eating peppers, we tried to carry this message to chiliheads, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Dorset Naga

2006-05-20T12:29:00.000-04:00

It's every chilihead's dream to find the world's hottest pepper. We go through phases of seeking all the heat we can handle, delving into extracts and maybe even cap-surfing until we either tire of it, hurt ourselves or settle into simply eating fresh peppers regularly.

April fool’s Day 2006 will go down in history as the day that Joy and Michael Michaud, pictured here, announced to the world that they had hazarded upon the world's hottest pepper. From there, the story began its whirlwind tour of misinformation, mistrust and hoaxism. The April Fool's Day joke is that this story didn't break on April Fool's Day. The story was published on March 31st, in the Bridport News a newspaper local to the area of Dorset where the Michauds reside. The media then picked it up and ran with it... on April fool’s Day.

Joy and Michael Michaud live in West Bexington, a small rural village in the county of Dorset, England. They both hold a Doctorate in grassland agronomy. Joy's is from Aberystwyth University of Wales and Michael's is from Texas A&M. Michael is American. Michael is co-author of the book; Cool Green Leaves and Red Hot Peppers. Michael contributes articles on his work with immigrants and the vegetables they grow. One such article appeared in a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) magazine, The Garden, entitled: The World in an Allotment - Gardeners from Different Communities.

For their part-time chili business, the Michauds grow 8 other chilies and tomatillos. All the chilies, with the exception of the Thai hot are grown in the soil in polytunnels, a UK version of a plastic sheet hot house. The Thai hot and some other chilies sold at shows as decorative, edible house plants are grown in pots where they thrive. Joy and Michael spent the last weekend planting out this year's crops.

For the past several years, Joy and Michael have been selecting the best and the brightest of the offspring from a Bangladeshi pepper, the naga morich. The pepper, which ripens to a rich red colour, is preferred by Bangladeshis to be picked and used green. Their intention for selecting these plants was to get larger, heartier fruit, with stronger, larger plants. They are aware that culling the way they did is really going the long way around, but they are quite satisfied with the resulting plant. The line for which they have applied for Plant Variety Protection (PVP) (Plant Cultivar Protection in North America) has been given the name ‘Dorset Naga’.

In a personal interview, Joy said, "We don't know whether our chilli is the hottest in the world or not, probably not, it is just that we had it measured." The truth is that based on two independent HPLC tests of the Michaud's Dorset Naga, their cultivar, planned or accidental, currently holds the highest HPLC count for anything other than an extract, or does it? Interestingly enough, there is yet another chili from Assam, India, called the bhut jalakai or raja mirchi (ghost or poison chili) and it supposedly registers a reading of 1,041,427 SHU. The Michauds believe that the Dorset Naga, the naga morich, the bhut jalakai, the raja mirchi, and other landrace naga varieties, (all C. chinense peppers) from that region, North Bangladesh/North East India, may all be related. During the interview, Joy expressed surprise that there was so much excitement generated over their peppers. After all, such hot peppers are common in the ethnic shops catering to immigrant Bangladeshis where they found their naga morich peppers. With a laugh, Joy writes, "Michael's favourite quote is that these chillies are the world's best kept secret. Only him, me (sic) and a million Bangladeshis know about it!"

Joy tells us that this year's Naga crop is about 1-2 feet high already and they expect the fruit to be ready to be picked by late July. Once grown, the Dorset Naga is easier to tell from the naga morich, mostly because the plants themselves grow twice as tall and the fruit are much larger.

Shown here, side by side, the naga morich is on the left, the Dorset Naga, on the right.

Regardless of when the fruit are ripe, don't expect to be able to buy any fresh Dorset Naga unless you live in Britain. The Michaud's will only ship to a British address.

The Michauds also sell to a few selected sauce makers, their main buyer being a Bangladeshi family. A few years ago the Michauds’ regular buyer had let them down and they had masses of naga laden with fruit and no one to buy them. Joy contacted the Bangladeshi sauce makers, who weren't really sure they wanted the peppers. Joy sent them a sample anyway. Once they had the pepper in their hands, they changed their minds and suddenly, Joy and Michael couldn't grow enough! Last year the Michauds had to limit their hot sauce maker to only 10 kilograms of fruit a week. The majority of the chilies the sauce maker needs are imported from Bangladesh.

The Dorset Naga, although large for their size, are very thin skinned with a large cavity, so the Michauds get about 200 fruit per kilo. The plants are so bushy, that Joy actually has to search for the chilies. Perhaps she should call it the Hide and Seek Naga! Joy picks all of the peppers herself. They are so hot; she won't let anyone else do it. Interestingly, the peppers are not always bush-ripened. The Bangladeshis who eat the naga prefer the peppers green.

Michael and Joy joked that they should set up a competition to see who can come up with a hotter pepper. Michael figures it would be a great way to get more people intermingling with the Bangladeshi communities; they would go into their shops, where meeting the people and talking with them will help break down barriers.

If you are going to go around to the shops that Bangladeshi immigrants frequent, you might find these little green chili pods that don't look special, but there they will be. The Bangladeshi pepper is always sold green, so it is hard to extract viable seed, but the Michauds managed it, so it is possible.

At the moment the Michauds are not selling seed of Dorset Naga. They have applied for plant variety protection and the seed is likely to be available after this year’s season. There has been a sudden flurry of naga seeds being sold on the internet, but this is not Dorset Naga, and may be the seed collected from the unripe fruit sold in the ethnic shops. It is also rumoured that some of the seeds might actually be the PCP Red Savina.

We had a customer of ours bring us a plant he called a Mr. Naga. After showing the pictures of Mr. Naga to Joy, she concurs, Mr. Naga was most definitely a naga morich. So, indeed, we have had the honour of tasting the now famous pepper. What's sad, is that last fall Mr. Naga lost all of his leaves and one of our employees thinking him dead, tossed the plant. In case you are wondering, the fruit on Mr. Naga was the hottest pepper I have ever tasted and it actually left our Peppermaster feeling like he'd been punched in the chest. It took his breath away and he had to sit down.

The fruit of the now defunct Peppermaster Mr. Naga plant.

I asked Joy if she and Michael eat the peppers they grow, and if so, what their favourite way to eat them was. She told me that they do eat the peppers, just not the Dorset Naga, it is too hot for them. She made the point that they both love the habanero and its wonderful flavour, asking if I had ever tried using it for tomato ketchup or for a fruit-based pasta sauce. Then she commented that they used a habanero specially bred for its mildness. Lover of the habanero that I am, I would love to taste this mild-bred habanero, even if I would end up adding heat afterwards.

Over the years, Joy and Michael have come to specialize more and more in chilies, but they continue to grow other crops. The Michauds sell a lot of Mexican chilies and as such they grow the vegetables that would go best with those chilies, hence the growing of tomatillos. In a chili business like theirs, the Michauds need to offer a variety of peppers, covering the full range of heat, so, they have always included a hot habanero pepper. To be able to supply all the chilies in their catalogue right from the beginning of the season they aim to synchronize the first harvest of their chilies. This was difficult with the habanero as these peppers tend to ripen later than other types and normally should be picked ripe. But when, a Pakistani friend mentioned a fruity flavoured Bangladeshi chili eaten green. A little checking and it turned out that the chili was a habanero and because it is traditionally eaten in its green stage, could be picked several weeks earlier than usual. That was the beginning.

Joy and Michael would like everyone to know that they aren't fraudsters. They aren't about to claim that their peppers are the hottest anyone could get. The only claim the Michauds have made is that these two HPLC tests were carried out on a pure sample of their peppers. The tests, both conducted by reputable American HPLC testing facilities, recommended, Joy adds, by people in the US chili industry, gave their pepper sample an average score of over 900,000 SHU. They have sent their results to Guinness to apply for the World Record, and in the event that Guinness, and indeed the rest of the world would like more proof, wait a while, the Michauds intend to retest this summer.

It's funny that two agronomists who prefer the milder peppers should develop something so hot they can't eat it. In fact, both Joy and Michael downplay the macho chili eating, lovers of peppers, they prefer to enjoy their flavours whether, mild or hot.

Drugs don't Kill Kids, Lack of Parental Responsibility Kills Kids!

2006-04-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

If you've been following my blog for a while, then you'll know about the teen who died from a drug overdose. Said death touching way too close for me. Well, the saga continues.

Last week, my eleven year old son came home from elementary school with a letter in his hand that confused him. The letter was from the school, they were planning on April 21 to hold a pajama day and each child would donate at least $1 to have the privilege of wearing said pajamas and the monies collected would be used to plant a tree in honour of this young girl who had "passed away".

"Mommy," my bright little boy asked, "why are they planting a tree for her, didn't she overdose on drugs?".

He showed me the letter. It gave no mention of "drug awareness", it gave no mention of the lesson to be taught from planting this tree, and indeed, left ME wondering why a tree was being planted.

I phoned the school.

I was told that the children of the school had decided to erect the tree to remember a classmate who'd died. I was left with the impression that regardless of what insensibility this project might have, it was closed to discussion and there would be no further discussion on the matter, it was set. I requested the Principal call me.

That was last Thursday.

Yesterday, after no response from the Principal, I wrote a letter and rather than write several letters, I decided to write one open letter.

This is the letter:

(The young girl's name has been removed to protect her family).

========================================================

I am writing this open letter to tell you how irresponsible I find the to-date shoddy planning of "Pajama Day", this Friday at Mount Pleasant. Allowing the children to memorialize the death of this girl in this manner is an affront to any parent hoping to teach their children not to go where this girl went.

It makes sense to me that these children want to do something to remember the fact that one of their ex-school mates has died. But I find it insensible that the guiding adults at this school are allowing the desires of the children to proceed, seemingly, without wise adult guidance.

This girl died using illegal drugs. Sending a letter home to parents asking them to donate money to purchase a tree to memorialize a child who "passed away" puts this girl's death on par with that of our recently deceased teacher, Mr. Nagy or someone who might have passed away due to leukemia or some other malady. Furthermore, simply planting a tree in her honour without surrounding the function with an opportunity to teach our children not to do drugs, is thoughtless, irresponsible and misguided.

Stevie was a bright child, with a bright future and her life was snuffed out because she voluntarily did Ecstasy.

Aside from planting a tree, there are many ways that the children of Mount Pleasant can remember this girl without turning her into a bizarre cult figure who simply "passed away".

The RCMP, across Canada offers the DARE program to elementary schools. This program sends trained police officers into the schools to teach children how to avoid using and misuing tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and other drugs, such as ecstasy.

The D.A.R.E. curriculum includes both the K-4 Visitation Program, and the Elementary (5th/6th grade) curriculum. These programs are specifically designed for the children of Mount Pleasant and the workbooks are available in both French and English.

DARE is a comprehensive prevention program designed to equip school children with the skills to recognize and resist social and peer pressures to experiment with tobacco, alcohol, other drugs and violence.

The D.A.R.E. workbooks cost .89 per student, and I believe that instigating an annual D.A.R.E. day program, designed to raise money to help pay for this program, is a better memorial to this girl than simply planting a tree.

I would further hope that the plaque that accompanies this "memorial" tree will state clearly the mistake that Stevie made in doing the illegal drugs that took her short life, so as to not give undue honour to Stevie's death.

It seems highly plausible to me that had Mount Pleasant had such a program in place on an annual basis, this girl's death might have been avoided.

I would suggest that taking the adult upper hand and guiding the children to do something to memorialize Stevie, by instigating a program such as D.A.R.E. within the walls of Mount Pleasant will have far more future value to our children than simply planting a tree.

In protest of this lack of thought, I will be keeping my son home from "pajama day".

I do hope that you and the other teachers involved will put a little more thought into this project.

==========================================

I guess someone (or several someones) that I sent the letter to decided to forward it. Perhaps they agreed, perhaps they didn't, but the letter ended up in the hands of someone who for whatever reason didn't think this is any of my business. They called to tell me so, and the conversation ended with them threatening me.

I understand, all too well, how painful such a situation can be for people, but that's no excuse to threaten someone's life. I called the police and filed a report, but didn't press charges. I might have empathy, but I don't take chances with folks I don't know very well.

Later that afternoon, I received a phone call finally from the Principal. He was a little annoyed that I wrote the letter. He said he'd been given the impression that the "problem" was taken care of. I guess it wasn't, surprise, surprise.

I spoke to him for about an hour and he left me with the words; "You raise some very valid points", resonating in my ears. Unfortunately, I have nothing in my head, nor my heart that leads me to believe that the letter or the phone conversation changed anything. We'll see.

I told him that I believed that several parents had already dropped the ball when it came to this girl's death and that I couldn't simply sit idle and watch it get dropped again. And I mean it. Wednesday night, the town community center is holding a drug awareness meeting. I will be there. I wonder if the tree planting will come up as a topic of conversation? I hope it does. If we're to leave a legacy for our children, it should be one of truth. And the truth is, this girl died from lack of parental supervision.

She was at a friend's home for a sleepover. There was no parent. The two girls went to the house of a third kid, slightly older and again, there was no parent. The kids did ecstasy, and one of them is now dead. Where were these kids' parents? I don't know where these kids' parents were or what they were thinking.

What I do know is that three families, already in crisis, have been destroyed by this incident and I've taken it upon myself to make sure that someone who has the time to do so, picks up the ball, and runs with it. And I really hope I find someone, because if I don't, I feel I will have to be the one to run with the ball, and I really don't have the time for it.

In the event that I don't find someone to run with the ball, I've been doing some research. I've learned several things.

Teaching kids to "Just say "NO"!", and programs like "Scared Straight" and "D.A.R.E." may only work on little kids. By the time these kids are teens and are into fully experiencing life, wanting to be adults before their time, these programs aren't enough. So the next questions are: What is enough?; What works?; and, Why don't these programs work?

Unfortunately the answers to these questions are a little elusive. Mostly because not everything works for everyone. So is there a bandaid, one size fits all solution? or is there a lot of work to do?

A woman named Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum started the Safety First program, a Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education in 1999. The program came about after the San Francisco Chronicle published a letter that Rosenbaum had written to her teenage son, as he started high school. Rosenbaum's idea was to put in place realistic strategies that her son could use as he wended his way through this new path in his life.

Dr. Rosenbaum earned a PhD in Medical Sociology at the University of California at San Francisco in 1979, and was a recipient of study grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for eighteen years. Dr. Rosenbaum has completed studies on Crack and Heroin addiction as well as ECSTASY and drug treatment.

I printed Dr. Rosenbaum's brochure: Safety First: Teens and Drugs. and will offer free copies to anyone who wants one, at Wednesday's meeting. And I hope to find someone enough in support of something like this to really want to run with it. And ultimately, please, cross your fingers that I'm not really alone in this; that would kill me.

Me out.

Are You Trying to Kill Yourself or Your Dinner Guests???

2006-03-19T18:34:00.000-05:00

While blog browsing today, I came upon a recipe for hot pepper oils for home growers written by John Laumer of Philadelphia for Treehugger.com a site for organicophiles. Being the capiscumophile I am I found the blog by blogsearching "hot peppers". Why am I blogging about it??? Because homemade hot pepper oils are dangerously friendly to the clostridium botunlinum bacteria; better known to the rest of us as botulism.

Botulism is a disease caused by the flourishing of the clostridium botulinum bacteria. There are numerous outbreaks of foodborne botulism occuring almost every year and more often than not, they are caused by eating contaminated home-canned foods. An average of 110 cases are reported every year.

Symptoms of botulism include double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth, and muscle weakness. Untreated, these early symptoms can progress to paralysis, which ultimately is why you want to be very careful not to get botulism to begin with. Paralysis, when it gets into your lungs is a one way ticket to death. If you know what I mean.

Botulism symptoms, according to the CDC, occur between 18 and 36 hours of eating contaminated foodstuffs. BUT, they warn that they can occur as early as 6 hours after eating something tainted or as late as 10 days later.

Botulism treatment requires injection of an antitoxin and although the antitoxin can slow the effects of the botulism, reversing it fully can take up to several weeks. The good news is that whereas botulism induced paralysis can be fatal, over the last 50 years, deaths from it have been reduced from 50% to less than 8%. Oh, the miracles of modern medicine. Cases of severe botulism can put you on a breathing machine for as long as it takes for the antitoxin to allow your system to return to normal. That can take several months. Someone who survives botulism poisoning can have fatigue and shortness of breath for years and require long-term therapy in order to completely recover.

In other words, botulism is a bad thing.

The good news is that botulism is easily prevented.

More often than not, when one is talking about home-canning procedures, one needs worry about botulism for low-acid content foods. I, being a hot pepper afficianado need not worry about such things, I'm not about to home-can anything low-acid. Indeed, if I'm to home-can anything it will be hot peppers. Well, now technically, in my case, I suppose "home-canning" is actually "professional processing", but, well, you get the idea. At any rate, although our "professional processing" is just that, my company uses "home-canning" methods, only on a more commercial scale.

Peppermaster hot sauces, to-date, doesn't have any peppers packed in oil, yet. And, truth be told, the reason we don't is primarily because of botulism.

Strict hygienic procedures are required to avoid contamination of foods and even so, once processed, oils infused with garlic, herbs or hot peppers should be refrigerated. Fortunately, botulism is destroyed by high temperatures, so, persons who eat such foods should consider boiling the food for 10 minutes before eating it to ensure safety. As reticent as I am to get involved in hot peppered oils, the Peppermaster assures me that when we do so, this won't be a concern of ours.

My fear, if you will, is that our customers will take our lovely peppered oils and then have to boil them for ten minutes in order to be sure that they won't get botulism. And of course, after reading the CDC website, one might come to this conclusion.

After much research, I've come to the conclusion that in order to properly put peppers into oil, one must be very concerned about moisture levels. Avoiding at all costs, following the FDA's recommendation that one add microbial inhibitors or acidifying agents. We will NOT be using citric acid; or microbial chemical anythings.

If you are going to home-can your peppers and pack them in oil, do yourself a favour and add citric acid. Then, when you boil the product, do so for no less than 10 minutes and add five minutes for every 5000 feet of elevation you live above sea level.

If you want to be really safe, simply blanch your peppers, cover them with water and then boil the jar for 15 minutes. Then, you can safely add the oil right before cooking... Bye bye botulism risk.

Me out.

Ve Duss Done Reach...

2006-03-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

"Ve duss done reach" is how one might say "We're home" in the Bahamas.

Finding goat peppers on New Providence Island, last year, was an exercise in futility. We kept being told that we could find them easily at the vegetable exchange but for some reason, the government officials who run the exchange simply didn't have the goat peppers or didn't want us to have them.

This years trip, came out with slightly better results. You'll be pleased to know that although we didn't manage to come home with any goat peppers in our pockets, we did manage to find two steady suppliers. One is growing some pretty amazing things in the very rocky ground of the island will be shipping peppers to us this spring. The other, on our enticement is planting knowing he now has a sure market for his produce. We can thank our Hurricane Mash purchasers for this project.

What was most fascinatingly interesting to me is how they farm in the islands. They call it "pothole farming" and until you see it, you've never see anything like it. It's a wonder they can grow anything at all. And you should have seen the incredible fruit and vegetables growing out of these potholes. You simply can't imagine what kind of quality they are managing to get out of these literal holes in the ground. And because the ground is essentially a coral bed, pothole farming is the preferred method of farming in a lot of islands in the Caribbean. Truth be told, when you see what Caribbeans have to work with for soil, then farming any other way seems ludicrous.

This is Caribbean-style Pothole Farming:

Not to be confused with Prairie Pothole Farming:

Where I come from, one first clears the land, removing all rocks, tree stumps, and anything else that might break the tines on a roto-tiller. Then, they till the soil, preparing a bed of soft moist earth to plant in. In the Bahamas, short of building a raised bed of earth, which is very expensive and time consuming, one simply plants in the pockets of soil that are found in the porous coral bed of the islands. In other words, in the potholes. It's a pretty darned cool way to grow things.

And we now have two farmers pothole farming peppers and native Bahamian limes just for us.

We arrived in the Bahamas to beautiful weather. Our flight to the out-islands was uneventful.

Our cottage turned out to be a delightful shade of coral pink.

and the beach was delightfully, 200 yards from the back door, as promised.

It took two weeks before we found any goat peppers at all, but then it was as if the heavens themselves had opened up and dropped manna onto our doorstep, because from that point forward, there were peppers everywhere! Bird peppers, finger peppers, and yes, even goat peppers.

We had the opportunity to meet several Bahamian hot sauce makers. None of whom are interested in exporting, unfortunately for North American chiliheads.

But to make it up to everyone we've made arrangements to share our island. If you find yourself with time to visit the out-islands of the Bahamas and would like a quiet little cottage a stone's throw from the sea, I can get you set up.

Me out.

T

Quebec teen dies after apparently taking ecstasy

2006-02-14T00:38:00.000-05:00

I went to a funeral reception yesterday. Rather I avoided going to a funeral I couldn't bring myself to go in and instead went shopping for an hour with my husband.

The newspapers had this to say:

RIGAUD, Que. -- A 13-year-old girl who went into a coma after apparently experimenting with the drug ecstasy has died, Quebec provincial police said Tuesday.

The girl, who had been on life support since the incident late last week, died Monday, said police spokesman Marc Butz. Butz would not comment on reports a 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with drug trafficking.

Butz said a judge had imposed a publication ban on information about the case.

Provincial police say the 13-year-old teen from Rigaud, west of Montreal, and a 14-year-old friend were at a sleepover when they went to the home of an older acquaintance to allegedly obtain the drug.

After they returned to the 14-year-old's home, the youngest teen began to feel ill and had trouble breathing.

An ambulance was called and she was taken to the hospital, where her condition deteriorated.

Family and friends said their final goodbyes in the filled-to-capacity St. James Church in Hudson.

I can barely think about it without getting all teary-eyed and choked up.

You see, this girl was my daughter's best friend from the first day of grade three through New Years' Eve in Grade five. Both girls are now in Grade 8. But my daughter has been homeschooled since last January. Given this combination of experience, I can't say that I knew the girl when she died. What I can say is that I liked her. She was a self-composed, intelligent girl, sure of herself, with an intense, sarcastic sense of humour. Well beyond her years, much like my daughter, and like my daughter, an alpha-female.

I had a fleeting friendship with the girl's mother, but that went away when the girls' friendship broke up. So although I knew the girl who died, I didn't know her at all anymore. Still, her passing breaks my heart.

The girl's mother is very, very angry. And what mother wouldn't be. She's very angry with the girl her daughter was with when she took the drugs. For the mother, the surviving girl is entirely at fault. I can't blame her for feeling that way. Who else can she blame. Certainly not her daughter. Certainly not the Mother of the surviving girl. Certainly not herself.

I hugged her at the reception and I started to say to her that I knew how she felt, but I couldn't possibly -- I still have my baby. But she stopped me and knowing the story of my first husband, she made it clear that although the circumstances are different, she knows I know how she feels.

She seemed so empty... Distant... Lost. Did I look like that when my first husband died?

The only other thing left to be said, is about the girl. She wanted to be an architect.

Me out.

Wait a minute... That's not a doggie in the window, that's a doggie on the computer screen!!

2006-02-08T17:58:00.000-05:00

And where better than a computer screen to find the best canine blogger in North America??

Bark N Blog is a blog about natural pet care and it's written by Shadrach, a Neo Mastiff who does all the blogging. Yeah, ok, if you don't buy that, then you should know that for Kim Bloomer and Jeannie Thomason, who as a team own the blog, Shadrach's blog can help you learn all about caring for your pet, naturally.

Their motto: "The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action" - author: Herbert Spencer
Every Wednesday at 2:30 PM EST as these ladies record at Holistic Pet Audio You can download the show or listen to it online every Tuesday at 10 AM EST at Animal Talk Naturally.

Animal Talk Naturally is streamed on BX Radio Network and on All Pets Radio.

Tomorrow's show includes a Q&A with holistic vet, Dr. Stephen Blake. I've been told by Kim Bloomer that he is funny and kind.

Here's the skinny on the show.

Animal Talk Naturally will have Stephen Blake, DVM as the special guest this week. On Wednesday February 8th at 2:30pm EST. You can be a part of the live audience and participation.

Stephen Blake, DVM aka The Pet Whisperer will be talking about natural care for pets. Some of the topics to be covered are raw diets, genetics and health, vaccinations, the use of essential oils, colostrum and gemmology. Ask the Doctor questions and participate in the interactive show.

You can find the show at Holistic Pet Audio.

To enter the online recording room:

1)Download the plugin to your desktop,

2) Double click on the icon you saved to your desktop
The install wizard will install it

3) Go back to Holistic Pet Audio, and log in!

Kim tells me that space is VERY limited - they only have room for 17 people, so be on time and download the plugin ahead of time.

If you'd rather simply listen to the airwaves, the show is streamed on BX Radio Network and on All Pets Radio

Kim Bloomer is a Natural Pet Care Educator and a friend of mine. Her company, Aspenbloom Pet Care is all about seeing your pets good health bloom!

Check it out. The dog is pretty danged interesting.

Me out.

Blogging isn't anywhere near as easy as I thought it would be...

2006-01-03T19:56:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since this little journey started and whereas I'm really proud of what I've managed to publish, I realize that I haven't posted anywhere near what I thought I might or even what I hoped I would. I realize that I've got two major posts in draft one about the mysterious Naga Jolokia and another which, although complete has not hit the airwaves. This, since October.

Can you tell I've been busy??

I've spent the last two months purveying peppers all over North America. I've put samples of extremely hot hot sauces onto the tongues of several thousand North Americans and more than just a few other international travellers.

France is going to love Peppermaster!

I've made a lot of friends and probably a couple of enemies. And you know what... I really like being a sadist. It's fun.

We're stepping onto a plane tomorrow night to begin what will be an 18 hour voyage to South Palmetto Point, Bahamas, West Indies. You can find it on GoogleEarth. I'll have to get back to you on the coordinates.

Our little voyage has several goals. The most important of which, has to do with eating a lot of Bahamian Goatpeppers. Those nasty little capiscum chinsenses that just happen to be the best little peppers in the world... The environmental stressing, we think, gives it the ability to score as one of the hottest peppers in the world, right up there with the Red Savina and chocolate habaneros: which suffice it to say are all as habaneros, essentially different breeds of the same pepper.

Our next goal is to hand over some money to a pepper farmer to pay for seeds. The result of selling lots of jars of Hurricane Mash.

Our third goal is to scout out some territory, a little pied-a-terre, where I can build my little dream cottage. Ok, ok, it will be a dream shack, but who needs a cottage when you're 200 yards from the high tide line and in the direct path of no less than 3 Cat 5 hurricanes every decade?

Our final goal and well, my own personal goal, is to simply dig my toes in hot pink sand and spend some time swimming in an aquamarine paradisical coral jungle. Ya know, like Nemo in the Disney movie... That coral jungle.

I promise not to think of you while I'm sucking back the Barbancour and cokes on the beach, so long as you promise not to harbour ill will towards me while I'm gone. See you on the shorter side of winter.

Me out.

Spam, not just for breakfast anymore.

2005-10-19T18:55:00.000-04:00

When I was a little girl, the word "spam" meant a spiced ham, that came in a tin can with a key, made by Hormel Foods.

This photo is the link to spam.com:

Hormel probably had no idea that their brand name would become a household name meaning something that nobody, especially we-bloggers, wants.

Just recently, I've been spammed by several people. They've posted little comments in my we-blog comments section as if I had spoken about something they're obviously interested in and then left a web-link to their sites.

Said sites are of course those weirded out little advertising sites that people seem to think they can create to sell to big companies who will be interested in the site content that they've gone to all the trouble to put together for them.

They suck.

Writers block. Gak!

2005-10-10T17:38:00.000-04:00

It's one of those days.

I actually have the time to write. I can't publish the blog that I want to for fear of reprisals and I haven't anything else I really want to say.

Sigh.

Maybe if I were getting paid???

Me out.

Putting the heat in the hot seat...

2005-09-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

Someone saw the ingredients list on Peppermaster's Chili Chocolate Passion and made the comment that no self-respecting chilihead would eat a Mole made with extract; Actually, he said "self-respecting Mexican", but I digress.

Which was annoying enough to me, since what the guy who was posting refers to as an extract isn't what I was thinking was an extract. So the art department got busy trying to figure out what better way to say that we extract the natural essence from the pepper for the Chocolate sauce.

Which of course brings me to this blog.

After doing a bit of research two big questions come to mind. First is why the heck would anyone even put an "extract" into their mouths, never mind into their hot sauce? And second, with it being so subjective, how do you know how hot a sauce really is?

I'll start with the extract. The idea is pretty inert at first, but in truth, really, there is something scary to me about the idea of extracting capsaicin from a pepper... Especially when you learn how it is done.

Read this:

"Pure capsaicin is so powerful that chemists who handle the crystalline powder must work in a filtered "tox room" in full body protection. The suit has a closed hood to prevent inhaling the powder."

Said pharmaceutical chemist Lloyd Matheson of the University of Iowa, who once inhaled some capsaicin accidentally:

"It’s not toxic, but you wish you were dead if you inhale it."

"One milligram of pure capsaicin placed on your hand would feel like a red-hot poker and would surely blister the skin,"

said capsaicin expert Marlin Bensinger."

Source of quotes: Fiery Foods.

It takes guts to want to work with that sort of toxicity. I have two doors between my office and the kitchen, and they're both closed tight during production so that I don't inhale the peppers while they're cooking back there. I can't imagine what pain I would be in, were I to inhale pure capsaicin powder. Can you say; "major owie"?

There is a link to a University of Toronto page that gives instructions on extracting capsaicin. I gather it's class instruction for a chemistry lab.

In the quote it mentions the use of "acetonitrile" as the extraction solvent.

So, I looked up acetonitrile and do you know what it is more commonly known as??? Methyl Cyanide.

According to www.reciprocalnet.org,

"Methyl Cyanide is a toxic, colorless liquid with an aromatic (ether like) odor and forms explosive mixtures with air."

Whuuuuut?

Toxic... explosive... And we're eating this? Eeeeew Gross!

Is there any wonder that the Scovie Awards judges refuse to taste sauces made with extracts?

Truth be told though, lots of extract-based sauce makers don't actually use Methyl Cyanide extracted capsaicin. They use pure grain alcohol to force the capsaicin out of the peppers, strain off the pulp of the fruit and somehow manage to get nothing left but capsaicin. Then in the cooking, they evaporate off the alcohol; I hope; at least that seems to be the idea. I'm sure there's way more to it than that and I've probably really oversimplified the entire process, but until I can find step by step instructions, somewhere, that's as close as I can get to explaining the process in layman's terms.

Given the premise that self-respecting chiliheads can not or will not eat sauces that contain these extracts, what do they eat?

For starters. We chiliheads like it hot. The hotter the better. The problem is that depending on how long we've been chiliheads and what peppers we are used to eating, one chiliheads' hot might be completely different from another chiliheads' hot.

Which brings us to the question that I get asked all the time; how hot is it.

Most self-respecting chiliheads have at least heard of the Scoville scale, even if they don't know how different peppers score on it or even if they can't quite remember what it is called.

The Scoville scale was invented in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville. And even though it is a subjective taste test it has the misplaced respect that a more scientific test might deserve. When the scale was invented, (and it is still the same test, today), it asked a panel of tasters to state when an increasingly dilute pepper solution no longer burned. And based on the tasters, the peppers were given their Scoville levels... Generally stated, one part per million of 'rates' would then score 1.5 Scoville units. Confused? Yeah me too, but that's beside the point. The point is they taste the stuff, score it and based on that, it gets a certain number of Scoville units. Got it? Ok.

So, I'm thinking wouldn't that scale be different if the tasters were all chiliheads or heaven forbid, if none of them were? Like I said; subjective. I've seen people take Peppermaster Hurricane Mash in their mouths like it was apple sauce and once tested, we are pretty certain it would score about 200,000 to 300,000 scoville units, essentially because it is 90% pure pepper solids and those peppers all regularly score 250,000 to as much as 577,000 on the Scoville scale. By the same token, I've had people go berserk simply tasting the Chili Chocolate Passion sauce, which based on their reactions, could suggest that the sauce would score more than 200,000 because it's made with the same peppers, but then again, if someone (like me) is used to eating habaneros and scotch bonnets regularly, it might only score 60,000 or less... subjective. Even for those of us used to eating such peppers, that subjectiveness becomes really clear when one takes a teaspoon of the sauce and mixes it into a hot cup of coffee. Rather than being a mild burgeoning heat in the back of the throat, as described on our label, it suddenly becomes a fuming heat that you notice immediately. But, if the chilihead is used to that type of pepper, it still might not feel hot. again, subjective.

Depending on how you look at it, though, it could have absolutely nothing to do with the taster, it could be entirely affected by the ingredients one uses in the sauce. Again, I use the Chili Chocolate Passion as an example, once mixed with the chocolate, butter, sugar and other ingredients, the effect of the peppers is modified. The more of a chilihead one is, the more the nullification is obvious; so much so, that real diehard chiliheads can't even feel the heat.

It gets worse. When one starts bouncing around the internet trying to find out how many scoville units a particular type of pepper or a particular sauce has. It gets ridiculous. It makes me wonder how any self-respecting chilihead can possibly accept a Scoville unit as having anything but historical significance when it comes to heat classing peppers.

www.chileseeds.com.uk clocks jalapenos at 25,000.

www.gourmetsleuth.com has them at 2,500-5,000.

www.thescarms.com has them score 2500 - 8000.

and The Chile Pepper Institute scores them between 4,000 - 50,000 And these guys have the good sense to show that those scores occurred over different breeds of jalapenos.

Individual peppers are going to have enormously varying levels of heat even off the same bush. So, one could readily eat even habanero peppers as if they were candy, then suddenly, one day, they hit a really hot one and ochochaw! As Jimmy Durante might say.

What that means is that depending on what they're tasting, depending on how used to that particular pepper the taster is, depending, depending, depending... Why are we even talking about this test? It's a joke. It's like measuring a child's fever by placing your hand on their forehead, wearing gloves. Sigh.

Interestingly enough, there is a more technologically advanced test available, which only the sauce makers seem to be aware of and it's called the HPLC test, or High Performance Liquid Chromatography. An HPLC legitimately detects the heat compounds in the peppers and records the amount in parts per million (ppm). For the diehard need-to-know-the-scoville-unit chilihead, a quick conversion is to multiply the HPLC ppm by 15 to get the Scoville Heat Unit. So, here we are back at Scoville units.

So once now you know more than you ever need to know about Scoville units. How is that supposed to help anyone be able to tell you what the world's hottest pepper is?

The Guinness Book of World Records records the Red Savina Habanero as the World's Hottest Spice.

"It has a rating of 350,000–570,000 on the Scoville scale (an index for measuring the hotness of chilies), compared with a score of 2,500–5,000 for the jalapeño."

It seems that even they know better than to say a pepper has a certain Scoville unit rating. The record was entered by GNS Spices of Walnut California in 1994. It scored a whopping 577,000 Scoville units. Of course, it doesn't say how, but then, it's the record holder.

So, given that the Red Savina Habanero holds the world record, does that make it the World's hottest pepper? I'm not so sure.

Reimer Seeds, world famous seed distributor, sells a Tepin Pepper, which is subtitled "World's Hottest Pepper".

Greg Brooks, reputed Peppermaster and owner of Brooks Pepperfire Foods, will argue to his grave that the Bahamian goatpepper is the hottest pepper and indeed the hottest pepper he has ever tasted.

And, according to an article, by Dave Dewitt, the famed Pope of Peppers, which appeared in Chile Pepper Magazine, a report from the Chile Pepper Institute details tests they had done which shows both the Orange Habanero and the Chocolate Brown Habanero beating out the Red Savina.

Then of course there is the infamous Tezpur pepper from India. It supposedly scored a whopping 850,000 scoville units. Published in the Japanese magazine, Paper Sky, the Tezpur is supposedly the Naga Jolokia. Wow! FWIW, the Naga Jolokia in and of itself is another blog altogether. Suffice it to say at this particular moment in time, that I believe the Naga Jolokia is a frutecens and not a chinense and thus incapable of ever scoring enough Scoville units to ever beat out any habanero breed, nevermind score 850,000.

So, moving on... there is more.

I'm going to narrow the whole thing down for you and conclude this entire blog so that when you click away from here (assuming you're still reading), you'll know the correct and only answer to the question; What is the world's hottest pepper.

There are essentially 1000s of different kinds of hot peppers, but there are really only a few "types". Those types are broken down into (but not limited to) the following: (Note that sweet green and red peppers don't have capcaicin, so I'm not even going to include those here.)

Capiscum baccatum

Capiscum annuum

Capiscum frutescens

Capiscum chinense

With me so far?

Well, Capiscum baccatums include such peppers as Aji and Puyas and they tend to have such small amounts of capsaicin as to be barely warm on a good day.

Capiscum annuums tend to include peppers such as jalapenos and cayennes, and other generally not very hot chili peppers. The Scoville units on such peppers range from anywhere near 0 to as high as 75,000. These are noticibly warm.

Capiscum frutescens tend to include super cayennes, such as the Naga Jolokia and the Tabasco. They can also range from anywhere near 0 to as high as 120,000. These are noticibly hot to extremely hot (depending on what kind of heat you can take)

and

Capiscum chinenses are the hot babies, scotch bonnets, habaneros, my beloved goatpeppers, etc. They include, of course, the Guinness World Record holding Red Savina which as we already mentioned scored 577,000 Scoville units. These are just plain extremely hot.

Wait it gets better. Anyone who has ever grown peppers can attest to this, but the heat level of any individual pepper, regardless of its type, can and will vary from one bush to the next and even from one pepper to the next on the same bush! Which is why ranges are used by the real pepper experts.

So what does this all have to do with the true heat level of peppers. Well, frankly, everything.

What my entire diatribe tells me, (you, of course, can draw your own conclusions) is that the potency of a Capiscum annuum may occasionally beat out a Capiscum frutescens but more often than not, the Capsicum frutescens will beat the Capiscum annuum, but neither type has the ability to come up with the potency that one finds in the Capiscum chinense peppers. And thus it's obvious to any logical thinker that any chinense has the given potential to beat out any other chinense at any time, but that neither variety of chinense has as yet come up with a consistent enough potency to give it the true name of World's Hottest Pepper.

So, to conclude; What is the hottest pepper in the world?

Why, the Capiscum chinense, of course.

You can say you got that from me.

Me out.

Hurricane Katrina had me singing; how much is that doggie in the window?

2005-09-14T17:32:00.000-04:00

A song sung by Patti Page and written by Bob Merrill is a rather dopey little tribute to a puppy in a pet store window. This blog is a waggly finger diatribe to every dog owner who at this very moment in time does not have a valid-up-to-date-registered-dog-tag on their dog. (I would have said "or their cat", except I don't like cats.)

Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, spent about $50,000 to charter a flight from Baton Rouge Louisiana on Sunday. The flight wasn't a last ditch effort for a wealthy oil baron to get out of hurricane devastated Louisiana, but a really nice man and his family's contribution to airlifting as many as 200 dogs out of the area to safety, food and water.

Organized by www.petrelocation.com, Operation Pet Lift failed in its goal but still managed to save 80 dogs. Sadly enough, organizers were stymied by Federal regulations that require them to quarantine the dogs for 30 days before they can fly out. Even so, all of the animals are being vet checked, vaccinated and microchipped ... so that the organizers can track the animals in case an owner does come looking for them.

www.petfinder.com is setting up a database of pet pictures to help reunite owners with lost animals.

Andrew Rowan, executive vice president of operations for the Humane Society was quoted by CNN News as saying

"maybe 50,000 or more dogs and cats in New Orleans that need to be rescued. There are vans and cars and trucks all over the place. Dogs are barking, cats are meowing. It's a tremendous logistical operation to provide the care that these animals need."

I was stunned by news reports that helicopters had airlifted out people but they were forced to leave their beloved dogs behind.

Now I understand that dogs really are second class citizens, but I have to wonder, given the choice, would I ditch my dog? Hard to say, I wasn't there and it wasn't my dog.

It's all very sad. But the dogs in New Orleans were not the only dogs affected by Katrina.

This story pales in comparison to what these dogs are going to have to go through, but, once told, it will tie together the whole Hurricane Katrina/dog tag issue.

Katrina whipped across the States and hit us a couple of days later. It was still quite the storm when she got here. But nothing like what whipped through New Orleans and Mississippi.

Anyway, that morning, I went to open up my shop and there on the front porch was a shivering, soaking wet ball of what may or may not have been a dog. She looked like she'd been rolled in mud and the poor thing was in shock.

She fortunately was wearing a dog tag, so we wrapped her up in some dry towels, rubbed her down to help increase her circulation and warm her up and then I called the town hall.

The dog catcher wasn't in, but town hall had a record of the dog tag. The clerk looked up the tag and phoned the owner. Then she called me back and gave me the number of the owner. Who was thrilled to hear that her puppy was ok.

It seems that when the thunder and lightning started flashing the puppy had freaked out. So the owner, foolishly had put her outside; big mistake. The puppy freaked out even more and ended up running herself into a state where she got lost, ended up on my porch, wet, muddy and exhausted.

Well, to make a long story short, the owner came to fetch her puppy and by the time they were ready to head home, the puppy was back to her old self, wagging her tail, wanting to go for walkies! Dog's are so easy to please.

So, here's the part where it all ties together... Are you excited yet???

Let's say there really are 50,000 misplaced dogs because of Katrina. One wonders how many of them are sitting there having been rescued by one of these groups and for whatever reason, don't have registration tags. 1,000, 10,000??? Who can say?

With the results of this Hurricane causing so much thought to be put towards disaster preparation, FEMA, Hurricane relief and heaven knows what else. One wonders if anyone is putting thought into disaster preparation that includes the family pets.

Register your dog. At the very least, in a disaster situation, you'll be able to find your pet. Especially if, as is the case for the 80 dogs that the Pickens' family airlifted out, your dog was displaced to San Diego by a hurricane.

Grow your own!

2005-08-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

I opened up the office the other day to discover that we were missing some pepper plants. Lots of them... four out of six to be precise. Someone had taken four of my pepper plants off the front porch and made off with them.

Thieves suck!

I don't agree with it, but I can appreciate someone having to steal to feed their family. I really don't agree with it, but I can appreciate someone having to steal to feed their habit... But what in the devil possesses people who steal for no good reason other than to have something that doesn't belong to them?

Here are my beautiful little pepper plants, nurtured from seeds, watered and chatted to; cared for in the hopes that we might be able to coax a pepper or two out of their beautiful leafy green stalks. But now... someone else is going to get to partake of their hot sweet heavenly goodness. I hope they're real wooses and they hurt themselves. Grrrrr.

We figured it was just teens messing around, because in the place of my missing pepper pots, we received two hanging flower bags... the kind that sort of look like they should be hanging from a headstone. The kind that our next-door neighbour uses to decorate her front porch! Well, at least she woke up to hers simply being out of place, and not gone.

The big problem arose when I opened up yesterday morning to discover that the thief had returned for one of the two big pots!

What was going through the thief's mind as he or she staggered down the street with an enormous pepper plant in their arms.

I called the Surete (our local police enforcement officials) to come and take a statement. They did. The sent M. Talbot... His note on the file confirmation he gave me, reads "Vol de pots"... doesn't even mention the peppers. Sigh. Oddly, he also felt the bizarre need to make a point of saying "I hope you don't think you're going to get these plants back".

Well, duh! of course I don't; but I do want them back. You know, I live in a town with a running 0% crime rate for what is now fifteen years, and the one and only crime that ever occurs, won't even get investigated because... well, because I haven't a hope in hell of getting my peppers back. There is something wrong with that mentality. It kinda makes me wonder if the reason the crime rate is 0% is because nobody bothers to report crime because it doesn't get investigated anyway.

It's times like this when I rather like the way that Catholicism deals with thieves.

Open Letter to Same-Sex Marriage Opponents...

2005-06-29T11:52:00.000-04:00

The Government of Canada had only two ways to stop this legislation from passing yesterday.

1. Get out of the marriage game altogether, then it would be the sole responsibility of churches.

2. Invoke the notwithstanding clause.

The only reason that same-sex marriage is a "civil rights" issue in Canada is because the Government currently oversees and grants marriages to heterosexual couples. Because heterosexuals can have a marriage license, but not gays, it is automatically a civil rights issue. You can't allow one Canadian to have access to something but then refuse other Canadians the same access; that would be unconstitutional. Fancy that.

It's a real pity the right wing extremists are unable to comprehend that reality.

I have a suggestion for those Yankees who are so homophobic that you oppose this legislation: You stay out of our bedrooms and we'll stay out of your wars.

And for those Canadians who think they can change this now that it's cleared Government...

I suggest you learn to quit whining about the fact that this got pushed through Government and either invoke the Notwithstanding Clause or lobby the Government to get out of the marriage game altogether... Those were the only two ways to do this yesterday and they're the only two ways to do that today.

Sorry Charlie.

Hypocrite of the Day...

2005-06-28T22:28:00.000-04:00

Peter McKay...

For suggesting that the Conservatives didn't get into bed or make an agreement with the Bloc while trying to destroy the Liberal Government.

For suggesting that his dog was more "loyal" than Belinda Stronach.

Peter McKay gets a taste of his own medicine.

And this guy thinks the Liberal's seats will be in question come the next election?

He's lucky he's not running in my riding; we'd have run him out of town on a rail!

Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave...

2005-06-28T20:43:00.000-04:00

As I write this, the Canadian House of Parliament is about to vote to pass Bill C-38.

The same-sex marriage bill.

I've waited a long time to see real equal rights for gays in this country.

Today, in Parliament, with the third reading of Bill C-38, the civil marriage for gays bill, and the passing of that bill, those rights became law.

158 yeas to 133 nays.

If the Conservatives wish to change the law, they will now have to invoke the notwithstanding clause.

I couldn't be happier. The only bittersweet is that Guy and Joe didn't survive to see it happen.

How the hell does it get to that point?

2005-06-17T17:48:00.000-04:00

Have you ever said to yourself, "My house is a pigsty."?

Have you got dirty dishes to be washed, and crumbs from breakfast on the counter and a floor that could use sweeping? Can your fridge and freezer stand to be washed and tidied? Are the garbage cans due to be emptied? Is the laundry due to be done and your bed unmade?

Is your house just untidy, or are you living in squalor?

No really. I don't just mean untidy house, I mean a really messy house.

This photograph (removed photograph of trash piled to within one foot of ceiling) is of someone's living room. It is absolutely incredible to me and makes me wonder what goes through one's mind or doesn't that causes their house to get that way.

A friend of mine took this photo and several others just like it. I can't tell you how he came to be in possession of these photographs or where he is, but what I can tell you is that this is the SECOND time I've seen photos like this from him. My friend says that it's not his second time, that he sees it quite often. He also believes that he has this disorder but caught it early enough to deal with it.

That's frightening.

The person that owns the place in these photographs literally offered to "crawl into the kitchen to fetch him a cup of coffee".

The disorder has several names, from what I can tell: Squalor syndrome and Compulsive hoarding are the two most popular.

According to the February 2005 newsletter of the Mood Disorders Support Group of New York City, it's not quite so uncommon as one might think.

Associated with other mood disorders, such as anxiety, eating disorders, schizophrenia, dementia, mental retardation, autism and brain injury, the disorder can come about in people with absolutely no psychiatric history or illness of any kind.

How do you recognize a hoarder? A common feature of hoards includes piles of paper or newspapers, magazines, books, mail, notes, and lists. Some will have piles of old clothes, rotting food and stray animals. Research tells me that at it's worst, hoarders will have accumulations of both animal and human waste where it ought not to be, such as in the kitchen or on the bed.

Hoarding:

The two hoarders who have had incident to touch my life through my friend, are both elderly, socially isolated and suspicious. This most recent one, whose photos appears in this blog, refused entry to the home by anyone for over 13 years.

Like any other such disorder, hoarders only seek help when they hit bottom or when the hoarding is discovered by others. In other words, when a neighbour or a cop notices the smell or when the filth starts spilling out of the house into the yard.

In this latest case it was a sewer backup in the basement that forced the hoarder to call for help but in the earlier case my friend told me about, the hoarder asked for help after 15 years. As you can see by the pictures; 13 years of trash piles up quite heavily. Imagine how the other place looked when my friend went in to clean up.

I've come across warnings that say that simply cleaning out the clutter will not solve the problem. Sometimes this will create a worse problem and further isolate the hoarder and they just start hoarding again.

I've asked my friend if the first hoarder has gone back to hoarding. He tells me that they've moved into an apartment and their neice has taken care to get them a roommate/caretaker who ensures that the hoarding cannot continue. I don't know what will happen to this latest hoarder. Let's hope they can get the help they need. At 75 though, I'm not holding my breath.

If you know a hoarder, and I don't simply mean someone who won't pick up after themselves, I mean a hoarder, there are ways of helping them get help.

UOCHD offers the following suggestions (click on the link for the details of the text):

1. INFORM YOURSELF AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND.
2. DON'T FIGHT THE FIGHT FOR THEM. (iow, let them clean it up or you're wasting your time)
3. SHOW THEM THE OPTIONS AND THAT THERE IS HOPE.

It's like the old joke, how many psychiatrists does it take to change the lightbulb... and the answer is, Just one... but the lightbulb has really got to want to change.

Only it isn't a joke. It's real, very very very real.

On Rats and Hot Sauce

2005-06-13T15:29:00.000-04:00

While researching the makers of a hot sauce called, get this, "Rat Sauce", I came upon Rat Sauce a website dedicated to everything rat related. This of course, is the instigator of this little we-blog. Rats and hot sauce... what more could one ask for?

Let me introduce you to the stars of masses of horror movies specifically designed to perpetuate the myth that rats are horrific critters deservous of naught but destruction.

Rats as animals have been blamed for the black plague and have been long vilified, and unfairly so, I might add. Were one to do their homework, they would learn that it wasn't the rat that caused or carried the plague, it was actually the Oriental Rat Flea which spread its horrific disease by taking advantage of the rat's mobility. But it's not like that... Rats make great pets; they really do.

Of course, I just know you're sitting there thinking, "What? You're nuts! A rat? Why would anyone in their right mind want a rat as a pet?"

And the answer is simple. They are fabulous pets.

They are very clean, (although I've heard that this can be a personality trait and that there are slob rats out there). They are exceptionally intelligent critters. They are fun to play with and much like a dog, they can be taught tricks and to play games with you and they will interact with you quite readily, especially once they think you're part of their pack.

Rats can fit through a hole no larger than a quarter. They are so agile, they can scale brick walls as though they had rungs. So athletic, they can swim half a mile, and tread water for three days. Their powerful jaws can gnaw pipes and cinder blocks with chisel teeth that exert an incredible 24,000 pounds per square inch. Rats have been known to survive being flushed down a toilet, and can even enter buildings through the toilet pipes, the list of their exploits and abilities is endless. Because of their neverending curiosity, search for food and ability to get at it, once found, they are considered to be one of the most destructive mammals that ever lived.

Watch out if you are going to breed rats, though, because, they are so prolific that a single mating pair can easily produce 15,000 descendants in a year. Not one to worry about breeding my pet, Ralph, was a solo rat. He lived alone on my dresser in a rat habitat, which is essentially a very large, elaborate hamster cage built entirely out of metal. He had a swing, a running wheel, (which he much preferred napping in to running in). He had an old ceramic boot, rescued from an aquarium that he used as his hidey hole and a margarine tub which he filled with shredded tissue as his bed. (When I cleaned his cage, I would give him an unopened box of tissue and he would shred this and arrange it just the way he liked it in the margarine tub.) It was quite something to watch.

As a personality, Ralph was really cool. I'd come in from school and he'd immediately jump up to say hello, hanging from the cage top by one paw, pawing at the latch with the other, until I brought him out to play. He was quite cuddly and loved to snuggle with me. He would give kisses and when I was puttering about he'd sit on my shoulders, his tail curling about my neck. He liked to nibble on sunflower seeds, (the hulls of which, he'd deliberately toss down my shirt). He also loved fresh vegetables especially sweet peppers, which makes me wonder, would he have enjoyed habaneros as much as I do? Some relationships end far too early -- sigh. One weekend at a party, Ralph discovered the pleasures of beer. After that he liked to get drunk and laze on my head. Sitting on my shoulder, he'd poke his snout between my lips and the bottle to suck the beer out of the bottle as I would pour it into my mouth. I loved how that grossed some people out! Come to think of it, I wonder if Ralph ever felt the hangovers that I experienced after those parties? You'll be pleased to know that, although I did at that age, Ralph never smoked. He would hide when I pulled out my lighter. Either he didn't like the flash of its lighting up or he was afraid I'd singe his whiskers; which were suprisingly long.

I really enjoyed my stint as a rat owner, and for someone looking for a new pet, rats are a wonderful option. So long as you can get past the stigma of the wonderful critter actually being a "rat". With 20/20 hindsight, I don't recommend getting one for the purposes of making them your drinking buddy. I think that as a species they have a tendency towards alcoholism; not to mention that their livers are much tinier than ours and they probably don't live so long as they could otherwise. What can I say, I was a wild and crazy kid who didn't know any better and who had no concept of my own mortality, never mind that of Ralph.

This:

is Beebop. Beebop appears to me to be a variegated satin rat. Beebop is very similar to Ralph. Beebop is just one of a large variety of pet rats that can be found at Rat Sauce.

Rat Sauce is run by a fellow named Matt, owner of Beebop and an entire Rat Pack! I only ever had one rat in my life so, I can hardly imagine what having a pack would be like; although I did have a slew of gerbils at one time; but in retrospect, comparatively, gerbils are dumb pets, not dumb in the sense of unintelligent, but dumb in the sense that if one didn't need them to feed their pet snakes, I've no reasonable idea why anyone would ever want one. That said, Matt has gone to great effort to introduce people to the joys of having these rodents as their pets and with contributions from other rat owners, his is a definite site to check out in the event that one is looking for a new pet that is out of the ordinary.

Rat Sauce includes sources for the animal, games and toys that will appeal to our little rodent friends as well as referrals for qualified vets and a forum to discuss the joys and stresses of rat ownership with other rat owners.

I suppose I should throw in a caveat about rat ownership at this point. And that is, if you're going to delve into the ownership of a pet rat, don't do it with the wild rattus rattus that your uncle caught rummaging through his pantry. Wild rats are prone to bacterium and disease; read "Oriental Rat Fleas!" and thus are not meant to be domesticated. Instead, see a professional breeder or at the very least, a quality pet store; one that will guarantee their animals. Rat Sauce has links to breeders all over North America and beyond.

Get a rat. You'll be pleasantly surprised; not to mention the fact that they're great fun to have at parties.

Humans are Pack Animals too.

2005-06-08T20:36:00.000-04:00

When I was 8, my parents rescued a puppy and brought her home. She was a ginger and white coloured, floppy-earded dog with a beagle-like appearance. We named her Sandy. She was a mutt and I loved her. She had this weird behaviour when it came to milk bones. She'd bury them. The only thing wrong with that, is that she'd bury them in the house while we watched. I don't know if she wasn't too bright herself or if she simply thought that we weren't too bright. She'd take the milk bone, crawl underneath the tv cart and in full view of anyone watching tv, she'd pretend to dig a hole in the carpet, drop the milk bone into the imaginary hole and then kick imaginary dirt into the hole.

Sometimes, if she were feeling coy, I suppose, she'd take the milk bones and disappear with them; down the hallway to my parents' room. There, she'd pull the bedspread from my mother's pillow, shove the milk bone underneath and then attempt to pull the spread back into place. It ticked me off; she made bed better than I could.

I liked taking her for walks with my friend Cathy. Cathy had a dog named Ginger who was also a ginger and white coloured, floppy-eared dog with a beagle-like appearance. Except that Ginger was short and fat and always had something hanging from her teats... Professional puppy maker, that dog. And she thought Sandy was her spawn; and maybe Sandy was, because Sandy behaved just as if Ginger were her mother.

One day as I stepped out my front door, to take Sandy for a walk, the neighbour across the street let out his doberman pinscher puppy; which saw or smelled Sandy and made a bee-line for her. She went for Sandy and Ginger intervened. Ginger went straight for the jugular on that dobie. Which was really surprising because Ginger was less than half the size of the doberman. It took three of us to get the dogs off of each other and Ginger had gotten the worst of it, by far. But the doberman was going to think twice about going after one of Ginger's offspring again; that's for sure.

I went away on a trip and when I came home, my Dad took me into the living room and sat me on his lap. It was then he told me that Sandy had been killed in an accident. She'd been hit by Cathy's older sister's new motorcycle.

They say that losing a pet is like losing a child. I was just a kid when I lost Sandy, but as an adult I have lost another puppy this time to a fire, and although I've never lost a child, (in contrast to occasionally wanting to lose one or four), I imagine it certainly is at least as intense a feeling.

The relationship between people and their animals is one of companionship. One of love, of mutual need and respect and certainly one that truly epitomizes the concept of family. Ok, I suppose that a snapping turtle, which lots of people keep as pets, aren't about to cuddle up with you and lay their head on the pillow beside yours to sleep, still, they have a relationship with the people they interact with.

I've met enormous parrots with vocabularies that will put more than a few five year olds to shame. I've dealt with snakes who know their handlers by smell and are oddly friendly to them. I've held a mynah bird that calls its owner "Mommy". I've seen domesticated cats, dogs, chickens, iguanas and parrots interact as if they were all the same species. I personally, single-handedly populated Richmond, BC with gerbils that the current residents of the island simply believe are field mice and I've taught a pet rat named Ralph to drink beer and sit on my head.

Our pets listen to our troubles when we are sad and share our joys when we are happy and there is no better tribute to our domesticated pals than a website dedicated to loving our critter friends.

Now I must admit that so far, Petlvr.com [The Blog] has been primarily concentrating on standard animals; You know, cats, dogs and dolphins. From what I can glean from the blog, Hart and Yvonne are the proud family of two papillons, Maxie and Sophie and a cat named Zeus.

Personally, you couldn't pay me to have a cat. Not half because Greg and at least one child are allergic, but because I've only ever met one cat that was worth allowing to breathe my air and I believe that cat thought it was a dog. I like to joke that cat's would make a great fricasee, but sometimes when I get hungry, I look longingly at the neighbour's cat and my mouth waters.

Pet lovers will find some useful information and key resources at Petlvr.com [The Blog]. And you'll find a slew of photos of really cute baby animals. This one:

reminds me of a much older (read grayer) Ralph.

And this one:

reminds me of how I feel everytime I think about losing my webmaster.

The Much Awaited Chili Pepper Post!

2005-06-08T18:13:00.000-04:00

You asked for it; you got it...

Robb Walsh of the Austin Chronicle, in 1991, called it the Chile Pepper Counterculture... Nevermind the fact that Robb Walsh hasn't the slightest clue that Chile is a country in South America and what we eat are called Chilies. According to the concept that Walsh's article created back then, we're a bunch of junkies tripping through life with nothing better to do than get to our next fix. He likened chili peppers to psychotropic drugs, such as peyote, coca (as in cocaine) and tobacco; is that why some chiliheads cough; wink, wink.

Apparently some "experimental psychologist" believes that we chili addicts are "hooked" on endorphins and that we get "strung out".

Right on man, Timothy Leary move over.

I like the burn. The fact that the burn is firing endorphins in my system, makes me feel good, and feeling good is, well... it can't be a bad thing, can it?

Accordingly, in all the times I've ever eaten hot peppers, whereas I've gone through mega-mouth burn. I have never had my thought processes interrupted by simply biting into a pepper. Whereas I have been in so much pain, I've been jumping up and down, I have never been "overwhelmed". And although I get a comfortable good-timey feeling (good-timey? Is that a word??) while my mouth is burning, I don't think I've ever really truly experienced a "rush" or gotten "stoned" or even mildly "buzzed"; Not fair... the only legal stone in the world besides alcohol; which btw is a depressant; and I don't get stoned.

Maybe I'm just immune to endorphins??

Speaking of immunity (How's that for a segue?)... On Sunday, we set up shop at the Ste. Eustache Flea Market. (Ya... like that will ever happen again.) And we watched as chiliheads cravingly looked at our sauces like maybe there was something wrong with them and that's why we were there. A couple of them braved the depths of degradation that was our booth at a flea market (did I say "never again"?) and actually bought little mini-jars to take home. But after four hours, only one real true chilihead did the; eyes lit up pre-endorphin rush approach to our booth...

"Are they hot"?

"Oh, yes"

"How hot?"

"Well...."

"Because, I ate this one sauce called Da Bomb and I like that."

"Ah, I see, well, we only use natural peppers, but they're still hot."

"Yeah... gimme a taste"

I open the jar of hurricane, scoop out a largish quantity, and hand it to him. He pops the 90% pure peppers into his mouth, chews, reflects thoughtfully then mockingly says...

"You've got to be kidding."

Obviously capsaicin sensitive... Not! He didn't cough, or sneeze, or blush but he spun in a circle with a tear in his eye and turned back to us. At which point, I'm thinking... yu huh.

"That's not hot." He says.

Now, he's just being rude... And ya know, I can't for the life of me figure out why. Ego? Machissimo?

Greg says to him; "Well, we only use natural peppers, so you're not going to get the same heat as you can with chemically extracted oleoresins." Of course you aren't; we don't call Greg the Peppermaster for no good reason.

Then Mr. Chilihead realizes that his fiancee has left him and he mentions her.

"Oh," I suggested, "why don't we bring your fiancee over here and have her taste it, I wonder if SHE'LL think it's hot?"

"Oh, she can't eat that, it'd kill her." he says.

How stupid can a person be? It's not hot, but it will kill his fiancee.

Colour me impressed. Not.

I Guess I'm a Duck

2005-06-07T20:15:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be writing a story about the one and only chilihead that actually came into our booth at the Ste. Eustache Flea Market on Sunday, but I just had to put the following thoughts down on paper... So, if you're still patiently awaiting my chilihead story... you'll have to wait another day... Sorry; I never suggested I was organized. That's FTS' thing. ;)

Some days I get it driven home to me in the weirdest ways how very, very important being a Unitarian is to me.

I grew up in a home where a deep personal sense of theology and a relationship with the universe and how I fit into it, was more important than how I perceived who or what God is. I was taught to seek my own personal relationship with God and that I would find that relationship within my own experiences. Or at least that was the end result of what I was taught. I don't think it was because Dad or Mom are particularly Unitarians, per se, but I think it was the end result of my Dad trying to figure out what he is.

Prayer is how I talk to God and that is something so ultimately personal to me that I really don't understand the concept of public prayer. Why would anyone want to do that? In the new testament, Matthew 6:5 to be precise, it says "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." I'm not even a Christian and that passage makes sense to me. But that's me... Matthew 6:6 is even more telling and it reads: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Yeah, I know, those of you who know me really well are thinking "Who are you and what have you done with Tina?".

And now you want to know what happened to precipitate this blog, that's all weirdly religion-based and not at all about the hot pepper story I've been promising?

Well, I read a really well written blog today that technically was more about civil rights being unnecessarily protected for people who didn't deserve to have them protected, than it was about public prayer, but I was really riled internally as I read the bit that pertained to daily prayer in schools. My sensibilities reeled as I read that Tish, the blog-writer felt I was not sane because I didn't somehow believe that praying in school is a good thing. Well not ME personally, obviously, she has no idea who I am, but people who think like me. Why does not wanting to listen to someone's prayers in a public school setting cause such a personal affront to people? Do they not understand that maybe, just maybe, their religion isn't someone else's; isn't mine?

Well, for what it's worth, I'm perfectly sane.

I simply understand and acknowledge that not everyone in the world is a Christian or has a KJV Bible-based religion at the core of their being. How can I help but not acknowledge it. I'm a Unitarian. But I find it odd that Christians don't know that passage but get all riled up about how prayer in school is a good thing... Am I missing something?

Being a Unitarian, I live in a world of a multitude of religions. We are comprised of Jews and Muslims, Christians and Atheists, we have Wicce and Pagans and Sikhs and Catholics and Druids, well, you get the idea. We come from all walks of life and somehow manage to know and understand that we are all part of this great interwoven tapestry that makes up this world that we live in. And as interwoven Unitarians, we strive to learn and understand what makes each of us tick theologically, and we work to avoid stepping on each others' toes so that in essence; we all become a community blessed and more important than the sum total of each of our own comprehension (or lack thereof) of God.

When folks ask me what a Unitarian is, I like to joke that we're the ones who begin our prayers with "To whom it may concern".

But you know what I've come to learn and understand about Unitarianism above and beyond any other "true" religion that I've so far had the honour of examining?

As a Unitarian, I've never been asked to park my brain at the door. In fact, I've often been challenged and forced to use my brain in order to embrace my other fellow Unitarians.

And from what I understand of public prayer... it deliberately doesn't embrace anyone who isn't of that religion and deliberately, without a care, has the ability to affront the religious and theological sensibilities of those who aren't of that religion. And really, any Christian who says to me that they're all for public prayer in school, that there is nothing wrong with it... Well, let's just say that there is more than one oxymoron in the Bible and New Testament.

Separation of Church and State.

It's necessary.

Tomorrow... Hot peppers; I promise.

The Underground Railroad

2005-06-07T13:34:00.000-04:00

The term "underground railroad" became best known for helping persecuted nations of people secretly escape their persecutors.

In the mid nineteenth century abolitionists ran the secret underground railroad helping slaves escape their bondage, running north to freedom in Canada.

In the mid twentieth century an underground railroad ran in Western Europe, helping Jews, intellectuals, gays and others escape persecution from the Nazis.

But between 1965 and 1973, over 50,000 Americans used a secret underground railroad to flee North to Canada from the United States, to escape the draft. Avoiding what they felt was an unjust war, the conscientious objectors were welcomed with open arms to a Canada that felt it should be a haven from militarism. And indeed one hopes that Canada is still that.

Today the Underground Railroad again runs from the United States into Canada, but it's not persecution or a draft that the passengers are fleeing, but death in an unjust war.

Jeremy Hinzman, a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division and Brandon Hughey, another American soldier, are seeking refugee status in Canada in the hopes of avoiding extradition to a country that will probably incarcerate them but could put them to death for not wanting to fight in Iraq.

Mr. Hinzman has lost his initial plea for refugee status but his case will go before the higher court of appeals before he is sent back to the US.

On May 27th a press conference was held in the Trinity Street Church in Toronto bringing light to a question that many of us have not considered. As a nation Canada refused to participate in the war on Iraq because we felt it unjust. We, therefore, need to stand up and protect those who come to Canada hoping to escape the war and allow them refuge from persecution, as we did during Vietnam.

The War Resisters Support Campaign is circulating a petition asking the Canadian Government to live up to it's belief that the war on Iraq is wrong and therefore grant sanctuary to US war objectors.

The list of signatories to the petion is quite impressive.

As of the writing of this blog, the petition held 11,783 total signatures, one of which is mine and weirdly enough, one, #11,657 to be precise, belongs to one Mr. Paul Martin of Ottawa who states his Professional Affiliation as Canada Prime Minister.

Another; #11483 is Jan Wells of Alabama USA who wrote: My brother is in Iraq; 10th Mountain Division, #10843 is Jeff Doran of West La Have, Nova Scotia, a 1970 Conscientious Objector and #123, is Mr. Robert Weiss of Loxahatchee, Fl who wrote: Bush Lied & Our Soldiers Continue to Die.

It's already been proven that Bush and his Government lied in order to invade Iraq, and even though the American people decided in their last elections to allow their Government to continue the Iraq invasion, we as a sovereign nation, must in all conscience allow anyone who disagrees with their Government, the ability to object.

Read the War Resisters Support Campaign Petition written by Michelle Robidoux of War Resisters and if you agree. Please sign it.

And if you are American and are required to register for selective service or are of draft age and you are afraid that your Nation will reinstitute the draft, then this article, Conscientious Objection and Iraq by Joseph Wakelee-Lynch is required reading.

And yet another blog goes by with no mention of hot peppers... What is wrong with me???

What You Really Need in Business but are Afraid to Ask...

2005-06-06T10:57:00.000-04:00

Number one... Webmaster. Grrrrr

Number two... An accountant. Grrrr, double Grrrrr.

Now don't get me wrong, here. Our accountant is a sweetheart, an absolute doll. I just love him to pieces.

We gave him the account books in March... He told us that we'd be pressed because of tax season, and would have to wait until he finished all of those, but, he's still not finished the books and now it's June! Grrrrr

Here's Greg on the phone with him now, working on last August... what is the matter with these two?

It used to be simple... One ledger, balance sheet tax return... Who in God's name thought it was a good idea to automate this stuff?? There oughta be a law against Quickbooks.

I've got a great story about peppers, but I'm just too annoyed to post it right now... Grrrr

Have You Got a Secret???

2005-06-01T01:57:00.000-04:00

When I was in Alanon (12-step group for families and loved ones of alcoholics) many years ago, I learned that a secret shared is a secret halved. Very therapeutic and healing that. Simply speaking a secret removes half of it's power. Speaking it over and over again, ultimately not only removes it power but, I believe, eliminates it entirely. It's the reason why such groups are so effective for so many people.

Sometimes I am really glad that my first husband killed himself; and sometimes it really makes me want to cry... I suppose that would be a secret worth sharing. Certainly not one I would need to be anonymous for, not if you know me, certainly, it's not a secret that I would creatively etch into a postcard and sent to PostSecret... or would I?

What is PostSecret you ask?

Well, I found it by Googling "What is the most read blog".

The "instructions for PostSecret are posted as follows:

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Create your own 4-by-6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. But please only put one secret on a card. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards. (Please do not email your secret.)

Please put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard.

Tips:
Be brief - the fewer words used the better.
Be legible– - use big, clear and bold lettering.
Be creative - let the postcard be your canvas.

Mail your secrets to:
PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Rd
Germantown, Maryland
USA 20874-3454

Email questions or comments to: Frank@docdel.com

And the best postcard I found is this one.

The most read blog: PostSecret

Me out.

Voyeurism Pays or You Learn Something New Every Day

2005-05-29T22:53:00.000-04:00

While blogging, I find the most bizarre things...

Did you know that San Francisco holds an annual self-pleasure marathon

All giggling aside; this is supposed to be about safe-sex.

In the 20 odd years that I've been associated with HIV/AIDS charities, we've been teaching people that there is no such thing as "safe sex"; safer sex, yes, but safe sex, no...

The "masturbate-a-thon which was founded by a San Francisco sex-toy company: "Good Vibrations" and is a direct result of the firing of Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders. If you recall; (and who would?) Elders was fired for stating that masturbation "is perhaps something that should be taught" about when discussing youth sexual options.

Discuss "masturbation" with my children? Hubby and I kiss and we get a four-part harmoney of "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!".

I never really thought of masturbation as "sex". But I suppose it is. Which means that there really is such a thing as "safe sex". Who'da thunk it?

Now... is THAT a dialogue one really wants to open with their own children?

Violated... send that Tylenol back, wouldya?

2005-05-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

You know you're having one of those days when your husband asks you what you want to do and your first thought comes to you in a gritty underworld voice... "Kill the children!"

You and I both know that I'm not the only one to ever think that. And, I'm not referring to parents like Robert and Laura Latimer who killed their severely handicapped child to put her out of her misery, or animals like gerbils who eat their young believing that their existence will decimate the food supply. I'm referring of course to parents who for no other explicable reason than a "t-square planetary alignment" suddenly believe that their children are the only reason that ills of the world exist.

You know, days like today when I open the fridge to get the hot dogs for lunch and the package is there but the hot dogs are gone; devoured by the children.

Later, I toddle to the freezer to get a popsicle that the children have been told not to touch upon threat of death, but they're gone and the empty package is left as the only evidence that they ever existed.

Then I discovered that although I've asked the child to sweep the floor, that they didn't sweep it, but swept the accumulation of all of the breakfast's toast and bagel crumbs onto the floor instead.

As if that's not enough, to add insult to injury, the migraine that I can't figure out how I got, refuses to go away, even after having taken the last two Tylenol 3s and I find that the X-tra Strength acetominaphen bottle is empty but neatly placed back into the medicine cabinet.

I told the children today that if they were rent-paying roommates, they'd be on notice to find a new place to live. It's a wonder we don't have rats.

Oh wait, we do.

We call them "children".

Website... what website???

2005-05-25T19:05:00.000-04:00

Ring... Ring...

Hello, is that Peppermaster??

Um, yes it is, can I help you???

I tried to log into your website to place an order and it says that the products can't be found, I know they're there, they were there the other day.

Um, you're kidding... Well, I'll look into that right away... In the meantime, can I take your order over the phone???

Meanwhile, unheard by anyone but me... deep inside my head... The multitudinous voices high pitched "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!"

My server somehow upgraded their php drivers on the weekend... Nobody bothered to tell my php site! But of course, when they went onto my site to look and see if it was working ok, like the good service provider they are, they saw my front page, smiled and went on to the next website.

HELLO... STUPID... MY FRONTPAGE IS HTML... MY SHOPPING CART IS PHP!!!

Jeeezus, if It weren't my brother's server, I'd be killing someone. I've been sitting here taking phone orders all afternoon! THAT'S WHAT WE GOT THE WEBSITE FOR!!!

I know the old adage is 'You get what you pay for' and I know that my brother pays for my bandwidth, but nobody else on his server was taking manual orders over the phone today.

Did someone put a kick me sign on my back today when I wasn't looking???? Grrrrr.

<-- This was me once I found out that it took all of five minutes of fiddling to get my site up and running properly.

Sheesh.

Tequila Cookies

2005-05-25T12:39:00.000-04:00

1 cup of dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup of granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups of dried fruit, such as dried cranberries or raisins
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila (silver or gold, as desired)

Sample the Cuervo to check quality.
Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Turn on the electric mixer...Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
Add one teaspoon of sugar...Beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the Cuervo is still OK, try another cup ...just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit, pick the frigging fruit off floor... Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Check the Jose Cuervo. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you c! an find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.Don't forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

Note to readers... I didn't write this, but I could have... I love Tequila.

He Makes My Nose Run...

2005-05-24T13:35:00.000-04:00

I have to wonder if the Peppermaster's cajun is hotter in the bottle or if it really does get hotter when I throw it into a soup.

Greg just brought me leftover homemade chicken soup for lunch, he tossed in the leftover shrimp and asparagus from the salad we had for supper last night and then added the cajun sauce. Well my tummy is stuffed, my mouth is all atingle and my nose is running. Gotta love this feeling.

We spent the weekend doing outdoor shows... I really wish the weather would cooperate a little more on the weekends.. It rained almost every day; and it was a loooooong weekend, Dagnabbit! It was cold, too. So I had to wear my winter splash pants. Brrrr

We had fun though... There is nothing more fun than hurting people with hot sauce. Man, you'll probably read me say it 1000 more times before I'm done... but hoooey! It's fun. This young kid came up to the booth dressed in a Gingerbread Boy costume... (We were at the May Show in Van Kleek Hill, Gingerbread Capital of Ontario) I gave him a taste of the Chili-Chocolate and he swallowed, then he started screaming. It was bleeping hilarious, I thought my sides were going to come unglued, I was laughing so hard. Poor kid. I told him it was hot; he complained "But it's chocolate!" Geez, people, I'm selling hot sauces, what do you expect???

We went to the Three Owls Gallery to see the displays and I met a baby dragon named Basil... He was absolutely the cutest thing. Sitting on his perch, next to the entryway chained by his left claw, he seemed quite content. Crafted from polymer by one Donald Liardi, Basil would make a lovely mascot for Peppermaster... Unfortunately, with a starting price tag of at least $15,000, Basil had to be left at the gallery.

Michael Cartwright, our Art Director and resident right hand man, was showing his work as well, and that was what brought us into the gallery. Well, lo and behold, I was floored when in through the door walked one Alan Gerber! We had the honour of meeting Alan at a Breakfast TV appearance I had arranged for the Peppermaster the day before the NSDCC show opened in Halifax last November. If you haven't heard Alan's Music, do please, go to his website and listen to his music. Bad but not so Bad is a brilliant piece, and one of my favourites. If he's playing anywhere near you, I recommend you check him out. Alan has played with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and the Great BB King among many others. He's a show worth catching!

I got up late this morning, after sleeping in from a long weekend of work, to discover the results of two interviews that I had recently given sitting in my email box. One is available for viewing on the web, courtesy of my friends and fellow chiliheads, Joe and Linda: That interview can be seen in Joe and Lin's blog's spotlight on our sauces.

The other one is part of a book being written by author Stephanie Chandler. She's using a profile of me to highlight one of the chapters in her new book, The Business Startup Checklist and Planning Guide, soon to be released by Aventine Press.

All in all, though, it's been a pretty good day. And it's only 2:20.

Me out.

In Response to Confusion

2005-05-20T13:04:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is in response to the great comments to Boot, Belinda Boot! And Violated, I apologize for the headache. Shall I send some Tylenol?? You'll need it when you see today's Blog ;)

As for Arabia... who loves ya? :p <-- insert graphic of Bart Simpson mooning you here. I couldn't get the graphic to work. hehe

And for Mark...

=====

What confuses you, Mark? That I’m a separatist, that I support Belinda’s crossing the floor or that I’m aware that we’re still part of Canada and thus must live with whoever is in power in Canada I’m a separatist, that’s a future tense. In the meantime, Canada is still the Government. I'm a 6th generation Newfie on my Mom's side, born in St. John's. I'm a pure laine 6th generation Quebecoise on my Father's side and I've grown up with family who has suffered at the hands of the Federal Government's promises; my Uncle Lorne is Cree, but that's not necessarily an issue here. That information in evidence, I am still and will always be Canadian, who chokes up when she sings the Canadian National Anthem at sports events. So, deep in my black little separatist heart there still burns a teeny tiny glimmer of hope that Canada will fix what ails it and I can cease to be a separatist, but I don't have much faith that what ails us will be fixed during my lifetime.

That said…

The problem with any National party agreeing with the Bloc under any circumstances is that furthering the Bloc’s agenda makes sense for the Bloc; any member of the Bloc, but it doesn’t make sense for anyone else; most especially a Conservative. See what the Conservatives fail to comprehend is that in supporting the Bloc in this initiative, they are screwing over their own constituents. I cite the two Newfie conservatives who have just no-voted themselves out of a seat come the next election; and if you think I’m kidding; bear in mind that the reason I am a separatist is because I am an relatively intelligent, educated, capable 39 year old entrepreneur who cannot work in my beloved Newfoundland because the Federal Government has lied to, raped and pillaged my home to the point where there is no work, no money and no future. I won’t go into how important the Atlantic Accord is to me, but it was REALLY important to the political future of the Conservatives in Newfoundland. Did you know that there is a Newfie Separatist Party??? Most Canadians don’t. Anyway, it’s a very BAD thing in my mind that the two Conservative MPs essentially voted against the Atlantic Accord which was 55 years in the making… and all I can say is that THAT is the very reason why Pointy-Head has no idea what’s going on in Canada.

You seem to be able to wrap your head around the idea that the Conservatives haven’t allied themselves with the Bloc because once the Liberals are out of power and the Conservatives are in, the alliance ends. What you fail to recognize, is the same thing that the Conservatives fail to recognize, it is this unholy alliance that on forcing the election that will cause them to lose the soft C seats in Ontario. Hell, half the population of Ontario consists of ex-Quebecers who fled the Bloc! I guarantee you that they would much rather live with the Liberals in power, (the devil you know vs the devil you don’t) than see Quebec separate, that was the same twisted reasoning they used to justify their fleeing Quebec and leaving the Province to the Separatists. It may be wrongful thinking, but it’s the reality of the anti-bloc mentality.

So, whether or not they actually had any discussions with the Bloc or offered the Bloc anything in exchange for the Bloc supporting the downfall of the Grits is moot. What is key, and you can verify this fact by checking all of the Federal election results for the last 20 years, is that there are NO Conservatives in Quebec, and, there are no New Democrats in Quebec. There is Bloc or there is Liberal. So, if in an election one wishes to vote against the Liberals, there is one choice and it isn’t the Conservatives; and THAT my friend is what pointy-head Harper refuses to grasp. So, conversation or no, alliance or no, any attempt to bring down the Liberals is automatically an unholy alliance and an automatic Bloc legitimacy. That’s the reality of it; welcome to Quebec.

Furthermore, everyone in Quebec is well aware of WHO called the Gomery and is well aware of the fact that Chretien and Martin were so at loggerheads, we seem to be the only people who can see that Martin’s incompetence was easily created by Jean Chretien… Is it likely that the Minister of Finance had no idea what was going on with the Sponsorship Program; easiest thing in the world! In fact, I can easily hear Chretien’s statement in my mind… “Just mek sure that espèce de merde Pol Martin hears nutting aboud dis!”… Easy, you have no idea how easy. Add to that Paul Martin’s calling the inquiry… Am I supposed to believe that Paul Martin, who has been reported as the best Finance Minister Canada has ever had, would call an inquiry KNOWING that if something, anything, got out that directly implicated HIM, he’d be ruined, if not brought up on Criminal Charges??? I don’t personally believe that he was as competent a Finance Minister as everyone would like me to believe, but I do find it very difficult to believe that he’s stupid enough to be the manufacturer of his own downfall. This isn’t about replacing the Liberals with ANYONE in Quebec, it’s about replacing the Liberals with the Bloc, and yes, as a Separatist, I’m all for that. BUT, do I think it’s right that we throw good money away on an election to toss out the sitting Government for doing something that I’m not sure they did??? I want to hear what Gomery has to say, and that to me is far more important than supporting the call for an election right now; unholy alliances aside, Bloc supporter or no.

That said. I keep hearing from the rest of Canada how the “Sponsorship Scandal” is the reason that the Bloc is polling as high as it is. Except that, it’s not the scandal that has the Bloc polling so high, it’s the Conservatives blaming US Quebecers for the scandal that has it polling so high! See, pointy-headed Harper throws out these little comments that very smart Gilles Duceppe picks up on and runs with. And one doesn’t spend a week blaming Quebec for the scandal and then simply get to be ignored for making their comments… “Oh, who I really meant to blame is the Liberals, not the Quebecers”… too late, pointy-head. We’re now convinced that Gilles is better for us than the Liberals, and check your previous election results, you haven’t a hope in hell of taking a Federal seat in Quebec, so… So long, it’s been good to know ya. Whatcha want to bet that IF an election were called right now, the Bloc would take a lot of new seats, Liberals would be out and Quebec would be facing another referendum, and who dya think would be blamed… Certainly, the Liberals would be blamed, it’s their Scandal that caused this right? Wrong, the “scandal” had Quebec further from separation than Quebec has been since I moved here in 83. Having worked in inter-provincial relations, you are in a unique position of seeing what I saw, that aside from all the thieving and Liberal pocket lining, the program WAS WORKING, DogDammit! And the fact that it’s been discredited makes me laugh. Especially since the man doing the discrediting of it, was the most vocally anti-separatist politico going. Mark, you may not fear for the future of Canada or worry about it separating, but you should. ESPECIALLY if pointy-heads like Harper move into 44 Sussex. And, fwiw, I agree wholeheartedly, someone has to answer for the scandal; but on one thing we disagree; the people who had a hand in this AND only those people should be the ones to answer. And unless Paul Martin is implicated, I personally think it’s premature to hang him for the crime that I believe he’s been set up to take the fall for. Ergo, Gomery MUST be allowed to continue, the real culprits must be held accountable; but you and I both know that neither the Bloc nor the Conservatives care whether it’s Paul Martin or Jean Chretien who takes the fall, they want the seats. And since Jean Chretien has conveniently taken his leave from the house; short of criminal charges being laid, it won’t be he. Hanging the next guy to hold the office on behalf of Chretien is simply wrong. And that is why holding an election at this time is soooooo wrong. Gomery must be allowed to fulfill his commission.

As for Stronach’s motives; We’re not going to quibble about whether or not the move was because of her personal politics or her ambition, at the very least her timing was immaculate and her rewards… Any thinking Canadian knows that these things were automatically considerations; she’s a politician for chrissakes. And whether or not she pays a price for her choices, remains to be seen… Worse has happened. I truly believe that she agrees with me about two things; that Martin hasn’t yet been implicated and closure on Gomery is required; whether or not it implicates or vindicates Martin and 2 ANY alliance that furthers the Bloc agenda is a vote against Canada, verbal, written or simply implied. And whether or not I care that Canada stays together, Belinda does; and if you don’t think that what she did saved Canada won’t matter, because she’ll go down in history for it. As for the “she did it for personal furtherance of her political career”; if YOU were a politician and YOU were going to jump ship, wouldn’t YOU do it in the most positively rewarding, flashiest way possible??? Yes, she could have gone independent, yes, she could have simply quit altogether, but instead what she did was highlight the fact that Gomery needs to be played out and gained real power for herself in reference to that. I for one really really want to know whether Paul Martin really is a lying thieving piece of dirt or just incompetent… and for years old personal reasons, I’m really hoping for the latter. Of course there is that third option where Chretien set him up, Martin was duped and is totally innocent of the scandal. I’m still hoping for the incompetence, but only Gomery can tell me the truth.

As for the NDP throwing money around, do you really think that little pet project is going to pass? It’s not an auto wash as the Conservatives would like everyone to believe, but it was a required budget in order to get the NDP to pass it. That said, I personally felt that it was a political coup. The whole job of a minority Government is to make deals and arrangements with the opposing parties in order to govern effectively, and history tells us that some of the BEST results for Canada have occurred when a minority Government worked with the opposing parties.

It was a good budget, because it would pass with the full support of the NDP. It was a good budget because it allowed the Government to stand. And it was a good budget because there was no way that Harper OR the Bloc were going to support the original budget… And finally, it was a good budget because when it passed, it would allow the Gomery to continue.

Harper and Duceppe don’t give a shit who is responsible for the scandal they simply want the power that they believe an election will give them. Duceppe WILL gain seats, Harper, I’m not so sure; especially after the way he and his caucus have behaved over Stronach’s crossing the floor.

Still confused?

Me out.

Boot, Belinda, Boot!!!

2005-05-18T14:13:00.000-04:00

Wow... Sometimes being a newshound is a PITA. Other times, it's the most fun thing in the world to be; like today! But before I get to the real topic of my post today, I do have to fill you, dear reader, in on some details, otherwise, you'll not have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

Anyone following Canadian politics lately knows that over the past several weeks to couple of months, something called the Gomery Commission has messed up a nice quiet Liberal minority Government.

The Gomery Commission is essentialy a trial being presided over by Superior Court of Quebec Justice John Gomery. Although, he claims it's not a trial, it's being handled as if it were one. The point of it is to discover what was going on with a whack of money that was mishandled by the last Federal Liberal Government, led by ex-Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and whose Minister of Finance was the current Prime Minister Paul Martin.

The gyst of the whole scandal is that in 1995, the Quebec Government held a referendum which had they won, would have led to the Province of Quebec separating from Canada. The referendum failed. Barely. Jean Chretien and his Caucus decided that something needed to be done to keep Quebec in Confederation (That's what we Canucks call our union of Provinces). And as such the Sponsorship ~~Scandal~~, I mean Program was born.

The Sponsorship Program was supposed to spend money on advertising and programs that would help convince Quebecers that being part of Canada was a good thing. And as a Newfie separatist living in Quebec, I can personally tell you that it was working. Before the Scandal broke, Quebec was further from separation than it has been since I moved here in 1983.

The problem with Sponsorship, the "scandal" part, is that the Liberal Government took advantage of the fact that suddenly a very large sum of money was put into their hands to vaguely do whatever the needed to do to help further the ideal of keeping Quebec in Canada and this vis-à-vis Quebecers. They absconded with and essentially stole money from the coffers of the Sponsorship Scandal and deliberately didn't keep any records.

So, they launched Gomery to find out the who, whats, wheres and whens... Greed is essentially the why; so that's not important.

Anyway to bring this messy little filibuster around to what is happening today...

The Leader of the Opposition, Steven Harper, the pointy-headed one that I refer to in May 11th's blog; a Confidence Vote, announced today that he is going to back the Liberal minority Government's budget that until yesterday was his motivation for bringing down Paul Martin's Government.

More background...

The pointy headed twit, as I mentioned on May 11th, had decided to climb into bed with the Bloc Quebecois. Now under normal circumstances, this wouldn't bother me, I'm a separatist to begin with, so anything that supports kicking out the Federal Government, I'm all for and I voted bloc in every Federal Election I've been eligible to vote in for exactly this reason.

But... and this is important to understand, Steven Harper is the biggest opponent of the Bloc; has no difficulty labeling Gilles Duceppe, (the leader of the Bloc) a traitor, but then on another day, cozies up to him in Parliament as if they were of a mind, with the simple goal of bringing down the Liberal Government. What's most interesting about that, is that the Conservatives (the Opposition) are just that, conservative, they are blue, blue, blue, right wing, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-human rights, and borderline KKK... well, not all of them, but enough of them anyway; the Bloc on the other hand is very left wing, pro-gay, pro-choice, pro-human rights and anti-KKK, AND horror of horrors, their ultimate goal is to gain enough power in Quebec, to separate the Province from the Country.

Now what pointy-headed Harper fails to realize is that the separation issue is a burning desire of the Bloc, and anything that will move the Bloc closer to that day is a good thing. Thus, the idea that the Bloc will climb into bed with the Conservatives is not only tenable, if it works, it's a great idea for them. Bringing down the house is ok, so long as it's done for the right reasons... ie, breaking up the country. Bringing down the house, because you think an election will make you Prime Minister, especially when your ally is your worst enemy, is wrong... just plain asshole in the rough, wrong.

And Harper doesn't see that.

That said.

Yesterday, front-bench Conservative Belinda Stronach (hence the title of this blog) crossed the floor yesterday, to sit in a plum Cabinet post within the Liberal Caucus.

WTF!

Now I've seen some mind-benders in my time, but this one takes the cake. Belinda Stronach is a die-hard Conservative. She actually ran (and almost won) to become the leader of the Conservative party less than a year ago. So HER crossing the floor, especially at this time, is a really big deal.

Needless to say, the absolute dearth of graciousness on the parts of certain Conservative members, most specifically those of the male gender, has been quite overt. They're all over there whining; she did it for power; she's a "dipstick"; she's whored herself to the Liberals for power and it goes on.

What's most telling is watching this from a position of not really caring how it furthers the Liberal agenda, I can easily realize how easily their reactions to Belinda's stroll, damages THEIR agenda.

Check this out... Here's a Party who for all intents and purposes believes that the Bloc is chockful of traitors, yet doesn't mind climbing into bed with them because they mistakenly believe it will further their agenda... ie, bring down Paul Martin's minority Liberal Government. (With me so far?) Now here in Quebec, they don't mind, because any anti-Liberal vote in Quebec is a Pro-Bloc vote. Mostly because the Cons in Quebec are a bunch of butt-heads who are anti-Quebec and partly because the NDP is virtually non-existent.

Well, what the Conservatives are not seeing; or at least the pointy-headed Harper isn't seeing is that by getting into bed with the Bloc, he's furthering the Bloc's agenda and jeopardizing his own career. You can't go climb into bed with the man who wants to destroy Canada if you're a National Party, the two ideas DO NOT go hand in hand. They just don't.

So here is the pointy-headed Harper trying to bring down the Government by doing exactly what Canadians are horrified of; giving the Bloc validity. So, wonder of wonders, Belinda's good sensibilities get the better of her and there she goes and boots across the floor. But now, Harper and his cronies start whining about her doing this for ambition... What??? How daft is that, of course there is ambition involved, she's a politician.

So here's some info that these pointy-headed conservatives aren't recognizing...

1. Belinda refuses to get into bed with the Bloc. That's a good thing.

2. Steven Harper realizes that he doesn't have a hope in hell of bringing down the Liberals now, so he's going to support the Liberal budget; hypcrite... why didn't he do that BEFORE Belinda crossed the floor??? LMAO

3. The problem that arises over the Conservatives suddenly supporting the Liberal budget is that in deciding to do so, they aren't going to support the good budget, which is the one that got negotiated and doctored into a better budget by the NDP AND the one that Stronach's riding wants supported, but instead, they're going to support the bad budget, the original one! THE ONE THAT PUT THEM INTO BED WITH THE BLOC!!!!

I could go on all day, but ultimately, Harper and his blue Conservatives can whine and bitch and complain all they want, they can be as sleazy as they want calling Belinda names and insulting her with their nasty little inuendo, but any thinking Canadian, and there are fortunately a lot of us, knows that Belinda by booting across the House floor to sit in the Liberal Cabinet, has furthered her career, saved Canada and killed Harper's future in one sweet little political coup.

Well done girl!

Public Speaking from the Pit of my Stomach

2005-05-18T10:43:00.000-04:00

The worst feeling in the whole world, I think, is standing in front of a large group of people and wanting nothing more than to simply throw up or faint. Either will do. I'd gladly accept one over the other if it would make me feel better. At that moment, footlights shining in my eyes, stand back and mind your shoes. I feel I've been lucky, because, I haven't thrown up yet. Thankfully, although, sometimes it feels like I can, I haven't fainted yet either.

Stage fright is normal, it's natural and suffering from it puts me in good company. The likes of Peter O'toole and Lawrence Olivier suffered from it as well. Composer and pianist Igor Stravinsky was so overcome during a performance in 1923 that his mind went blank. The conductor had to sing it for Stravinsky to get going again. Kate Hudson, Judy Garland and even Barbara Streisand get stage fright. So why should I be different?

I had to laugh as I was sitting there counting the butterflies flitting about my belly, one of the speakers who went before me said that public speaking became easier and easier the more often he did it. I disagree. My body disagrees. That guy and anyone else who thinks it gets easier has no idea what stage fright really is. They can't. It doesn't get easier. It's just as hard as the first time I got in front of an audience and frankly, after all these years, I don't believe it will ever get any easier.

I began my speech with "I have to warn you all that I suffer from extreme stage fright, so if I happen to throw up, you'll know why." Then I proceeded to give a brilliant solliloquoy that came from the heart and lit up the room. I'm so proud of me.

Then I returned to my speaker's chair on the side of the stage delicately sat down and drank a gallon of water to drown the bugs. Phew.

The Great Bam Bam!

2005-05-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

To begin today, this blog is not now, nor will ever be about the Flintstones.

FTS asked me to sit in on an advisory board and as I was responding to it, I had opportunity to think of Emeril.

You know who Emeril is; don't you? Anyone who watches the Food Network must know who Emeril is.

Well, Emeril Lagasse is a well-known chef. He's created a dynasty for himself, if you will, of restaurants. He's got two cooking shows on the Food Network and a pretty cool band. He's a famous chef and I used to love watching his show. Even though his verbal "Bam Bam" (which is what he yells when he sprinkles something into a recipe) bugs the hell out of me; it is his signature, after all. Which is why I call him the Great Bam Bam. Anyway, focus the emphasis here on "I used to love watching his show"... That is, until I tasted his grocery store line of hot sauces.

Kack! he built a dynasty on that???

What has happened to Nawlins???

How in Dog's name does the Big Easy, famous the world over for culinary creations of splendour and glory, give birth to the likes of "BAM!"??? I ask you??? And was it really necessary to add Yellow #5 and Blue # 1 to the Jalapeno sauce??? Yuck.

All I can say is that the only explanation for what is being offered for sale in our grocery stores with the Great Bam Bam's mug on the label is a sad legacy to commercialism. The Great Bam Bam has lost control.

Hmmm, I wonder, if the Great Bam Bam were to make the Jalapeno sauce without the funky glow-in-the-dark colouring; would it sell as well? Would he get more repeat business??? Does he use those colours in his restaurants???

Worse, when WE create our grocery store line, is the Peppermaster going to have to resort to glow-in-the-dark colouring as well??? Man, I hope not.

On that note... For supper tonight, we're having pork chops slathered in Telicherry Black and barbecued, corn (on the cob???) and a fresh tomato salsa -- we've got just enough of that curried pineapple left over to mix in it. Man, I wish Ell was coming for dinner, he'd know just the right wine to serve with it.

Me out.

More Peppers and an Apology!

2005-05-13T20:02:00.000-04:00

So the Peppermaster(R) basically completed the new table top sauces today... I can't wait until he says "GO!" I've got a country worth of tables to rid of "T" sauce!

I've gotta tell you, working for BPFI is a marketing specialist's dream come true. I can't believe I wasted all those years in financial services! Ok... I know they weren't wasted, but hell, hot sauce is a lot more fun than mutual funds and financial planning!

I had to switch back to the Peppermaster's Cajun for lunch today. I'd been sucking on Kato's Crawfish Festival sauce for the past couple of weeks and it's gone. So when I found myself with a cheese sandwich for lunch, I actually felt at a loss... Sigh. It's not that Kato's is anywhere near as hot, so don't get me wrong, I love them both, but Peppermaster's is just that much more expensive, sigh.

Oh... the apology... Here's where I deftly change the subject.

I finally got tired of how slow my computer has been and couldn't find a backup utility on my comp to save my life... OMG, I used to back up once a week before the fire. Here I've been relying on the restore function... How sad is that? Anyway, without a backup, I started moving everything to the LaCie. Amazingly, having taken all that STUFF off my hard drive, it suddenly has room to spin... And it's working again... Whoopeee! I didn't have to format.

What I did have to do though was FILING. I HATE FILING! I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE FILING. No, I do, it's not just dislike, it's hate. It is too! Anyway, it's done now.

I've defragged, created a restore point, and now I've got a nice clean smoothly spinning hard drive... Which is really cool, and makes me giggle again especially since Violated is over there formatting her hard drive once again. hehehe. <-- Ok, I know, that was a maniacal cackle, but I can't help it, because every time I've had to format, it's been out of absolute necessity... Violated does it in lieu of squishing a stress ball for Dog's sake!! Except this time... her font obsession got her... but nevermind that's hers to tell.

So, guess what I found while I was doing the filing... I found a Canuck's apology to the US.

I didn't write it. But, I could have. I haven't the slightest clue who did. But after Jon Stewart being quoted today on FTS' blog... The spiteful one of my multiple personalities felt I absolutely had to post it. hehehe

Jon's quote? " I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days."

So... here it is; the Apology. Jon Stewart and FTS... This is for you guys:<>

On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry.

I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron but, it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all it's not like you actually elected him.

I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own.

I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defense I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours. I'm sorry we burnt down your white house during the war of 1812. I notice you've rebuilt it! It's Very Nice.

I'm sorry about your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we Feel your Pain.

I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you wanna have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.

And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this. We've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.

Thank you.

Me out.

Beyond weird...

2005-05-12T16:02:00.000-04:00

How long have we had the Bermudian pepper spice? How long have I been selling this and only today for the first time, I pop it into my lunch.

It was sweet, but it's not hot.

Non-chili-heads are such wusses.

Me out.

A confidence vote...

2005-05-11T22:30:00.001-04:00

I sent this email to Stephen Harper, leader of the Canadian Conservative Party today...

=====

Sir,

I don't like your politics on a good day. I don't like that you think there is nothing wrong with supporting the lies of the American Government or of stripping the Constitutional rights of gays or women. And for what it's worth, as long as you're behind these ideals, I will never vote for anyone in your party.

Don't kid yourself, Mr. Harper, about what is going on right now. Yes, we're annoyed about the truth coming out during the Gomery Commission. Yes, we're annoyed to learn that the Liberal party was involved in the sponsorship scandal. But what you aren't aware of is that until you started whining that the Government needs to be thrown out over this, Quebec was never further from separation, and you have played right into Gilles Duceppe's hands.

Whatever you may think in your pointy little head, No, we are not behind you in this election call, you're behaving like a sore loser and you're simply going to waste a great deal of money better spent on improving this country, not on furthering your PM-wannabe agenda.

Furthermore, I can't for the life of me understand how you believe that you are going to garner the support of upset liberal supporters by crawling into bed with Gilles Duceppe. All you are helping do here in Quebec is earn the Bloq more seats. You're certainly not about to win them.

You're one sad, sorry excuse for a separatist.

=====

What?

I called him "Sir".

Me out.

Politics; is that what they call it?

2005-05-10T21:29:00.000-04:00

It's kind of funny watching a bunch of lying sleazy cheating bastards compete to see which lying sleazy cheating bastard is going to come out on top.

And the funny thing is... Society seems to be alright with it because they keep electing the scumbags and scumbags keep getting ahead.

You can go through life in North America, literally making a career out of ripping people off, pocketing money that isn't yours and nobody seems to care.

They call it politics?

What is this world coming to anyway?

Me out.

Hot sauce Imposters...

2005-05-09T20:34:00.000-04:00

There oughta be a law!

Here I am going through life thinking that all those taste-alike hot sauces are made with Dave's hot sauce as their base.

Until now...

I just found out, they aren't made with Dave's; heck, Dave's isn't even made with Dave's.

They're all made with http://kamukcr.com/index.html.

But wait, they don't only make Dave's, they also make Melinda's, Goya and Jamaican Choice.

I don't currently have a bottle of either of the other three, but dya think their bottles might say "made in Costa Rica"?

If I weren't so stunned, I'd be ticked.

Imposters the lot of 'em. Hmmmph!

I suppose I should have known better, but... sigh.

Me out.

Can I do this without a website???

2005-05-09T13:25:00.000-04:00

Aaaaaaaaaargh!

When the game started, I needed a simple little website, a shopping cart, our story, a place to post recipes, product reviews and maybe even a little blog, where our spice club members could post and chat about all things hot pepper.

Then it turned into an html website, a php shopping cart, a forum owned by someone else and a deep pile of things I want on the website, but can't put up there myself because I can't write php. Then the web designer disappeared. I don't know why he decided to stop talking to me, last thing he said to me was I'll call you in 20 minutes. Heck, he'd been so sick for such a long time, I thought he'd died. Well, I'm glad he didn't but either way, I'm now about 6 months behind on my web site. Grrrr. Well, it's over three weeks, longest damned 20 minutes in the history of the world, and he still hasn't called. I called him, left messages, sent emails... nada.

When he finally showed up on MSN, my son told him that we thought he was dead, he simply laughed. I still haven't heard from him.

Sounds like a personal problem, as Dad or my hubby would say. And... so it is.

Ah well, back to where I originally wanted to be with the website design, and I have the right person working on pulling the whole thing together for me. Hopefully now, a year later, it'll all come together and my site will look and work the way we want.

And if it doesn't... I'm going back to good old mail order.

Wish me luck.

Me out.

About Peppers

2005-05-06T14:00:00.000-04:00

It's gotten to the point in my life when I realize that there are only two things in life worth doing consistently and that's eating hot peppers and if you want to know about the second, go visit an adult blog, this isn't one.

I could go into a long-winded technical description about what makes hot peppers hot, but you could simply google "what makes hot peppers hot" and there you'd be. Suffice it to say that hot peppers are highly aromatic and oily and yummy and mmmmm. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

85% of most mammals dislike the burning sensations. They find them unpleasant, even painful BUT birds are completely unaffected by it and we chiliheads, well, we really like it.

I love peppers. They burn my mouth, and other parts of me, and they make me feel alive! I love the feeling of intense pain and the tingly that goes on. I love the final discovery of the taste of the sweet fruit when my tastebuds finally adapt enough to get me past the pain. But most of all, I love putting hot sauces into my mouth to see how they're going to taste and feel.

Yes, and feel.

If you're a chilihead you know what I mean. The peppers all feel different. Jalapenos don't feel like scotch bonnets any more than scotch bonnets feel like habaneros.

And hot sauces don't feel the same the one to the other either... usually.

Which brings me to my blog for the day...

Every Tuesday night at a little place called Clint's, in Pointe Claire, a group of Chili-heads meets. They each bring their little insulated hot sauce bag and break out the bottles. On any given night a newbie could easily try anywhere between 20 and 30 different hot sauces. And you get a great mix of sauces too, because, some of these guys like it hot, some of them like it flavourful, but like me, what they like most is the way the sauces feel in their mouths and they all feel just a little different.

Well this tuesday we went over to Clint's, which by the way is a nice little bar with a huge restaurant. The menu is alright and they give us a price by the piece on chicken wings, which they accommodatingly cook without any spices; this is what we normally dip into the various hot sauce concoctions.

One of the members brought out this green pasty looking substance in a mason jar. It was thick and icky looking, rather like a bright green tapenade. But was it yummy. I can't even remember what was in it now, but the combination of cilantro and habanero peppers was out of this world.

Jean-Yves, brought a homemade sauce in a woosy. I have no idea what was in that either, but my first guesses include scotch bonnets and vinegar. It wasn't as hot as J-Y had wanted it, but it was tasty.

Marc, the club President and co-founder carted along the hottest thing I have EVER put in my mouth. I was still feeling it the next morning. It was a capsaicin extract he'd picked up in a lab in the states and it wasn't nasty. In fact, I recall no flavour to it at all... Perhaps that's what true extract should taste like? I used one of those little plastic swords to dip into the sauce, which was a bright glossy blood-like red colour and tipped it onto the center of my tongue. Instant pain. Instant extasy! Unbelievable.

I tasted several new sauces that night. And to cool my tongue down, I ordered the restaurant's chocolate mousse cake. The cake was one of those generic mousse cakes that you seem to be able to get all over the place in restaurants where the chef doesn't have the time or perhaps the ability to also be a brilliant pastry chef; you know the ones I mean. Anyway, I took the cake and it wasn't anything special, good; but nothing special. UNTIL, I poured the Raspberries in Heat over top of it. OMG, it was delicious. Every taste bud in my mouth came alive. Now I don't know if you've ever tried raspberries and chocolate together, but it's a wonderful combination, but add the pique of scotch bonnets and the two flavours really come alive. I highly recommend it.

Well I've been munching on Zantac like candy since Tuesday, and I probably will for the next couple of days, until the burn is out of my system, but ooooh man, it was worth it.

If you happen to be a chili-head reading this, and you ever happen to find yourself in Pointe Claire, Quebec on a Tuesday night, look up Clint's in the Pointe Claire Plaza. And when you get there, look for the Spice Boys. It's a fun night out with some great people.

Me out.

Blogging...

2005-05-05T14:49:00.000-04:00

This is the first post of my blog. How about that?

What the heck is a blog you ask??? Well, I did a lot of asking that myself, before finally becoming convinced to write one. Especially when I found out that I could add to one by simply emailing myself.

I'm not really quite sure what a blog is yet, myself. I've been watching these things pop up all over the place, post by post and they seem to be pretty popular little things. I've seen some really well written ones. And I've seen some really crappy ones. But mostly what I've seen is fun.

My best friend has one; she uses it to tell the deepest darkest horror stories that are her reality to her entourage. Lots of my customers have them; some of them are professional, some are personal, but they're often about chili peppers and hot sauce. Truth be told, I've even found a couple of new customers because of their blogs.

I mean think about it; here are these weird little internet journals. People publishing daily or weekly journals of their thoughts; their lives, their loves. I've found gripe sessions, information postings, sometimes even boring little monologues about people's lives. But they've got a really cool purpose from what I can see. Although, some of them seem like airing one's dirty laundry to me.

So why blog?? Well, I'm starting to think why not?

Well, I've got lots of reasons why not.

Because, blogging is for people who have nothing better to do. Blogging is for people who have nothing to say to anybody who would listen anyway. Blogging is for people who think that by posting it to the internet, they'll gain the feeling that someone is listening. It's about spilling one's guts and dropping one's pants in a public arena.

And isn't that the sort of thing that makes life fun?

So here goes. When I post this. This will be my first web log, I will own a blog, at http://pepperfire.blogspot.com, called Confessions of a Chilihead.

So, Enjoy or don't. This is about me, not you.