Pictured above is a pan full of perfectly cooked shishito peppers. As you can see from the photo, shishitos are different than other peppers in that it is not necessary, nor even slightly desirable, to remove the seeds and pith before cooking and eating. Simply wash the peppers to your satisfaction, let dry, and place with loving care into a hot oiled pan. Turn periodically, and when the peppers are soft nd the skins are starting to blister, they are ready. Add salt, and eat by messily picking up the peppers by the stem and stuffing into your mouth. Not recommended for a first date. While shishitos are classified as a sweet pepper, about one in fourteen will have a slight heat to it.
Here's that picture again, since I can't seem to get it to display right up top. Right now most of them will be green, there will be more red ones as the season progresses.
While we're on the subject of peppers, let's talk about these ones pictured below:
Look like habaneros, right? If you're like me, habeneros have always been frustrating. Hot pepper lovers won't stop about how amazing the flavor is, but they are far too hot for me to be able to tell what that flavor may be. I can't eat them. Enter Numex Suave Orange and Roulette, recent "habenero" introductions from which most of the heat has been bred out, leaving only a mild warmth and all the flavor I've always been so curious about. They are just starting to ripen, look for them in the coming weeks. Gnomes love them.
And now on to my ninth grade geometry project. You can skip this part if you want, it has nothing to do with vegetables. Let me start off by saying that my elder brother and sister were (and still are) extremely good at mathematics, and for this reason, and none other, they stuck me in the advanced class for ninth grade geometry. The teacher, Mrs. Azerra, was friendly and competent and quite popular with the students. I liked her too, personally, but she had a few habits I really didn't care for. One was that she kept asking me to prove things-- theorems and what not-- I had never asserted, which I didn't think was very fair. She also wanted me to solve "problems" involving triangles when I was happy just to let the mystery be. Worst of all, she asked us to "use our creativity" to do a project about geometry or explaining some geometric principle. I don't know about you, but I find it almost impossible to be creative at someone else's behest and on their time frame. It's like going up to someone at a party (we all remember what those were, right?) and saying "Say something funny." Let's try this at home. Ready? Ok, now say something funny. Not so easy, is it? Anyways, I couldn't think of what to do for the project, so I ended up throwing something together the night before the due date out of plywood and glue which did nothing for anybody except get me a "C-" for the quarter. And now, thirty five years later, I finally know what I want to do for the project. I'll tell you what it is next week. Try to stay sane until then.
John
