Monday, December 14, 2009

Variety is the Spice of Life

Yes, it is. Why would you want to do the same boring, mundane thing every single day and then on the weekends do the same boring, mundane thing that you've done every weekend for the last 20 years?

Do something different! Change something! Spice up your life!

Heck, if I'd been content to drive the same truck every day, punch the same clock, receive a really good paycheck with awesome benefits, ride the bike on the same roads/trails as the previous 1231 weekends, teach the same stuff four times a week in the evenings; well, gosh.

I certainly wouldn't be in Australia if I wanted to do the same thing day in and day out.

And I certainly wouldn't have an outdoor pool. I hear they aren't too common up in Fairbanks for some reason.

And I certainly would still be working!

You owe it to yourself to TRY SOMETHING NEW!

Variety is the SPICE of life. And if you don't like spices in your life then you are probably only popular at a Star Trek Trivial Pursuit convention. Jus' sayin'.

Speaking of spices... I happened upon a couple of really nice chilli peppers the other day.

I have tentatively identified them as a sub-species of Capsicum annuum. I do believe they are the cayenne variety.

These puppies are 20 times hotter than a jalapeno and 10 times hotter than tabasco sauce. However, they are only 1/5th the hotness of the thai peppers I grow (got 9 really awesome thai chilli plants this year). But hey, they are still good.

Lookie here if'ns ya don't beeleave me:
cayenne chilli pepper 01



To do what I planned to do with them (GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!), I first needed to snip the stems.
cayenne chilli pepper 02
BTW, Mundial kitchen shears are da bomb! Hand crafted in Madrid, doncha know.


And I also needed to pierce them full of holes:
cayenne chilli pepper 03

cayenne chilli pepper 04



You'll notice I don't wear rubber gloves when handling chillis. It's cus I'm not a wuss. Besides, I've got so many callouses from, ah, um, er, other activities that I don't have to worry about and juice stinging.

But what am I planning on doing with these chillis? Weeeeeeelllllllllll, since you asked...
cayenne chilli pepper in beer 05
This is a 750 ml bottle ready for BEER! 750 mls is twice the size of wussie US beers, BTW. These are BIG chillis!

They barely even fit!
cayenne chilli pepper in beer 06



One with, one without.
cayenne chilli pepper in beer 07
Soon to be both "with".

And after a nice lager has been added to do it's secondary fermentation in the bottle
cayenne chilli pepper in beer 08



I'll let you know how they taste in about a week from now.

Hey, take a chance! Ya never know!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sure hope he marked the bottles ...! For the next six weeks I'll be holding ale bottles up to the light ... it'll become a habit. I'll be trying to teach myself not to hold beer bottles up to windows when I'm 64...

WP

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

flying fish said...

I hope you washed your hands before you rubbed your eyes or (even worse) peed?

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

WP - if you ever go to Mexico and drink Pacifico, you will learn to hold the bottles up to the light. Those bottles get re-used and sometimes don't get cleaned out very well... Not me, but someone drank out of a bottle with a nasty old rotten lime in it. And not me, but someone drank out of a bottle with a cig butt in it. Ick. There are reasons people drink Corona.
But your homemade beer bottles are the same ones Jim has! His are empty and dusty though... Can we just ship our empty ones over for a fill?
Yeah if you wear contact lenses make sure you wash your hands about a gazillion minutes before you touch your eyeballs!

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

flying fish: What? You mean that burning sensation when I pee isn't gonorrhea?

SV Meerkat: I'll keep that in mind regarding Pacifico. I've had it, but it was the stuff they export.
Cig butts in beer... I was at a party and went to take the last swig of my beer only to find that someone dumped their butt in it. Blech.
You know what's worse than chili juice in contacts? Sports rub or sports spray. If you use it you can wash your hands for days and the menthol will still get in your contacts. Voice of experience talking.
I'll fill his bottles, no worries. However, the US don't let you import homebrew or ship it across state lines. Retards.

Alaska-womom said...

Oh-my hub is a brewer--I have GOT to know how this turns out--anyway--great point on the spice--we have doe some crazy stuff--so glad we didn;t always play it boring. What's next? That's one of our mottos. BTW, hub makes a mean dark chocolate-coffee porter--yum!

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

Alaska-sheila: Mmmmmm dark chocolate porter... I just experimented with some extra malty dark ale with coffee and cocoa. Should find out in a week how it turned out.