The Core

These little peppers are easy to grow and f***ing hot.  For the future of the planet, there must be a way to convert the energy they create in heat/? into power?

I love eating them, but they really have something that no other fruit/veg has.  I am going to do some research, so thought I'd start a thread.

If I could create a robot tongue to react to the SB then it might make something new?  mad?  no, just interested....I think.

I've been doing about 90% of my own cooking for the past few years.  My diet is very controlled and specialized so for the most part my wife just cooks for herself and the kids.  Probably eating my own food has helped more with my weight loss than all the exercise. 

One simple dish I eat often is chicken cooked with  paprika, cayenne pepper & salt.  I just sprinkle it on and cook  it in the oven with olive oil.  Everyone who tries it says it looks and tastes delicious.  Men shouldn't be afraid of cooking.

Love cooking and the hotter the better.  I find a hot pepper helps give food a more rounded flavour.  Talking to the owner of the local Indian, great place and not the normal curry house, he said they microwave their spices and use very little oil or ghee because it insulated the flavour.  Haven't tried it yet but his food is a lot better, a mile better than the other oil refinery places near by.

>> men are better cooks anyway

yeah yeah, tell that to Elena Arzak, or Angela Hartnett, or Elizabeth David (who I concede didn't run a top restaurant but is listed as inspiration by many of the men who now do)

But yeah, many more male chefs.

I'm not sure about the overly hot thing, and I notice the 'I like it hot' discussion is almost always a contest amongst the men as to who's toughest at the chilli game     For me, plenty of flavour and enough heat to pleasantly tingle is a good thing (bite your lip Zwart) but here's definitely a point where the focus moves from being about enhancing flavour to about hiding flavour, which spoils the whole experience.

I notice the 'I like it hot' discussion is almost always a contest amongst the men as to who's toughest at the chilli game

That was my youth.  I grew up in a mostly Hispanic (Mexican) neighborhood and we use to have chili eating contests all the time.  I was the-white-kid so I felt like I had to prove myself worthy.  I usually did pretty well.

These days I like heat in my food, but to the point of ridiculousness.  IMO, if the heat is overpowering all the other flavors its too much.

>not just for girls

MEAT! I need meat.  Particularly rare beef, and girls won't cook rare beef.

I've been cooking meats sous vide for over 2 years now after coming across a caterer's DIY sous vide cooker online and subsequently finding this article in the WSJ.  I jumped at it because I like meat NOT to be overdone.

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB122004224561584255.html

I particularly liked the idea of using ziploc bag mentoned in that article... "we had equal success using Ziploc bags, pressing as much air out as possible. (The bags can be safely heated to 170 degrees Fahrenheit, says Ziploc's maker, SC Johnson)."

Originally, I purchased and used the Auber Instruments controller mentioned in the article but several off my adult children wanted to try sous vide but were put off by the hardware costs.  I found a digital controller for $75 and use it with a $20 (non-digital) crockpot.

One great benefit is that I can cook 6-8 pounds of meat using 3 or 4 different recipes at one pass.

Having spent a decade in and out of pro kitchens, I'd say that the lack of women at a high level is very little to do with culinary skill.  In fact most chef roles are not that dependent on being what most people would consider a good cook. Pro kitchens are horrible chauvinist environments that make this thread look PC and I suspect that many women are too sensible to spend 80 hours a week in a pissing contest with a load of knife wielding primates.

I only worked with 1 female head chef in that time, although quite a few chef de partie.  The general unpleasant consensus in some of the kitchens I worked was though that "women and gays belong in pastry".

[bites lip @ grnidone...]