There is some humour in organizing our “junk drawer”. A bit of an oxymoron, but we try to keep your site as user friendly as possible. We’ve started to add ‘new’ to recently added bits, so you can surf through faster. We just keep collecting so much stuff, that we needed a place to share all those thoughts, ideas, tips and chuckles that we find, or you send in to share.

If you grow your own peppers, or make your own sauces: Many of you are asking about various things, so we try to keep an eye out for helpful information. You’ll find books, articles, web sites & tips mixed into this page.

Dirtman sent in this hilarious story about his ‘problems with peppers’. Click here to read THE BATTLE OF THE APHIDS, his problems in the 2005 growing season.

We were playing around and found this just too funny….

Of course Miss Wild Garlic has something to add….
This needed a home as well. Miss Wild Garlic inspired us with her tales of Cleopatra…a bit of a role model if you ask us, and she finally wrote it down. It also motivated us to create this poster as a present to her. Click here for Miss Wild Garlic’s take on Cleopatra.

WISH WE WERE HERE…
Other “Welcome To” town signs that caught our fancy. We’re building a collection in our Where To Find Pepperheads (Retailers) page, but these just had that ‘charm’, so we wanted to share. If you have a fun sign that you want to share, take your best shot and send it to thechefs@pepperheadsinc.com

Home of Pinto MacBean

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE SASKATCHEWAN BUTCHERS CONVENTION ~ If you’ve noticed that the same bland offerings seem to be on display at your local big box, check out the competition by real live butchers and remember that quality is alive and well…you just have to look for it.

Read the full story...

Early on we held a ‘Hot Poetry’ Contest and this was how we announced it….

We’re having a ‘Hot Poetry’ Contest
Open to Pepperheads living far & wide.
So tap into your inner creative muse
And be sure to tell us where you reside.

Share your thoughts or beliefs about romance
We know that fine meals play a crucial part,
Send in a homage to the hot chili pepper
Or let us know how Miss Wild Garlic has stolen your heart.

…of course, you can always still send in poetry. If we’re inspired, we’ll send you a treat!

PEPPERS IN COOL CLIMATES…
We keep meeting & hearing from fans who are growing their own peppers. Click here to read a nice piece for Northern growers, compliments of Dave DeWitt at www.fiery-foods.com You’ll also see a place to buy interesting pepper seeds below in our website recommendations.
Growers, keep sending in your tips and we’ll add them for others to share.
We’ve listed one of Dave’s books below as well.

NEW - IF YOU ARE BOTTLING YOUR OWN SAUCES ~ A number of you have asked about where to get bottles for your creations. The problem is that most distributors only sell to companies, not individuals. Darren from Calgary dropped by our Millarville Market booth and shared his solution to the dilemma – he uses Grolsch beer bottles. They have reseal-able clamp-style lids and as Darren points out “You get to drink the beer first!” If you don’t want to purchase full bottles, just ask your local bottle depot to start saving empties for you. Clean them well and use a good sanitizer. Be sure to save a finished sample for the folks at the bottle depot!

NEW - FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE ASKED ABOUT SELLING YOUR OWN SAUCES ~ Keep it simple. Don’t dream about riches. There are too many pitfalls involved in going mass market. If you’re really geared, the best suggestion is to see if you can get a booth at your local farmer’s market. If you find it’s going well, you can usually find another local market to attend each weekend. You have to enjoy what you’re doing & meeting with people who share your passion for food. You also must be sure to make & bottle your sauces in an inspected kitchen if you are selling them to the public. There are always Christmas markets as well, the larger ones you must apply for well in advance. There are some associations that will help with advice. In British Columbia try the Small Scale Food Processors Association www.ssfpa.net , in Alberta you can check with the Alberta Farmers Market Association www.albertamarkets.com , in Saskatchewan there is a Saskatchewan Farmers Market Cooperative (couldn’t find a link), but if you’re stuck check in with your local government agriculture department and they can point you in the right direction. Be sure to tell them you want small-scale producers info. Remember, it’s the love of what you are doing, not the money.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE HOW YOUR SAUCE STACKS UP ~ The Scovie Awards have an Amateur Award Competition as well. If you enter, you'll also get access to helpful information for newbies. There are profiles of past winners as well.
If you enter, let us know how you did , or how your experience was & we'll share your story. www.fiery-foods.com/amateur/index.html for details.

THOUGHTS, QUOTES & IDEAS:
An interesting reflection from the BBC News… Click here for the link.

SIGNIFICANCE OF BUYING LOCAL

Raton, Florida -- a 4,800 kilometre, two-day transcontinental drive. Thanks to refrigerated trucks, low gas prices, taxpayer-built highway systems and now long-term storage techniques, most produce today travels between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres before it reaches your plate.
To make the long haul, the tomatoes are typically plucked when they are still hard and green, which helps prevent bruising. But then they need to be bathed in ethylene gas to help them turn red before they hit grocery store shelves. They look ripe, but aren't really, which could be why people start calling Verquin in February to find out when she is coming back to the market -- she doesn't use ethylene gas.
"Once the tomatoes start ripening we start picking them and bringing them to the market." she says. "We only pick them when they're red, and the odd one we pick a little on the orange side because some people like them that way."
Big farmers and grocery stores pick green, ship and gas the tomatoes because Canada is part of a profitable, multi billion-dollar food distribution network that circles the globe. Alberta exports $12 million worth of fruits and vegetables annually, mostly to the U.S. The export industry is crutial to the welfare of Alberta farmers.
But critics like Jules Pretty, a professor of environmant and society at the University of Essex, say large-scale conventional farming -- and the food distribution system that underpins it -- degrades the environment, fuels climate change and damages infrastructure that citizens pay to fix.
In a study published in the March 2005 edition of the Food Policy journal, Pretty and his colleagues tallied the total costs of industrial food distribution systems. They found the environmental impact of importing coffee beans from South America was almost irrelevant when compared to the cost of trucking conventional produce across the country.
If Britons ate only food grown within 20 kilometres of their homes, Pretty and his team established the country could save more than 2.3 billion pounds annually ($5.3 billion CAD) -- the cost of transporting conventional produce, maintaining U.K. roads, and cleaning the air.
"We need to localise food systems within countries as much as we possibly can," Pretty says.
"You eat food and you buy from a farm at the other end of the food system; those choices matter hugely"
"The most political decision we make on a daily basis is what we eat."

~ Karen Kleiss (The Edmonton Journal)

If you’re stuck for a Halloween costume….

Grab a set of individual portion cereal boxes, usually sold in sets for five or six bucks and some plastic knives and forks. Then get some clear packing tape. Tape the individual boxes to your clothes with the packing tape and stick a knife or fork into each box. Easy & cheap, but two things to remember…first, don’t eat the cereal, usually the cardboard has more nutrition, and just chill and enjoy your Halloween party. When they ask, let them guess…you are a ‘cereal killer’. Food & fun indeed!

                ~ compliments of the Pepper Prez

Mexico has a great tradition... "Day of the Dead". It's held on November 1st. Families put up shrines in local malls, hold parades & visit local graveyards to share picnics with loved ones. Forget bad candies...share a pint with Uncle ____. (One for me, one for you.) A nice touch for remembering those who have 'passed on'. Good rhythm.

A BEDTIME STORY for the kids...have a little fun with this Mexican tale. It might just even start some discussions about other cultures. It will have you playing with the pronounciations, and yes...food is a big part of the story. Click here for the full story and enjoy sharing!

Why farmer’s markets & independent butchers, bakers and restaurants are a nice places to support….Think Globally ~ Eat Locally.

“The extraordinary growth of the fast food industry has been driven by fundamental changes in American society. Adjusted for inflation, the hourly wage of the average U.S. worker peaked in 1973 and then steadily declined for the next twenty-five years. During that period, women entered the workforce in record numbers, often motivated less by a feminist perspective than by a need to pay the bills. In 1975, about one-third of American mothers with young children worked outside the home; today almost two-thirds of such mothers are employed. As the sociologists Cameron Lynne Macdonald and Carmen Sirianni have noted, the entry of so many women into the workforce has greatly increased demand for the types of services that housewives traditionally perform: cooking, cleaning, and child care. A generation ago, three-quarters of the money used to buy food in the United States was spent to prepare meals at home. Today about half of the money used to buy food is spent in restaurants – mainly at fast food restaurants.

The McDonald’s Corporation has become a powerful symbol of America’s service economy, which is now responsible for 90 percent of the country’s new jobs. In 1968, McDonald’s operated about one thousand restaurants. Today it has about thirty thousand restaurants worldwide and opens almost two thousand new ones each year. An estimated one out of every eight workers in the United States has at some point been employed by McDonald’s. The company annually hires about one million people, more than any other American organization, public or private. McDonald’s is the nation’s largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes – and the second largest purchaser of chicken. The McDonald’s Corporation is the largest owner of retail property in the world. Indeed, the company earns the majority of its profits not from selling food but from collecting rent. McDonald’s spends more money on advertising and marketing than any other brand. As a result it has replaced Coca-Cola as the world’s most famous brand. McDonald’s operates more playgrounds than any other private entity in the United States. It is responsible for the nation’s best-selling line of children’s clothing (McKids) and is one of the largest distributors of toys. A survey of American schoolchildren found that 96 percent could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus. The impact of McDonald’s on the way we live today is hard to overstate. The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.

In the early 1970’s, the farm activist Jim Hightower warned of “the McDonaldization of America.” He viewed the emerging fast food industry as a threat to independent businesses, as a step toward a food economy dominated by giant corporations, and as a homogenizing influence on American life. In ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ (1975), he argued that “bigger is not better.” Much of what Hightower feared has come to pass. The centralized purchasing decisions of the large restaurant chains and their demand for standardized products have given a handful of corporations an unprecedented degree of power over the nation’s food supply. Moreover, the tremendous success of the fast food industry has encouraged other industries to adopt similar business methods. The basic thinking behind fast food has become the operating system of today’s retail economy, wiping out small businesses, obliterating regional differences, and spreading identical stores throughout the country like a self-replicating code.

America’s main streets and malls now boast the same Pizza Huts and Taco Bells, Gaps and Banana Republics, Starbucks and Jiffy-Lubes, Foot Lockers, Snip N’ Clips, Sunglass Huts, and Hobbytown USAs. Almost every facet of American life has now been franchised or chained. From the maternity ward at a Columbia/HCA hospital to an embalming room owned by Service Corporation International – “the world’s largest provider of death care services,” based in Huston, Texas, which since 1968 has grown to include 3,823 funeral homes, 523 cemeteries, and 198 crematoriums, and today handles the final remains of one of ever nine Americans – a person can now go from the cradle to the grave without spending a nickel at an independently owned business.”

        ~ From the introduction to “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser

“If you have formed the habit of checking on every new diet that comes along, you will find that, mercifully, they all blur together, leaving you with only one definite piece of information: French-fried potatoes are out.” ~ Jean Kerr

TRIVIAL PURSUIT...The Culinary Edition:

OK, forget the game that caused more divorces than beer…Pepperheads has a bit more of a fun slant on things. Relaxing around the table after (or before) a great meal…throw this little puppy into the gathering at your table… “What’s your best food memory?” It’s really interesting what comes up. “What’s your first food memory?” sometimes brings up… “ I was stuck at the table forever as they insisted I finish eating _____.” It’s fun and shakes us up, as we search back in our memory. Too often we forget to pause and reflect. Change the direction of the conversation and thought process by delving into food and memories of the past. What’s the first thing that comes to mind….

“Ice cream on Sunday nights, because that’s when ‘Gran’ came to dinner.”
“When we arrived in Canada, the first meal we had was KFC. Every year we celebrate that anniversary by having KFC. It’s a little weird.”
“You grow your own corn, when it’s ready to pick…when the water’s boiling… then you pick the corn & husk it on then on the way back to the kitchen and pop it into the boiling water…that’s fresh corn. Slathered in fresh butter!”

Have fun with this (if you choose to play) and you can always add your fun results into our ‘Share Your Thoughts’ page. Why do we talk about everything else, but don’t reflect on the food, and it’s impact in our lives? Lighten up…forget the bad stuff they try to foist on us…dig back and remember the good stuff!

"Cinnamon toast and Popeye cartoons."

On the ‘remember the good stuff’ theme, here’s a great story about BREAKFAST by John Steinbeck. Click here to read the story.

FOOD FIT FOR A QUEEN....
C.J. Katz wrote a wonderful story on what was served to the Queen when she visited Saskatchewan. click to read the story

WEBSITES OF SCATTERED INTEREST:
(Some of these sites are just plain fun, others may offer something you need, or have asked about, or have tweaked our interest. With the seed sites, we always check first to see if they ship to Canada, get a feel for the quality & mention any guarantee. These are just here as sources. If you use them, please let us know how your experiences are, or recommend any helpful sites, but this is a community list, not a ‘commercial’ list.)

www.fiery-foods.com Dave DeWitt is a caring, sharing god of everything chili. Lots of great information & a newsletter you can sign up for. Good people. If you are making your own sauces, this is a great resource and home of the Scovies, which feature an Amateur Competition each year. The best place for expert advice.

www.chilepepperinstitute.org The world's leading resource center for chile. Great information source and they ship and sell seeds. A non-profit organization.

www.nativeseeds.org (NEW Nov.17, 05) Is a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve the native seeds that connect native American cultures to their lands. They concentrate on American Southwestern and northwest Mexico, so it doesn’t apply to Canada, but if you know how giant corp’s are modifying seeds (and chickens, etc.) to grow just the right size to have machines do all the work, then you’ll understand how the original seeds (or natural food products) are being made obsolete.  If you enjoy farm fresh eggs (odd sizes & just wonderful), you’ll know where I’m coming from here. The recommended book “Much Depends Upon Dinner” explains how corn has been affected this way. “The Indian Givers” book explains the importance of what the cultures of the America have shared with the world. We owe them much. They do offer seeds for sale, but was not able to find out if they ship to Canada. If anyone is spearheading such a thing in Canada, please let us know.

www.reimerseeds.com (NEW Nov.17, 05) They offer over 1,800 varieties of peppers, they do ship to Canada and have offer Hot Pepper Growing Tips & Planting Instructions. If you follow their planting instructions, they offer a money back guarantee. Let us know how you make out so we can share your experiences.

www.clucknstuff.com (NEW Nov.17, 05) This is a new independent family business out of Idaho. If you are into Beer Can or Beer Butt Chicken, these are fun! Had to add a visual here, so you can understand their charm. The Prez’s fave is the Southwestern Chicken. Not a corporation, just a family crazy enough to follow their dream. They’ve won some awards already, offer a guarantee, instructions and recipes. Pepperheads falling in love with Chickenheads…who woulda thunk.

www.tohato.jp (NEW Nov.17, 05) Don’t go here unless you have a little savvy & patience. Just found it fun to see some award winning heat coming from Japan (the land that made Wasabi famous). If you are in for adventure, go to www.altavista.com who offer a translation service known as ‘babel fish’, which is a nice reference to The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (before they made the recent movie for the big screen). Once you type in the web address on Altavista, you’ll have to translate by page using the babel fish option. A little effort & it doesn’t translate absolutely all the text on each page, but that’s what makes it fun if you like a little adventure, which is very much like the taste adventures that many of you enjoy. Probably seen as weird in some circles as Pepperheads enjoying themselves in Canada…just let the world have fun.

www.amateurgourmet.com - If you have a little too much time on your hands...this won the 2004 Food Blog Award for Humour. Fun community participation.

www.chowhound.com Miss Wild Garlic discovered this one as she was dreaming of New York. They're scope keeps expanding and there's even a small Canadian Chat happening. You won't get bombarded with info-mercials...they describe it as "a non-hypey haven" and they keep plugs out! They are now playing with Radio Free Chowhound. Chowhounds just want to share those hidden gems that keep them coming back. Very unpretentious and refreshing.

www.longviewjerkyshop.com ~ Love their 'tradional' jerky. Great stuff...soft and moist. We use them when we want to whip up a custom batch.

www.epicurious.com ~ Ever been hooped by some fancy schmanzy cooking term? This is a great place to find easy to understand descriptions of cooking terms…go to their ‘food dictionary’.

www.pepperjoe.com ~ Organic seeds, a nice honest online approach & yes Pepperheads…Joe does ship seeds to Canada. Now all we need to do is get a reliable bottle source for all those who are asking. Working on it…..

www.hotsauceblog.com ~ Knowledgeable, updated regularly and well connected.
He knows his stuff and tasting is done by a cross section of tastebuds.

www.thehotpepper.com ~ A very active community for hot chat. If you've got questions, fire 'em in here and get a cross-section of answers. Good community feel.

www.sagekitchen.com ~ Can we eat flowers? Which ones? Check out the meaning/language of flowers. Very interesting if you love your flowers…

www.savourlife.com ~ Award winning weekly email newsletter about good food & wines in Southern Saskatchewan.

www.darwinawards.com ~ Maybe we’ll tease you with the Cheese Whiz story; “Every year Britons chase Double Gloucester cheese wheels down Cooper’s Hill in an astoundingly bizarre and dangerous competition. Several seven-pound cheeses are hurled down the hill and dozens of contestants take off in pursuit. Their rewards are if they catch a cheese, they get to keep it.
But Cooper’s Hill is so steep that the cheese chasers invariably tumble as far as they run. This year (2000) was no exception. The “winner” broke his arm, yet managed to smile triumphantly while confessing that he had broken his other arm several years ago in a previous winning dash.
At least eighteen people were injured, including a spectator who tried to dodge a bouncing cheese. He was hospitalized for a head injury after a hundred-foot tumble down the steep slope.
Despite its bloody track record, the Gloucestershire tradition has continued for hundreds of years, and contestants show no signs of slowing down. They earn an Honorable Mention, and we fondly anticipate a cheese-chasing Darwin Award nominee in the near future.”

www.ifoce.com ~ International Federation of Competitive Eating. The current world’s #1 eater is from Japan & only weighs 132 pounds. At a Coney Island competition he ate 44.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

SOME BOOKS WE LOVE:
Some of these are out of print, but you can buy copies online, or visit nice wide-ranging used book shops on your travels. The history and love of food is fascinating. The more awareness we have, the better we understand the options being presented to us for our tables…

• NEW - ‘Much Depends On Dinner’ by Margaret Visser (Harper Collins – 1986) ~ Another great book about the history and mythology of food. She takes a regular dinner and delves into each key ingredient by chapter – corn, salt, butter, chicken, rice, lettuce, olive oil, lemon juice & ice cream. Particularly liked the corn section – they really have played with the quality of mass produced corn, best fresh from your local farmers. Butter has fascinating history and mythology attached to it. This is still in print and her book ‘The Rituals of Dinner’ a Culinary Professionals’ Literary Food Writing Award.
  
  
• NEW - ‘Rough Guide’ Travel Series ~ These are a staple where ever the Pepper Prez travels. The approach is casual & with a sense of humour. They don’t get all the right places, but if you check out the interesting places they do recommend, you’ll be in the right circles to get tips for great local discoveries.
  
  
• ‘TALES of the TABLE (A History of Western Cuisine)’ by Barbara Norman (1972 – Prentice Hall) ~ Good wide-ranging history of food, with historical index to some common & uncommon foods and menus & recipes from every era.
  
  
• ‘The Penguin Companion to FOOD’ by Alan Davidson (Penguin – updated 2002) ~ Only for the wacky “gotta find out” food lovers. We’re talking about a 1072 page reference book here…loaded with information and the history of foods from around the world. Nice depth of info…for instance, on one of our pet peeves, the confusion between yams and sweet potatoes: On YAMS “Yam is often used in a general sense to embrace other tropical root crops such as sweet potato, taro, oca, etc. The wider usage is an inconvience; all the more so since the genius Dioscorea itself compromises scores of species, which are often difficult to distinguish from each other. However, one must not complain. The origin of the word ‘yam’ was such that its meaning had to be elastic. The story goes that Portuguese slave traders, watching Africans digging up some roots, asked what they were called. Failing to understand the question aright, the Africans replied that it was ‘something to eat’, nyami in Guinea. This became inhame in Portuguese and then igname in French, and yam in English.”
  
  
• ‘Fast Food Nation (The Dark Side of the All-American Meal)’ by Eric Schlosser (Perennial – 2002) ~ A must read if you want to know the direction fast food is taking us, and the impact. (See: the introduction in our “Thoughts, Quotes & Ideas’ section above.)
  
  
• ‘Indian Givers (How The Indians of the Americas Transformed The World)’ by Jack Weatherford (Fawcett Books – 1988) ~ A must read. Covers the cultural, social & political impact of how the practices of the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. The foods discovered by the Indians are well covered, such as potatoes, chocolate and chiles, which revolutionized the cuisines of Europe and Asia. In fact, some 60 % of the foods eaten in the world today were first harvested by the Indians of the Americas! Provides long overdue respect & is a great read.
  
  
• ‘In The Devil’s Garden (A Sinful History of Forbidden Food)’ by Stewart Lee Allen (Ballentine – 2003) ~ When the pleasure of eating a certain food is criminalized, there’s always a good tale to tell, and Stewart certainly ‘dishes it up’. Good sense of humour & a great read. Sample: Roman excess eventually ate the empire alive by making it overreliant on foreign imports. (Unless you subscribe to the theory that their lead-lined wine flagons caused their downfall via brain damage, in which case they drank their empire to death.) During the ensuing Dark Ages, when there was nothing to eat, much less overeat, laws restricting gluttony disappeared, only to pop up again in sixteenth-century Florence, which sternly restricted cardinals to a mere nine dishes per meal.”
  
  
• NEW - 'THE FOOD LOVER'S TRAIL GUIDE TO ALBERTA - VOLUME TWO' by Mary Bailey & Judy Schultz (Blue Couch Books - 2005) These fun & food lovin' gals were at it again...Volume Two acts as a companion to the first book with cross-references. Food festivals, celebrations, best watering holes, Alberta's food artisans, bakeries, butchers and lots of swell places to eat. "This is a book about our personal experiences with food and the people who make it. Our search is for the authentic. It doesn't have to be haute cuisine. We like it simple and well-executed -- flaky pie crust, great bread, the elusive perfectly poached egg." A great resourse for all of you who care about your food and where it comes from. Loaded with adventures. Whether you want to fill a picnic basket, cooler, or just looking for a place to unwind and spoil yourself, this should be kept next to your auto manual in the car. (Printed on Ancient-forest-friendly paper.)
  
  
• ‘The Food Lover’s Trail Guide To Alberta’ by Mary Bailey & Judy Schultz (Blue Couch Books – 2003) ~ Cafes, bistros, diners and neighbourhood secrets. They took to the road and don’t suffer from highbrow hang-ups, these girls just wanna have fun. The Pepperheads share their passion of traveling with a cooler to pick up treats on any road trip. They cover harvest festivals, farmers’ markets, culinary shops, independent food producers and have everything from big budget splurge suggestion to those on a funky budget. A nice touch is that it’s printed on re-cycled paper.
  
  
• ‘Food In History’ by Reay Tannahill (Stein and Day – 1973) ~ A solid history of how food affected the growth & history of mankind. Our copy is loaded with ‘stick-em’ notes, which means it’s well read. There’s a nice quote near the bottom of our home page, which will give you an example.
  
  
• “Food Markets Of The World” by Nelli Sheffer & Mimi Sheraton (Harry N. Abrams Inc - 1997) ~ Can’t count the number of times that a funky market shot which captures the mood and ambience in a memorable way, had the name “Nelli Sheffer’ attached to it. This whole book is filled with these great shots. He’s based in Tel Aviv and his work has been featured in books and magazines around the world. Nelli sent this favorite shot of ours to share with you. www.nellisheffer.com
  
  
  
  
• ‘Peppers of the World (An Identification Guide)’ by Dave DeWitt & Paul W. Bosland (Ten Speed Press - 1996) ~ Dave has written many books on peppers
  
  
  (Growers: grab a copy of ‘The Pepper Garden’ for tips on growing also written by Dave & Paul) and this is the best guide to identification available. Paul Bosland is no slouch either…he’s one of the top chile pepper breeders in the world. A nice reference guide for the fanatics.