Peppers, Peppers, Peppers . . . and Not a Drop to Drink

I have an insane amount of peppers in my kitchen. There’s the pepper vinegar that sits on my prep table, a mix of hots infused in apple cider vinegar. I use it on everything. I’ve got a 4 ounce jar of pureed habanero which a friend made for me from peppers he grew on his terrace. Then there’s the handful of pepper sauces homemade by another friend, from his rooftop garden in south Tel Aviv. And there there’s this array of confit: habanero confit, thai pepper confit, jalapeno confit (pictured here) all just begging to be put to use. And this is in a culture that really doesn’t do much in the way of spicy cooking. I’m on a mission to convert: one scorched palate at a time. What can I say? The revolution is going slowly. And meanwhile the stockpile of Scovilles increases weekly.

Part of the attraction in all of this, if the truth be told, is I am in love with the smell of peppers cooking in the kitchen: Roasted, as part of a piperade sauce. Or dry toasted. Or slow-cooked in olive oil. The aromas are as overwhelming as the colors. And part of the attraction is in seeing how a rather ordinary-tasting dish becomes transformed with just the right amount of kick. I was doing Limpin’ Susan the other day (okra and rice combo) and the result was kinda blah. A few bits of habanero confit thrown into the mix, and the whole thing was transformed.