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September 12, 2006
Beware the Peppercorn, uh, I mean, Pepper
About ten minutes ago, I was grinding pepper over a bunch of destined-to-be-grilled vegetables. I may have been generous with the pepper. Then, I thought for a moment that something nearby smelled awfully bad, so I leaned over and smelled the veggies to make sure it wasn't one of them. It didn't seem to be, so I put them in the oven and went off to unpack the laundry. A few minutes into it, my right nostril felt a little...twinge. I rubbed my nose. The twinge turned into a boiling furnace, and I realize that when I got a good whiff of the vegetables, I must also have inhaled a good bit of ground pepper, and it must now be lodged in some inaccessible place up my nose. I've since tried to clean out my nose with water and a tissue, and I've tried to blow my nose many times, but my entire nose now feels like it's been rubbed with the seeds of a jalapeno pepper. It's burning. My snot is hotter than tabasco. I'm sure things will drain out eventually -- hopefully my nose will return to a normal color tomorrow -- but I wanted to warn any fresh-pepper-using cooking people to BEWARE THE PEPPERCORN. It's dangerous, people.
Update: Ignore me. I'm feeling just a tiny bit dumb now. It wasn't the peppercorn (didn't that seem far fetched, anyway?). It was a spicy red pepper. In the roasted vegetable mix were red peppers deemed "SWEET red peppers" by the sign in above them in the co-op. Some brilliant co-op member must have stocked the wrong peppers, or thrown a hot pepper in with the sweet ones for kicks. I know this because I just tried to eat the roasted vegetable mix and my mouth feels like my nose. Oh -- and I wasn't far off with the jalapeno analogy, no? I must have had pepper oil on my hands. So, uh, beware spotty stocking of peppers at the co-op. Really.
Posted by csageday at September 12, 2006 09:34 PM
Comments
Peppercorn: believable.
Mis-stocking at the coop: tragically consistent.
Everytime I hit an aggravating co-op snag, I have to remind myself that there are 13,000 people who have to make it work every time, and clearly, one person in one shift being careless or callous or absent or... can cause so much trouble. It's amazing we figure out how to open the doors everyday over there at all. Sigh...
Posted by: Amber at September 13, 2006 03:31 PM