For those of you who missed it, here is a link to "Extreme Conventions" that ran on the Travel Channel, as posted on You Tube by a fan, not by us.  It's great publicity and I really appreciate it, but it only portrays the superhot component of the show, which in reality is a very, very small part of the show, which focuses on gourmet spicy products that won't burn you out.  My niece Emily complained that I was not given enough coverage, and my 21-minute interview was cut to 8 seconds, but hey, the program was not about me, as I'm not particularly extreme.  At left are the "German Chilli Police" with the folks from CaJohn's Fiery Foods.

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Here's an excerpt from my new book with Dr. Paul Bosland, The Complete Chile Pepper Book. The book is hardcover, 336 pages, 250 full-color photos, 85 recipes (with food shots).  Is is organized like this:
--About Chiles
--Top 100 (or so) Chiles for the Garden
--Capsicum Cultivation
--Processing and Preservation
--Cooking with Chiles

If you want a signed copy, buy the book here then send me a stamped, self-addressed envelope along with your name and dedication, and I will sign a faceplate for you that you can stick into the front of the book.
Dave DeWitt
P.O. Box 4980
Albuquerque, NM 87196

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Yes, they eat chiles in Finland.  My friend Jukka Kilpinnen has reported on his his bonzai chile plants in Finland, and there's a Finnish Chile Association.  They recently conducted their Chile-Eating Championship that featured the deadly 'Naga Morich', a cousin to the 'Bhut Jolokia'.  Read all about it here!

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I've tried many of the small grills like hibachis and Cobbs and they work fine, but still you have to dispose of the ash, clean them out, pack them up, and carry them home from the beach, picnic, campground, tailgating headquarters, or garden party (remember the Rick Nelson song?)  But with the EZ Grill it's a no- brainer because you just put out the coals with water, sand, or dirt, and then throw it in the trash.  It's called a single-use grill, and these have gained a 50% share of the charcoal grill market in Australia and the U.K.  It gets 90 minutes of cooking time and is in 13,000 stores in the U.S., including 7-Elevens.  They come in a regular size with four of $19.99 or a party size of two for $19.99.  You can find retail locations or order online here.

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With the publication of my new book with Paul Bosland, The Complete Chile Pepper Book, imminent, it makes sense to start featuring some recipes from it.  This one will help you use up some of those excess poblanos in your garden.

(Photo by Norman Johnson; food styling by Denice Skrepcinski)

Poblano Pepper Rings
Since poblanos make some of the tastiest chiles rellenos, it makes sense that they fry up deliciously. Why not dip these rings in guacamole?

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
3 cups vegetable oil
3 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeds and stems removed, cut into 1/4-inch rings
1 cup buttermilk

Combine the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

Heat the oil in a large pan until it just begins to smoke, then lower the heat slightly. Take the poblano rings 4 at a time, dip them in the flour, shake off any excess, then dip them in the buttermilk and back into the flour. Drop them into the hot oil and fry until lightly browned.

Repeat with the rest of the rings and then drain on paper towels. Serve them warm.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Heat Scale: Mild

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My friend Chef Ethan Diness, who is a culinary instructor at Central New Mexico Community College, is also a barbecue aficionado who competes on the cookoff circuit.  A few days ago he asked if I would like some smoked elk ribs.  I only had to think about this for about a tenth of a second before I enthusiastically agreed.  They were absolutely delicious and I asked him for his method. 

Ethan responds here:

I was hired by the New Mexico MOTO-GUZZI riders club to cater an event this month.  As we discussed the menu details, the local state representative Matt Forslund and I talked about some elk Matt had at the time.  I chose a smoker full ribs and some venison.

I used my favorite off-set smoker which is well seasoned and started with half a charcoal chimney of lump-mesquite charcoal.  I then added my blend of woods to use : hickory, apple,and a small amount of plum wood.   After the smoker heated up to temp I added 9 racks of elk ribs which had my 5-X Rib Rub applied the night before.

I used a rib rack and smoked these racks for 4 hours at low heat, turning them each hour.  I then painted them with Weasel #9 sauce as the finish from the smoker.   I then gave them to Dave DeWitt and suggested he finish them at 190 F. in the oven for 3 hours in a small covered cooking vessel with beer added for moisture and flavor.  He did that but told me he ran out of beer and substituted a hearty red wine.

For information on : 5-X Rib Rub,OR Weasel #9 Sauce contact me via e-mail at asecondmeal@yahoo.com.

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Wilbur Scoville invented the Scoville Organoleptic Test for measuring the heat in chile peppers while working for Parke-Davis pharmaceutical corporation in 1912 in Detroit.  But before then, he was a professor at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston.  A librarian at the Henrietta Benedictis Health Sciences Library at the College was kind enough to track down and scan this photo from an early yearbook at the request of Lee Robinson, a video producer for Jupiter Entertainment, who needed it for a new chile pepper documentary (or reality show--who knows?) he's working on.  Hats are off to Lee, who accomplished a feat that I could not pull off.  Chile pepper history is a little more complete now.  This photo is circa 1909.  For related stories, go here.

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I think I've died and gone to chile heaven because my new alliance with MexGrocer.com is proving to be very tasty, indeed.  Here's the deal: in return for writing posts to their blog, here, Nacho Hernandez, who runs the day-to-day operation of MexGrocer, sends me just about any product (they carry about 1,500) I want in order to evaluate it.  Recently he sent me the entire product line of chile pastes from MexiChefs that included chipotle, ancho, pasilla, chile de árbol, and guajillo.  My intention is to try them all, but I got stuck on the chipotle paste.

First I made a simple grilling sauce using butter, chipotle paste, red wine, and garlic powder and simply basted a pork chop while grilling it.  The result was delicious:

Well, that was easy, so I just put the paste in the refrigerator, where it stores nicely in its plastic tub.  A few days later I roasted a chicken and there were plenty of droppings left.  I scraped them out of the roasting pan, put them in the freezer and later removed the congealed fat.  I added homemade chicken stock, some flour dissolved in water and made a gravy.  I further thickened it with the chipotle paste and served the resulting gravy over garlic mashed potatoes.  Later, I wanted to spice up some baked potatoes, so I just mixed the paste half and half with butter and in 15 seconds I had one of the best toppings I've ever tasted.  Get the idea?  Order this great paste here--it will make your cooking life a lot easier!  One pound, which will last forever, is just $7.95!

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It's one of my favorite times of the year--the green chile harvest in New Mexico, with some fresh red chiles thrown in for good measure.  Many of us go to our favorite roadside stand--or supermarket for that matter, and buy a bushel or two of the fresh pods, have them roasted there in the cylindrical metal mesh roasters, and then take them home, peel them, remove the seeds and freeze the chile for later use.

That's all well and good for us lucky ones who live in New Mexico.  But what about the rest of the world that yearns for the good green stuff?  Well, thanks to modern technology, there are two simple solutions.  The first is to buy the pods roasted, peeled, and frozen.  A new source, which carries the 'NuMex 6-4 Heritage' and 'NuMex Big Jim Heritage' is the Biad Chili Company, here.

Another handy source is El Pinto, which sells jarred flame-roasted green chile.  I've eaten and cooked with this product dozens of times and it's simply great.  Order it here.

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Remains of a 31,000 year-old mammoth and her calf have been discovered in excavations in the Czech Republic, reports Jiri Svoboda, a professor at the University of Brno.  The meats were cooked luau-style underground.  Svoboda said, "We found the heating stones still within the pit and around."  He believes that the central roasting pit and the circle of boiling pits “was sheltered by a teepee or yurt-like structure."  The researchers also found many stone tools, such as spatulas, blades and saws, which were probably used to butcher the mammoths, which could weigh up to twelve tons.  This is the earliest evidence found so far that early man invented the techniques still used today in Hawaii to pit-roast whole hogs.  Contributing editor Mike Stines describes the technique in his article, here.

The whole hog luau.

In a related story, Neanderthals hunted mammoths and dried their flesh to make prehistoric jerky, reports Bent Sorensen, a researcher in the Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change at Roskilde University.  But, he said, "I do not know of any evidence for (them) using salt."  He believes that they boiled the meat first and then dried it.  "As for preparation, boiling is much more efficient and nutrient-conserving than frying, and evidence from more recent Stone Age settlements confirm that meat was boiled in ceramic pots or skin bags," he said. "However, it is still likely that frying over the camp fire was the usual method in Neanderthal communities, since no containers for boiling have been found."

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