Mono Monday : : Hot

I thought about a fire in the fireplace...we've had quite a few of those in the evening lately. But we are no longer allowed to have a wood burning fireplace in Sonoma County, so when we remodeled our fireplace, we put in a gas fire. It puts out so much heat that we usually have to decamp after just a short while, but it really doesn't look very good in mono.

I took a picture of the gas burner on the stove. It was hot,  but it wasn't at all interesting.

Finally I started delving through the bottles and jars of hot sauce in our refrigerator. We have South American, Mexican and New Mexican hot sauces. We have McIlhenny tobasco sauce which has been made on Avery Island, Louisiana since 1868. We have Harissa from the Middle East.  We have Korean gochujang ,Thai Sriracha. Chinese, hot mustard and Indian curry. There is even a bottle of Korean Kim Chee, not technically a hot sauce but a fermented cabbage and pepper condiment, lurking in the depths of the fridge. If I had included fresh and dried chiles, I wouldn't have been able to fit everything into the frame...

Everybody has a story connected with a chili experience. I once had a thali in India, a beautifully presented tray of mini bowls of many different dishes, clearly made with different ingredients. The problem was that they were so hot that I couldn't tell the difference between the mung dal and the aloo palak. 


OilMan and I went with friends to Amsterdam where we had a rijsttafel, an elaborate Dutch meal of Indonesian origin. Jerry, a Mormon teetotaler, was well known for his loud laugh and his hearty appetite, so when he suddenly became very quiet and started quaffing a beer it didn't take us long to realize that he had eaten a small Thai chili whole.

Although the Sriracha sauce is of Thai origin it is manufactured in Southern California and because it is not trademarked, has been featured by MacDonalds, Pizza Hut, Subway, Taco Bell and other US fast food restaurants. MY brother puts it on his tortilla with fried egg and cheese every morning.

I am hoping, perhaps even praying, although I am not a religious person, that this country comes to it's senses tomorrow and votes for someone who cares about the future of this nation and its children who are not able to vote themselves...