[CH] Fun in Miami

Alex Silbajoris (72163.1353@compuserve.com)
Thu, 26 Nov 1998 14:03:21 -0500 

Peeps,

alligators park as they please...

Holiday greetings to all, hope your day went well.  Over here the turkey
has just started its second hour in the oven.  My sister and her husband
are hosting me for the week, and tonight we're joined by the neighbors - A
Danish woman, a Cuban man, and his Cuban aunts who can't speak English. 
None of their families have a Thanksgiving holiday tradition, so they get a
big kick out of the full-blown American tradition.

Last week we went to the big open-air book fair downtown, and I found a
book by Dave deWitt and Nancy Gerlach.  The title is The Pepper Pantry
Habanero - seems to be from a Pepper Pantry series.  It's slightly larger
than palm-sized, with sections on habanero lore and cultivation.  The
recipe chapters are Putting Up, Hot Sauces, Starters, Soups & Salads, and 
Main Dishes & Vegetarian Sides.  

Whenever I'm in this town, I always shop for pepper products.  (Downtown I
saw a storefront called the Kingston Miami Trading Company, but I couldn't
convice my hosts to stop in.)  This time I picked up a bottle of Matouk's
West Indies style sauce, which I don't see in Ohio.  The first two
ingredients are papaya and aged pickled scotch bonnet peppers.  I also
nabbed the Cape Fear Near Death Rating sauce, pleasant with molasses,
tamarinds and anchovies.  Tastes like what A-1 Steak Sauce should have been
like all this time.  Their Sweet & Spicy mustard sauce smells like a sweet
pickle relish, but I haven't test-fired any of it yet.

Of course the fresh produce here is always good, and I got a little tray of
habs as playthings.  ($1.18 for 1/2 pound - stop laughing at me, Jim) 
Since this is the land of citrus, I mixed up this sauce:

1 hab, very finely minced
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
juice of one lime

I let it sit for a few hours before use.  I tried it as a sandwich spread,
and as a dipping sauce for broiled shrimp.  (The Dade County fire laws do
not allow flame cooking in multi-story apartment buildings.)

Now I need to go out on the balcony and fire off a few rounds of cornbread
biscuits in the toaster oven...

     Alex Silbajoris  72163.1353@compuserve.com
     barefoot in November