[dtw]

As much as I use jalapenos in my cooking, I still haven't figured out how to pick the evil ones out. This vexes me on both extremes - sometimes I just want that jalepeno flavor and end up with a neutron bomb (even after seeding) and other times I want searing fire in my cooking, yet even with seeds thrown in, I end up with a dud.

This is frustrating!

Did you put in the seeds? That is usually - usually - a surefire way to get serious heat. The fact that you cooked for a very short time without a great deal of liquid also kept your flavor concentrated.

Once on a legendary bender in Boston with my college buddies, I grabbed a jalapeno the size of a small dill pickle. Thinking it was pickled, I tore off a huge bite. It wasn't pickled, which became apparent. It was sort of like turning on a high-end, high wattage sound system and inserting "Ride of the Valkyries", then slowly turning up the volume knob until my ears began to bleed and I lost control of higher motor functions. The remainder of the evening was a blur. The next day, the combination of the mutant jalapeno and countless pints of draft beer made for a debilitating colonic catastrophe, the details of which I will spare you, my gentle reader.