Holy Pepper

While in Cabo, our posse of five rolls into a truly authentic Tortilleria on old San Jose del Cabo. So authentic in fact, our college sophomore level of Spanish doesn't get us past pollo, bisteca, and camaron. The entire place is inhabited by only locals except for us. We love authentic cuisine and sought out a place recommended to us and when we came across this joint, oh, even better. Since we were going to end up with who knows what on plates, I did seek the help of two American ex-pats and we end up ordering some of the best food we ate in Mexico.

All great, right?

With the fifteen plates brought to our tables (those boys were hun-gry) came a bowl of peppers. You don't need to be fluent in la lingua to know peppers are peppers and if they have been soaking in some Mexican au jus, you better proceed with caution. We love the spicy, so no one is afraid to test the waters.

Now, JohnnyMac already had a bit of dispute with a pepper on a previous night, and sweat was almost coming out of his eyeballs. The RevDoc chomped down on the same pepper like he was eating a tootsie pop. Barely raised an eyebrow. So JohnnyMac is all set to test from the bowl of jalapenos, cayennes, serranos, and a few mystery peppers.

He plays pepper roulette and takes a bite. We all do. Its probably a serrano which you may know has significantly more capsaicin than your average jalapeno. So on the "Oooooo that's hot" scale (aka Scoville), Serrano will hurt your feelings if you try to be too sassy. And even if you are the world's best pepper eater, and you love spicy food, and you can eat anything, careful, these peppers are not comparable to what you might purchase at your local Publix grocery.

With a few burning, stinging tongues, we enjoy our meal and as JohnnyMac dips back in the bowl of fire, I remind him that no part of his fingers shall touch our precious child's face, arms, legs, or hands. I say this because our son wants nothing more than to sit on Daddy's lap. JohnnyMac mildly scoffs at me as if I need a reminder he didn't just become a Daddy on the way to the Tortilleria.

We are wrapping up, and JohnnyMac goes to take a restroom break but first hits the wash basin sitting on the side of the restaurant. Ahhh, in Mexico when devouring peppers, wash hands FIRST before going to the lav. So smart, Senor!

JohnnyMac returns and we are all midway through some funny story when he blushes ( I think...I wasn't entirely sure but his face got RED). He then excuses himself. When he returns, he painfully admits that he apparently transferred some of that capsaicin from his hand onto his organ. What? I am sorry, what did you do? You got hot pepper on your business?

Now note, when I told The Bean this story, she asked me if perchance JohnnyMac had been drinking all day and forgot what he was doing? Intoxicated? No. Confused? No.

Thorough with his hand-washing? Another NO.

So we watch as JohnnyMac turns eight shades of I-yi-yi-yi-yi because he has peppered up his peeper. My oh MY, the jokes we launched at him couldn't come fast enough. His poor midsection was contorting like a Mexican version of Cirque du Ole' and once I knew it wouldn't fall off, I could do nothing more than laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh.

Now that, is some holy pepper. Pay heed all who follow in these footsteps. Now, an hour later or so I knew he had fully, ahem, recovered when he turned to me and said, "You have my permission to blog about this."

Oh honey, I had half of it written in my head in the first 10 minutes. This gives "en fuego" a whole new meaning.