Summer is over and it's chile here...

While making and bottling sauces last weekend, the air in our home was so thick with vinegar and capsaicin that my little family (and possibly our neighbors... maybe even our block) endured an afternoon of wheezing paroxysms. So, being that I’m a bit overrun with these fruits, I’ll be sharing today’s harvest with some local East Village markets.

Chile Harvest Hoedown

In order to spare Facebook another post of my pepper porn, I'm sharing this year's crop here. This summer I am growing 31 varieties of chiles and almost all of the plants are supplied by ChilePlants.com. Here's a sampling of this morning's harvest (with some brief notes) and a taste of last week's harvest.

Top row: Devil's Tongue, Ram's Horn, and Chocolate Habanero.
Second row: Bonda ma Jacques, Brazilian Starfish, and Shishito.
Third row: Trinidad Perfume, Aji Dulce, Trinidad Scorpion, and Moruga Scorpion. 
Bottom row: White Habanero, Orange Teapot, Smokin' Ed's Carolina Reaper, and 7 Pot Douglah.

White Habanero: Pungent, fruity, and spicier than store-bought habaneros. The sauce that I make from this pepper is as creamy as its color and texture.

Trinidad Perfume: Very mild and semi-sweet with only a hint of habanero pungency.

Bonda ma Jacques: One of my "go to" peppers in every way. Versatile, abundant, not too spicy, sweet when fully ripened, and, simply, the ideal mid-range chile. 

Devil's Tongue: I've only a passing experience with this deceptively hot pepper. Citrusy (as expected) and sweat-inducing, I just made a sauce with these, so I expect the bottled version to soften.

Orange Teapot: Little demons with almost the heat of Scorpions. I have yet to penetrate to its flavor, but the plant is abundant (and beautiful).

Aji Dulce 1: Seemingly a habanero variety in taste, mid-range spiciness, and appearance; and similar to the Brazilian Starfish (see below). Still discovering this variety.

Brazilian Starfish: One of this year's superstars in every way. The plant produces an abundance of fruit; pods are meaty, sweet bell pepperish in hiding flavors, mid-range habanero spiciness, and very easy to enjoy.

Ram's Horn: Some of these peppers are as long as ten inches. Its flavor profile is similar to cayenne: relatively mild but meatier. 

Smokin' Ed's Carolina Reaper: These pods are just about as advertised. Blister-inducing heat and more heat. For some reason the Moruga Scorpions (below) are more shocking (and expanding) to my palate; but, like many of the mega-crazy-atomic chiles, this pepper should come with a therapist.

Trinidad Scorpion: Also as advertised: a profile of pain. Easy to dry and eager to destroy your evening. Hard to assess its flavor profile... but I'm trying.

Shishito: Somewhat sweet with a hint of discernible spice. Useful in every way. I even made a sauce using a ripe batch of these fingers and one, ONE, Carolina Reaper. May be among the tastier sauces I've produced so far this summer.

Chocolate Habanero (with a hint of spiderweb on the top pepper): Full of flavor and about as mean as the hottest habanero. I think I've fooled myself into thinking there are notes of actual chocolate in both flavor and odor. 

Moruga Scorpion: For some reason these pods burn the brightest. I find their heat to be invasive... yet, tasty. I've devoted a few bottles of sauce to just this variety; but I've also grilled a pod with a steak. Side by side, a thin slice of beef and a thin slice of Moruga Scorpion; and it was, sans doubt, one of the best steaks I've ever had. This chile is demonic, but it opens the senses and enhances other flavors. With this pepper you don't even need salt.

7 Pot Doughlah: These are my first ripe pods. Notes to come.

Yellow Cantina: From my previous harvest, somewhat fleshy, sweet, about as spicy as a jalapeño, and ideal for roasting or grilling.

Peter Orange: Also from my previous harvest, a beauty that also dupes me into tasting oranges. Not very spicy, but aromatic and complementary. 

Ammazzo: Little, fleshy bombs that are easily pickled. 

And this is what these peppers become (from left to right): Jacques' Jaundiced Tongue (mix of Bonda Ma Jacques and Devil's Tongue); the Chocolate Scorpion (mix of Chocolate Habanero and Moruga Scorpion); Aleda's Pierogi Punch (sweet and mild -- Trinidad Perfume peppers with a touch of White Habanero); Earl Orange (mix of Peter Orange and Orange Teapot); Shishito Reaper (mild -- sweet, ripe Shishito peppers with a hint of Smokin' Ed's Caroline Reaper); Dumb Ass (White Habanero); and Irresponsible Mix ('nuff said).

Here's a pic of my previous harvest -- the harvest that supplied the above sauces:

September the Turd.

Je ne regrette rien... except for maybe that drunk bid I placed on eBay last night, the long bike ride we took the day before (and my pained tuchus), reading the entirety of "The Light Between Oceans," binge watching "The Good Place" on Netflix (and its gross overuse of the word "literally" actually), the two pints of ice cream (ginger brûlée and raspberry) I bought at the farmers market this morning, the two waffles I inhaled for breakfast and the sugar shock I'm about to have, and... Strike that, je regrette beaucoup.

An East Village Treatise

We went away for a little bit and returned to an even newer New East Village. Among its changes in mere weeks: a Starbucks on the corner of Avenue A and St. Mark’s. [Go ahead, process that.] We fought like mad against the coming of the garbage-peddling turnstile (a.k.a., 7-Eleven) on the corner of our block… and, of course, we lost. It arrived, spread its neon tendrils and fluorescent bile up and down our block, and catered to the “slumming millennials,” upper class crusties, bridge-n-tunnelers, sweet and sensitive NYU students, local public schools, and the many stoned lunch-time construction workers reshaping our community. In other words, it’s often packed, serving its purpose, and now a fixture in the neighborhood. I would like to express a righteous indignation over the arrival of yet another shitty chain store… but after just a few days, it too is packed. PACKED! I want to be insulted; I want to rage; I want to boycott, picket, post, and protest; but that would be for my own misguided sense of what I think Alphabet City should be. This ain’t that place no more… and from what I understand, the post-post-gentrified EV is on course to becoming the most chain-friendly neighborhood in Manhattan.

The newly minted East Chainville screams, “Suck it, Brian!"

Oh, I will, but it won’t be a Grande, a Venti, or even a Trenta. It’ll be a perfectly nice, little cup of coffee from the café around the corner… the one that’s about to go out of business (like me).