Peppers: an apnea adjunct.

[Mental Fairy]

Very well put. You have turned a corner many would not continue around. Your progressing

[oak]

Friends, I always buy shishitos when the one grocery store has them in stock.

Much as I like serranos and jalapeños, my pepper of choice is shishitos.

I eat them like candy. I have documented that I can eat six a day without an upset stomach later.

Maybe over thanksgiving I’ll tempt fate and try ten in one day.

My palate has really changed.

[Mental Fairy]

Oak

You make me smile so much, i love this post. I am currently growing peppers and i am so excited to show you the end product! But not after digestion! i mean on the tree!

[oak]

Yum!

Keep us posted.

I send vibes to enjoy the finished peppers in a nice misir wat or directly enjoyed raw.

So good.

[oak]

Emboldened to the point of hubris by the good luck of needing only a filling and not a crown (is 2022 trying to make things right at the last minute?), I threw caution to the wind and put a habanero in with the shishitos and cherry tomatoes into the air fryer.

While I may pay with an upset stomach in a few hours, the habanero was good and the shishitos divine. They balanced well with the halved cherry tomatoes*.

I can’t imagine life without my air fryer.

Also: peppers are good.


*Umami, friends, is really important. I sincerely hope each of your 2023 is filled with umami.

[oak]

Hi friends.

While enjoying some jalapeño on homemade tacos (yum!), I realized I may be liking peppers for the wrong reason: secondary gain.

(I increasingly see “cope”, in the words of the young people, as dangerous as secondary gain.)

Besides being delicious, I like that I can control the feeling (read: pain) when I consume peppers. Peppers don’t ask anything of me.

Stated a little more bluntly: instead of the following conversations I need to have, including:

To my boss: pay me and let me work from home.

To the young lady sending clear signals: Would you like to meet for a drink after work on Tuesday?

To myself: your hamstrings ache when laying down to bed. Stretch twice daily.

I am instead controlling the pain, by choosing the peppers. It is easier, in the short term, to not have those difficult conversations above. Long term outcomes are bad when I ignore them.

But that, friends, is the essence of cope and secondary gain!

I eat peppers, something I can control, rather than having difficult conversations that will liberate me.

Sigh.