Jalapeños

The jalapeños in our backyard garden are growing well.

As the Garden Cheerleader, I am excited for their progress and proud to show them off. I don’t generally enjoy jalapeños, however, so a bumper crop of them will not be of much benefit to me.

My husband, on the other hand, can never have enough jalapeños. Fresh, pickled, roasted, baked – he loves them in any form, cooked in any way. To him, spicy food is delicious; the spicier, the better.

I am perplexed by this, because my experience with spicy food is that the flavor is outweighed by the burning. When I eat anything beyond the most basic level of salsa, all I experience is pain. Even worse, if cheese is involved in the dish, the cheesy goodness is overwhelmed by the spice, which is a sad state affairs. Cheese is awesome; cheese should never be overwhelmed.

I suppose it’s possible that his tastebuds have adapted to pick up the nuance of flavor within the heat. Or maybe there’s just something about his palate that makes certain flavors appealing to him but not to me. For example, some people prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, and some people don’t like chocolate at all. Whatever the reason, he loves those little green spice bombs. For his sake, I’m glad we’re having a good jalapeño year.

Here’s to the peppers that grow in our garden. I’m not a fan, but my husband is, and that is reason enough to cheer them on.