I have joked several times this food section is more of a drinking section.  But today I shall combine the two.  I have always liked spicy food.  Spicy, however, does not necessarily equate with hot.  “Spicy” is simply flavorful.  I do also like my food hot though.  I am not referring to temperature hot; rather spicy hot.  That sounds confusing I suppose, but you get the idea.  I love fresh jalapeños because they have so much more heat than the pickled ones.  The problem with eating out is I think they just get lazy and hack them into giant chunks.  I have always had a distinct preference for liking everything VERY thinly sliced.  When I ate meat I liked it paper thin, when I ate cheese no chunky cubes, and now with fruits and vegetables I slice them razor thin.  We were out for our traditional Tex-Mex New Year’s Eve at my favorite restaurant and my ears perked up when I heard the woman next to me ask for fresh jalapeños in her margarita.  I have had mojitos with chunks of jalapeños and some other drinks where they were blended in.  But this women, after my own heart, just threw them in like ice cubes.  Already having a margarita with sangria and my ever-present jalapeños by my side, I picked up a few and plopped them in.  AMBROSIA!!!  And WHY was I just now discovering it?!  I have a girlfriend from Louisiana who told me old cookbooks used to say, “Start with the Holy Trinity,” which is onions, bell peppers, and celery; a staple for Cajun cooking.  For this Texan it’s onions, garlic and jalapeños.  I pretty much put them in everything, from Italian to Indian, American to Tex-Mex, and also in some modified Asian and French dishes.  But this opens up a whole new world!  Infused jalapeños in drinks!  I have flavored my water with all kinds of fruit, turmeric, mint, and cucumbers (not all at once!) but now I have tried it with my beloved jalapeños.  I love it and I predict my water consumption will rise, which will be a good thing.  The American model Chrissy Teigen said:

“I know how I like my food.  I like it spicy, salty, sticky, crunchy, juicy, oozy – basically any dish you know and love, jacked up to a bordering-on-socially-unacceptable amount of flavor.”

I could not agree more!  Hallelujah for jalapeños!