Poppers

I had made the poppers properly this time. With bacon for sure, no brisket mixed in there. The cheesy bacony goodness was dripping from our fingers while butter from the fresh sweet corn smeared our faces.

Then my daughter yelped. Hot! So hot!

Apparently one of the pepper plants was an actual jalapeno, not of the same not spicy variety as the others. And it really was hot.

We had a whole pan of jalapeno poppers and some of them were spicy. But which ones?

My son found the next one prompting large glasses of milk for each child.

We sat around the table laughing, gasping, dripping butter, and playing a game of Russian roulette, jalapeno style. Who would burn their tongue next? Was there a tell we could know the hot peppers by? A different shape to the hot peppers? We all happily joined in the game. It added spice to the meal, literally and figuratively, as more of the hot variety was found. No one was going to pass up the delicious poppers just because a few of them carried hell fire.

A good meal isn’t all about the taste. The most important part of the meal is something else altogether.