The June Chilli Newsletter

G'day

Well this is the 20th issue of the chillies-down-under.com Chilli Newsletter.

There's lot's of chilli related stories around and I've put the best of them here.

I'm also getting stories of chilli related crime around the world but thought we'd take a break from them as it's getting a bit repetitive.

OK, let's get into it;

Food Quote Of The Month

"Chilli concocted outside of Texas is usually a weak, apologetic imitation of the real thing. One of the first things I do when I get home to Texas is have a bowl of red. There is simply nothing better."

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson

Chilli Tip Of The Month

If you're trying a new chilli variety and concerned that it may be overly hot, try a piece from the tip.

You know that 80% of the heat is in the white pith that holds the seeds. But did you know that in the remainder of the chilli the amount of capsaicin in the flesh increases the closer you get to the stem.

Spices Are Serious Business

By Khalid Iqbal 5/27/2008 Rawalpindi

Police arrested traders Khizar Hayat and Gul Muhammad from Ratta Amral on Monday on charges of adulterating spices with substandard material.

Spices are used in every household being an essential part of the food. There had been reports that many traders are mixing substandard material in different edibles including spices. It was reported that red brick was ground and mixed in chilli powder that has of late been selling at exorbitant price. Some mixed gram shell in tea and coriander (dhania). The immoral and unethical practice had been going on for pretty long time and it was reported that traders had set up ‘factories’ in their houses in Ganjmandi, Dhoke Ratta, Pirwadhai, Bagh Sardaran, Tench Bhata and New Amarpura Mohallah.

The police raided many places and arrested at least two persons red-handed indulging in the nefarious practice. These adulterators filled sacks of 20 and 40 kgs of spices in their homes and then shifted to the shops and other areas for selling.

The locals of these areas had made several complaints to the city administration and action was taken in the light of these complaints. Some factory owners fled away from the scene. Police recovered 33 sacks of substandard red chilli and 60 sacks of ‘ground corriander’ etc. The locals of Dhok Ratta told ‘The News’ that many persons are involved in this crime and playing with the lives of people by mixing substandard material in spices.

Wow

Asia's Largest Chilli Market Resumes Trading

The Hindu Business Line quoted Nisar Ahmed, joint marketing director of the market, located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, as saying that "during the next 10 days or so 1 million to 1.2 million bags of chilli may be brought to the yard and there is likely to be substantial improvement in prices. Yesterday, 65,000 bags were brought to the yard".

Meanwhile, the local government estimated losses of 190,000 bags of 40 kilograms each, worth 300 million rupees.

That's 7,600 tonnes of chilli destroyed by fire - imagine what the air around the place was like ! Remember the story in London I reported on a few weeks ago where a chef caused a terror alert and emptied a shopping centre just from the smell of the blackened chilli sauce he was making - that would have been less than a couple of kilos of chillies !

Chilli Guns ?

Straight from the weird but true file comes this self defence product out of, where else, the US.

The new Mace PepperGun is the most accurate defense chilli spray available The OC super strength chilli spray formula is contained in a disposable cartridge that can be replaced when empty (at around US$11/cartridge).

For more details check out Mace PepperGun

A little more on the fun side, you can buy water cartridges for the gun as well so that you can practice. It also comes in different colours there's silver, sky blue, black/blue and, presumably for the ladies, pink.

There's even a holster available !

Updates To The Site

An example of what I'm talking about here - Chicken Recipes

All recipe categories found here - Recipe Portal Page

So, in case you have experienced this problem as well but haven't asked me for a copy, it can be downloaded from this page.

In the upper left hand quadrant of the screen you should see a button labelled Save A Copy. Click that and save the document wherever you would like it.

Vadappa (crispy, spicy roti)

Keema