Years ago when I was still "playing cowboy," there was an old Mexican cowboy who worked at the same ranch...Charlie Rodriguez. Charlie was in his late 60's at the time and one of the best ropers I've ever met.
Anyway, one day we were doing day work at this particular ranch and at noon, broke for dinner. We were way up in the mountains gathering strays, so each of us had packed our own lunch that particular day. Charlie and I were paired up and were enjoying our meal together under a little bunch of trees.
I noticed that Charlie had a little jar of small, green peppers. He would bite the tip off a pepper and sprinkle the juice on his sandwich each time before he took a bite. He let me try one. I don't know what the heck they were, but they'd peel the paint off your driveway.
Another time, Charlie and I were having our noon meal. Earlier, I had found some pretty stout salsa that I liked, so I happened to tuck a small container of it in my lunch bucket. I was pretty proud of myself being able to down this salsa without breaking into too much of a sweat.
Anyway, Charlie was sitting next to me, casually munching on a vanilla Oreo. I turned to him and Said, "Hey, Charlie, try some of this salsa. It's pretty spicy." Charlie grabbed a tortilla chip, scooped up some salsa, swallowed, and replied, "Chipper, that stuff is about as hot as this cookie!" I was totally deflated.
Nowadays, I usually plant a few Anaheims and some jalapenos in the garden every year. That's about as high as my heat tolerance will allow. Of course, ol' Charlie would probably think I was a wimp.
