In the last few years, I've slowly incorporated hot peppers into my cooking. During my childhood any heat in our food came from the bottle of chile powder that my mother used only very rarely, so it's been a self-taught journey into the Scoville world. The jalapeño tends to be my pepper of choice (mostly because it's the one that's typically available at the produce market across the street from my building), but also because when you remove the ribs and seeds, it isn't too criminally hot.
Peppers can be dangerous to cut. I've often found myself with burning fingers hours after cooking, despite multiple handwashings (I've also rubbed my eyes with pepper laced fingers more than once, talk about pain). I don't use gloves mostly because it seems environmentally unsound to use and toss latex all the time (good thing I don't work in the medical field). Basically, I just suffer with the pain, because the taste is oh-so-good. A little hardship for a good meal is worth it.
This little meditation on the pain of peppers was spurred by Cookthink's weekly Root Source on serrano chiles. They've got a picture how-to on the best way to cut and seed a chile pepper, as well as side-by-side comparison of three popular varieties of chiles. Go forth and be spicy!
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