Bushels of chiles. Photo: alex.lines, Flickr.

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It costs a pretty penny to buy roasted peppers. Luckily you can do it with little fuss right in your own kitchen.

French vegetable tian. Photo: Eric Diesel.

Bastille Day occurs at the height of summer, when summer vegetables are clamoring for attention from rows and stakes in the garden and tumbling out of bushel baskets in the marketplace. The shiny, waxen skins of eggplant and zucchini beckon the home cook to the pleasures of vegetables fresh from the embrace of sunshine and soil. Fat, juicy tomatoes are plentiful, as are fragrant bundles of leeks and fresh herbs.

Provençal cooking celebrates the earthy traditions of the French countryside and southern France in general, with food as simple and good as bread, wine, cheese. A tian -- a layered, baked vegetable dish that originated in Provence but is also common to city kitchens -- is the perfect complement to this French holiday. Unlike a gratin, a tian does not include bread crumbs or cheese, which allows the juices in the vegetables to evaporate in the oven's dry heat, concentrating their flavors.

Beyond the jump is an original recipe for tian of summer vegetables, which has been streamlined for the home cook while retaining fidelity to the original French dish. Serve this with your Bastille Day poulet, boeuf or pouisson, and watch as wine glasses around the table clink and diners agree: "Vive la France!"

Tear-jerking, hot, spicy, smoky, sweet and sour and even herbaceous can all be descriptors of chilies and the distinctive aromas and flavors that they can impart to food. But if we're just talking heat, the Bhut Naga Jolokia, hailing from Northeastern India and also cultivated in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, is reputed to be the world's hottest chili -- and I've eaten it. In large amounts it's dangerously hot, but out of all the dried chilies I've cooked with, the Naga Jolokia is a staple in my spice drawer because it has a unique tang that's much more than just heat. There are hundreds of chilies to choose from, but I have my favorites, both dried and fresh.

Dried Ground Allepo Chile

Sun dried Allepo chiles come from Syria and have a rich, lightly smoky yet fruity flavor. They can be found in gourmet spice shops; I bought mine at Kalustyan's in New York City. Allepo can be added to any traditional beef stew recipe, but it pairs especially nicely with tomato-based soups, stews and chili. I just add a tablespoon to my beef cubes before coating them in flour and browning them in oil, or I sprinkle it over the ground meat before browning chili meat.

Fresh Serrano and Finger Chilies

Serrano chilies are grown in Mexico and California and can be found fresh in gourmet grocery stores. Use it much as you would a jalapeno; I like it in my guacamole. They're also great in marinades mixed with fresh cilantro, garlic, and olive oil.

Dried Arbol Chilies

Dried arbol chilies, primarily grown in Mexico and a cousin to the cayenne chile, can be found in Latin groceries stores. I love arbol with sweet oranges. The simple combination with a little olive oil can make for a killer sauce for sautéed shrimp. But this morning, I had a craving for a mall-style Orange Julius. I wanted to make a sweet drink for myself, but with less sugar, more nutrition, and a little extra kick. This one tasted like the real deal, but packed extra spice from arbol.

After the jump, get Jennifer's recipe for a Chile Spiked Orange Smoothie.

Seeding hot peppers can be time consuming. Make the process less complicated by using a small melon baller scoop. And alleviate the stinging pain of particularly hot chilies by wearing gloves.

There are some days when roasted peppers sound so appealing, but it's just too hot to turn on the oven. Don't give up -- just use your stove instead!

Sometimes you want to add a little bit of habanero or scotch bonnet flavor to a sauce or salsa, but you're not feeling like white-hot-screaming-plunge-your-face-in-the-snow pain for dinner, thankyouverymuch.

An Indian woman has set her sights and taste buds on breaking the Guinness record for eating the most hot peppers. And not just any hot peppers. Anandita Dutta Tamuly plans to eat as many Bhut Jolokia, or ghost chilis, as she can.

Tamuly hails from the state of Assam, where the pepper occurs as a natural hybrid. She seems pretty confident that she can scarf a record-smashing amount of what Guinness recently named the world's hottest chili pepper. On Indian television she recently chowed down on 60 of the fiery peppers in two minutes. Tamuly became a fan of the ghost chili when her mother smeared some chili paste on her tongue to cure a childhood infection.

The current record is held by Anita Crafford who consumed eight peppers in a minute. They weren't ghost peppers though, far from it. They were jalapeños, which are about one one-hundreth as hot as the dreaded Bhut Jolokia. Sheesh, what a wimp!

A team of archaeologists has recently made a discovery that, while it probably won't make it into may children's picture books - unlike many of the discoveries about past civilizations - could very well make it into a cookbook someday. They discovered the remains of the world's first home-grown chili peppers in what is now western Ecuador. The discovery derailed the long-standing belief that residents of higher and more arid areas, like what are now Peru and Mexico, were the first to grow chilies by more than 1,000 years. There is no question about the time frame for the existence of the chili plants that were identified by "microfossils from grinding stones and charred ceramic cookware" because there has been so much study done of the pottery that "the dates [are] all very tight."

This discovery shows that chili peppers were one of the oldest domesticated foods in the world. More research is planned to try and discover exactly how the people living in villages in Ecuador at that time used the chilies.

A Mexican man, Manuel Quiroz, loves chilies with a passion. Perhaps disturbingly so. Not only can he "down dozens of Mexico's spiciest chilies," but he can "rub them on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without so much as blinking." Why on earth anyone would want to do that on a regular basis - or how they came up with such a bizarre idea in the first place - remains to be seen, but Manuel to showcase his unusual... talents. He believes that he can eat more chilies than any person on the planet and wants to prove his claim with a title. Unfortunately, there are no contests to crown the "World Chili-eating Champion" just yet, so Manuel will have to wait. With the popularity of eating contests, however, he many not have to wait long. The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFCoE) seems like they are always keen to add new events and if they can get any of their current champs to agree to participate, you can bet that they'd be willing to sponsor such a contest.

Kobayashi vs. Quiroz, anyone?

Not only is this the perfect Halloween goodie for anyone who prefers something a little more adventurious than a candy bar, but it would make a great addition to a scary movie marathon or Fear Factor-themed dinner, based on the names of the sauces alone. Haunted Hot Sauce combined "flesh-eating zombies with spicy food products" to produce a line of spicy sauces with names like "Flesh Feast and "Ghoul Drool." To further add to the appeal, each sauce is packed in its own cedar coffin! Their full line includes:

• Fleshfeast - Medium/Hot with cayenne peppers, garlic and other spices
• Return of Fleshfeast - Hot with cayenne peppers, garlic, coarse ground black pepper and other spices
• Revenge of Fleshfeast - Very Hot with cayenne peppers, garlic, coarse ground black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes and other spices
• Ghoul Drool - Medium/Hot with jalapeno peppers, garlic and other spices

[via boing boing]

"There's nothing like putting yourself through a lot of pain for no reason."

Truer words were never spoken - especially not if you're an amateur about to enter a Jalapeño-eating contest sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive eating, pitting yourself against professional gurgitators. The contest was held on Sunday at the State Fair of Texas and included 6 amateurs against pros Rich LeFevre, Sonya Thomas, Pat Bertoletti and Erik Denmark. Jalapeños are a particularly difficult food to eat because, although they are small, they can be quite painful. Some eaters reported a loss of feeling in their faces and a general dizziness, in addition to sickness, after the competition was over. The pros used some tricks that they picked up on the circuit, including drinking Pepto Bismol before the competition and using milk, rather than water, to dull the burn of the peppers' oils. Unsurprisingly, the well-prepared pros came out on top:

• First place: Rich "The Locust" LeFevre, 247 jalapeños
• Second: Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, 239
• Third: Pat "Deep Dish" Bertoletti, 226

For comparison, the amateurs seemed to average around 50 or so.

Do you have a specialty pan at home? It could be something as simple as a specialized bundt cake mold or a bit more unusual, such as an aebleskiver pan. These pans all have fairly limited uses, but if you use them often enough, it's worth the extra cabinet space to save time in the long run.

Some pans, however, might take the specialty concept a bit too far. The Jesus pan might be a good example, except you can still use it for many different kinds of food. This pepper griddle, on the other hand, is made from cast-iron and has eight pepper-shaped indentations that are "recessed to evenly blister the Jalapeno pepper halves." It can be used to make stuffed peppers, and little else.

Stuffed peppers are good, but do you really need a pan dedicated to making them? If so, they're only $15.95 each.

I don't think I'm going back to Subway anytime soon.

I went in there today after several months away - I think those Jon Lovitz commercials finally got to me - and I ordered a large cheesesteak on Italian bread. While I was impressed by the speed at which the person behind the glass made the sub (using some super duper special Subway toasting oven), I was rather put off by the product itself. The sub seemed to have just a few slivers of steak inside and just a hint of cheese. The woman asked me if I wanted any veggies or any other toppings on the sub, and when I said no, she seemed taken aback. Now, I'm very old school when it comes to my cheesesteaks. Just give me the sub roll and pack it with steak and cheese. This particular cheesesteak was embarrassing. It's almost as if Subway assumes that everyone is going to get a bunch of toppings on any sub they order, and they dole out the little amount of meat based on the toppings. Sorry, Subway, where I come from, cheesesteaks are just steak and cheese, and if you want toppings that's a whole different thing that shouldn't even be considered in relation to how much steak is in the sub in the beginning. I mean, too many toppings and it's a cheesesteak "bomb," and I just want a cheesesteak!

Rant over.

It's almost some form of culinary masochism - but in the summer when it's really hot, I love to punish myself by eating supremely spicy foods that make me sweat even more than I already am. My friends and family think I'm psycho. Of course, there is a completely logical, physiological reason why spicy foods are eaten when it's hot, but there are also other health and preventative reasons why spicy foods are good for you. Let's just take a look at those reasons so we can use them when we go for the Korean yook-gae-jahng in 100% humidity.

• Cancer-fighting and cancer-prevention - A recent study shows that capsaicin can be used to fight pancreatic cancer. It slowed the growth of cancer cells and in some cases, even caused cancer cells to die off.
• Alleviate inflammation - Arthritis and psoriasis are cause by nerve damage and cause pain on joints. Capsaicin supposedly helps to ease that pain.
• Relieve chronic pain - In some cases, spicy foods containing capsaicin greatly reduced pain caused by headaches or osteoporosis.
• Heart-health - Cayenne and chili peppers can help to reduce cholesterol. Additionally statistics show that cultures that eat spicy foods (e.g. some Asian countries) frequently have a much lower rate of heart attack and stroke.

So break out those jalapenos!