Hot! Hot! Hot!

A recent study by doctors at UCLA shows that capsaicin--the active ingredient in hot peppers--causes prostate cancer cells to "commit suicide." At least in mice and in cell cultures grown in a lab. Peppers, the study concluded, have "a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells." The hotter, the better.

I don't even have a prostate, but some of my best friends do. And it seems reasonable enough to extrapolate from those results that capsaicin might have a similar effect on other types of cancer cells. Hot peppers are also a powerful anti-inflammatory, as well as an excellent source of vitamins A, C, E, folic acid, and potassium.

This photo is of a basket of freshly-picked peppers donated to the cooks at last year's New England Chili Festival by the owners of the farm where the festival was held. Not all the peppers are hot, but you can see some poblanos, Hungarian red and yellow hot wax peppers, long hot peppers, and cayennes in there. I guess I used some of each, plus some luscious chipotles I brought with me. I'll never win a prize for my chili as long as I keep entering a vegetarian one, but I did go home with an empty pot. And with my five-alarmer, at least I did my part to keep the judges' prostates healthy.

A Cool Present

Today I got an early Mother's Day gift from Ali and Amir--a pair of bar stools. I have a lot of stuff--more stuff than anyone I know, but one thing I've never had is a bar stool. I've had a bar for two and a half years, but no stools. Till today.

These stools have all the necessary features, as far as I'm concerned. They're pneumatic, so you can raise and lower them. They have footrests. They twirl! They're easy to keep clean. They have lots of shiny chrome, which matches all the hubcaps. And the seats, like the kitchen table, are the exact color of Intel's logo. Even though I no longer work for Intel, I'm still very loyal--to the color especially.

Ali assembled the bar stools, and then the boys tried them out. Amir spun until he nearly fell off from dizziness, and pronounced them awesome. So everybody's happy. But if they think they're going to sit on the stools while Mommy waits on them from the other side, they've got another think coming.