Kitchen Napalm and the pig

Today I learnt a valuable lesson which resulted in my tears that I would like to pass on to you. When using ground white pepper, always season whatever you’re cooking before you put it in the pan. If, by some unfortunate accident you accidently sprinkle ground white pepper onto a hot dry pan and don’t run to the opposite side of the kitchen immediately, you’ll find yourself inhaling horrendous, acrid smoke which will make your eyes stream and your lungs ache. I’ve never been on the receiving end of tear gas, but I imagine that this is what it must be like. I‘m well aware that some people are of the opinion that I exaggerate at times where matters of my health are concerned (I had a spot in the middle of my forehead recently that pretty much had its own gravitational pull. I went to the doctors about it – she told me to just go home), but for a good five minutes I wondered whether I had done myself some serious damage. This was hilarious to everyone except me, and I am reliably informed that the same effect can be achieved using Tabasco sauce. Surely a good one to remember next time you find yourself in the kitchen with the person who always finishes the milk/always drinks orange juice straight from the carton (I really, really hate that). I’m not really sure how you would set this up, or even that it is a good idea that you try, but it’s something to bear in mind. Other than that, today was pretty uneventful. More prep for the weekend (many weddings and canapé parties and a dinner for 500 on Saturday), and a lot of promising myself that I will have early nights all weekend. Fingers crossed.

Also, just to give you another small insight, this is what was facing me this morning at 8am when I arrived at work.

I'm not normally squeemish, but this was a bit much even for me. We always just throw the head away before we put the pig onto the spit, which is a real shame as I know you can do so much with it, but I just don't know if I have the stomach for it. In the interests of research, the next one we get, I'll bring the head home and try and make it into something edible. At college we all tasted pan fried pig brain which actually tasted pretty good once you got over the marshmallowy texture and the image of Ray Liotta in the final scene of Hannibal out of your mind (I'm so sorry, I just had to post it once i'd found it. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?)

I'm also quite paranoid about having severed heads around in the kitchen because I've been told that a 'classic' is to drop an eyeball into tea, which is 'hilarious' because they don't float, which means you wouldn't know about it until you reached the end. Imagine that. 

Apologies again for the annoying and irregular formatting, i'm trying my best but failing at the moment to sort it out. In time it will get fixed, I promise.