Fingers crossed, I'm hoping to have fresh bhut jolokia chiles arrive in my garden by the end of the summer. If you're not familiar, this bad boy is the world's hottest chile pepper with a Guinness World Record to prove it. I've only worked with the chile either in powder form or dried whole, and I've worn gloves and a mask while doing so. According to Jeff R. Blaine, there are certain things to consider before plunging into working with fresh jolokias. And he's a man to know because he recently used these fresh chiles straight from Northern India for his own hot sauce. More

Note: On Wednesdays, Andrea Lynn, senior editor of Chile Pepper magazine, drops by with Serious Heat. Photo from jcwadeaz on Flickr Last month, I took two of our interns to New York City's Fancy Food Show to hunt the aisles for spiciness. We separated, and when I met up with them both, they had--separately, mind you--taken a small but scorching sample of a dried bhut jolokia, the hottest chile on Earth. They were both stunned by the heat, gulping up any drinks they could find and ruining their palates for the day. "Did I not teach you anything during your internship?" I asked. Lesson number one of a Chile Pepper internship: Don't eat a sliver of the bhut jolokia unless... More

Buy seeds from Uncle Steve's Hot Stuff I have always assumed the mighty habanero pepper is the hottest on the planet, but according to a recent New York Times story the habanero's hotness is child's play compared to the Indian bhut jolokia, which has a scoville rating of a hot, hot, hot, million Scoville units (the habanero red savina has a measly 400,000, in case you're wondering). Has anyone screwed up the courage to try one of these bad, bad, bad boys?... More