Note: On Wednesdays, Andrea Lynn, senior editor of Chile Pepper magazine, drops by with Serious Heat. [iStockphoto: Juanmonino] Come on now, let's be adventurous. Why fill that pepper grinder with just black peppercorns when you can spice it up with a variety of options. Penzy's offers a great selection of mixed peppercorn blends. But how do you know the difference? Here's a breakdown: Black Peppercorns Grinding black peppercorns create a strong flavor, aroma and heat. Harvested before the berry is fully ripe, they are boiled briefly and then dried by machine or by sunlight (which causes the wrinkly skin). Most generic black pepper sold in grocery stores contains Brazilian black pepper that isn't as pungent as other varieties. Tellicherry Peppercorns...
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I'm getting tired of people touting the health benefits of chocolate. I just saw a couple ladies about town ogling Dolfin's "dark chocolate with pink peppercorns from Brazil" bar. "It's dark chocolate," they said, "it's healthy." Uh, yeah, cacao is naturally high in flavanols, and most of the time dark chocolate is packed with more cacao and less sugar than milk chocolate. We all know that by now. But perhaps we have forgotten that pink peppercorns are mildly toxic—imports of the colorful little beads (not true peppercorns at all but the berries of a plant related to poison ivy) were suspended for a period of time in the 1980s by the FDA. But just because something's bad for you doesn't...
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