Lessons from the Kitchen

I learned a valuable lesson last night from my husband. NEVER underestimate the power of a jalapeno!

I bought Tony a food processor for Christmas (anyone who knows us knows he’s the cook in our family) and he has used it practically every night since. It saves a ton of chopping time and is just really easy to use. Why we waited so long to have one of these awesome kitchen appliances, I’ll never know.

Anyways, Tony found this great recipe for homemade salsa and has made it a couple times already. I decided that I wanted to make it last night, but as usual, Harper wasn’t having it so Tony ended up making it while I took the little stinker up for a bath. A few minutes into bath time, Tony comes running in the bathroom telling me the he thinks he might die! I had no idea what was going on, but then he told me that he’d gotten some of the jalapeno juice on his face and it was burning his eyes, nose, face and hands. (Sounds like he was bathing in jalapeno juice, doesn’t it?)

I told him to try splashing cold water all over his face and to rinse his eyes out several times also. He said that doing that made it feel like it was spreading. So, I asked Zoe to watch Harper while I ran down to look on the internet for a remedy. What I found was an article that said to use rubbing alcohol first to get the oil off of your skin, then milk to soothe the burn. They even suggested that you pour some milk into your eyes! So, Tony grabbed the rubbing alcohol and wiped it all over his face, then he was dipping a paper towel in milk and rubbing it all over his face! I’m not sure if he ever gave his eyes a milk wash because I had to get back upstairs to finish up Harpers bath, but what I did see was quite a sight!

At one point when Tony was running all over like a crazy person, Landon came up the stairs and said “Don’t you think Dad is overreacting a little bit?” Haha! I told Landon that I didn’t think so because I have seen plenty of cooking shows that suggest you wear gloves when cutting jalapeno’s (or any hot pepper) and/or to be careful not to touch your face after cutting them. I just had no idea how awful it could be! Tony said his face felt like it had a severe sunburn on it…luckily there wasn’t any redness or anything to show where he’d been burned. That could have been difficult to explain at work!