As happens every year in this latitude, Autumn is a time of less sunlight and more shadow, and a chilliness that reminds us to bring the plants in from outdoors. We experimented this year with growing several varieties of hot peppers, some of which are very spicy indeed. I cannot eat them fast enough. The seeds from last year’s jalapeños yielded a bumper crop this year, just growing in planters and pots. Most ripened to redness before I could get to them—though there are worse problems to have.
Even the bite of the jalapeños, as well that as of the more fiery habaneros and ghost peppers, is not a sufficient distraction from the tragedies both world-wide and personal that characterize this season. Capsaicin is nothing compared to the news bulletin at the top of the hour. Each report provides a new jolt of vicarious pain and death which empathy makes vivid. The supposed comic relief is provided by our elected officials, a literal barrel of monkeys wearing flag pins. Vaudeville lives—on the floor of the House of Representatives. Yet no one will get the hook.
And just when you thought you were safely removed from the vortex of turmoil, the BBC published an article, “Climate change could make beer taste worse,” on October 11. The story, by BBC Climate and Science reporter Esme Stallard, states, “Global warming is changing the quality and taste of beer, scientists have warne
