Brings tears to my eyes

Above you see the product of generosity. I had mentioned to Dad that we, my wife and I (our kids are too young to appreciate the good things in life, yet), were almost out of Sirachi sauce. Rooster Sauce. Pepper Paste. Thai/Vietnamese/Cambodian hot pepper paste. It goes by a lot of names, none of them are spoken by Martha Stewart, and its relatively easy availability on the U.S. market is almost certainly directly attributable to the unfortunate troubles on the Indochine Peninsula about 4 decades ago.

All praise the pepper sauce.

The pepper sauce is good.

It hurts. So good.

My wife and I, you see, are Pepper Heads.

Oh, we don't go to silly festivals. We don't go to silly boutique shops that pride themselves on the Scoville Heat Units that they can pack in each bottle.

We go to the source. We hit the Asian markets, HARD.

Sometimes we'll drop by the Metropolis Central Market, and pick up a few ounces of truly HOT cayenne that is nothing like what we find around here, and maybe a half-pound of habenero-stuffed olives (LawDog refused to eat even one, the sissy). (They're. So. Good! F.I.O.: Food-Induced-Orgasm)

But usually, it's the Asian markets that bring forth the good stuff.

A little while ago, my bride realized that we were about to run out of "Rooster Paste." This stuff is the coarsely-ground remains of red peppers in a pint plastic jar with a big mouth. I went to buy some more, and found none. I went to three different stores and returned home empty-handed. And I was sad.

I mentioned this to my Dad, who is something of an aficionado of the Pepper himself. He dropped by a local dealer that had the goods, and arrived at my house with the cute little 8-ounce jar that you see to the left. Something to see us through. Low on ammo? Call Dad. Stuck in a snow-filled ditch? Call Dad. Out of pepper paste? Call Dad.

At the same time, my bride arrived home with a pint of the good stuff, so we held off opening Dad's little CARE package.

But that pound of protection soon wore off. As you can see in the top photo, we were about to have to crack into the little jar.

Today, however, my wife ventured into a new Asian market, and brought home this marvelous, wondrous, terrific, beautiful, terrible red jar of sunshine:
To convey the scale on this bad boy, I put next to it the little jar, and the KelTec P3AT that I had on at the moment that I found the beautiful Jar Of Happy Tearful Goodness. For those of y'all that don't know, the P3AT is a small .380 acp pocket pistol.

But still.

Oh, Mama.

My mouf 'ill be wa'hm 'til Summah time.

(Well. Springtime, anyway.)
Yum.

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And for all you prospective photographers: a lifetime of riflery is responsible for that second, near-perfect photo taken under ambient light at night, with an old point-and-shoot digicam with a tiny objective lens without using the flash. Steady, sight picture, squeeeeeeeeeeeze the trigger/shutter release.