Peeps, alligators park as they please... Holiday greetings to all, hope your day went well. Over here the turkey has just started its second hour in the oven. My sister and her husband are hosting me for the week, and tonight we're joined by the neighbors - A Danish woman, a Cuban man, and his Cuban aunts who can't speak English. None of their families have a Thanksgiving holiday tradition, so they get a big kick out of the full-blown American tradition. Last week we went to the big open-air book fair downtown, and I found a book by Dave deWitt and Nancy Gerlach. The title is The Pepper Pantry Habanero - seems to be from a Pepper Pantry series. It's slightly larger than palm-sized, with sections on habanero lore and cultivation. The recipe chapters are Putting Up, Hot Sauces, Starters, Soups & Salads, and Main Dishes & Vegetarian Sides. Whenever I'm in this town, I always shop for pepper products. (Downtown I saw a storefront called the Kingston Miami Trading Company, but I couldn't convice my hosts to stop in.) This time I picked up a bottle of Matouk's West Indies style sauce, which I don't see in Ohio. The first two ingredients are papaya and aged pickled scotch bonnet peppers. I also nabbed the Cape Fear Near Death Rating sauce, pleasant with molasses, tamarinds and anchovies. Tastes like what A-1 Steak Sauce should have been like all this time. Their Sweet & Spicy mustard sauce smells like a sweet pickle relish, but I haven't test-fired any of it yet. Of course the fresh produce here is always good, and I got a little tray of habs as playthings. ($1.18 for 1/2 pound - stop laughing at me, Jim) Since this is the land of citrus, I mixed up this sauce: 1 hab, very finely minced 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard juice of one lime I let it sit for a few hours before use. I tried it as a sandwich spread, and as a dipping sauce for broiled shrimp. (The Dade County fire laws do not allow flame cooking in multi-story apartment buildings.) Now I need to go out on the balcony and fire off a few rounds of cornbread biscuits in the toaster oven... Alex Silbajoris 72163.1353@compuserve.com barefoot in November