Filled Bottles

Grandma always had a vinegar cruet on her table.

Filled with peppers.

She used it on cooked spinach

(and hers was way overcooked -- it needed something)

and those beans that she cooked so often.

I had forgotten about the pepper vinegar. . . 

A memory of my childhood

* * * *

I love cookbooks about places I've been.

Not necessarily bought when I was there

Daughter Sarah and I went to Savannah in 2010

It was one of my favorite trips

I loved Savannah

And on a shelf in a used bookstore, I found this book

by Damon Lee Fowler

It is my absolutely favorite Savannah book

(It also led me to buy his other books --

He probably is my favorite author on Southern cooking!)

In the book,

Is this page on pepper vinegar and pepper sherry

He recommended "bird peppers" for the sherry and vinegar

(bird peppers, it seems, are something that grows in almost every Savannahan's garden)

I googled, found only seeds, but could not find a pepper source and then six months later . . .

 at Penzey's . . . there they were -- called something else but in the "fine print"  identified as "bird peppers"

I bought a bottle of the peppers

And then I bought a couple of bottles (or cruets)

And now I have my trio 

Pepper sherry in the big bottle, bird pepper vinegar in the tall cruet

and regular pepper vinegar in the short squatty cruet.

Thank you, Damon Lee Fowler, for adding some much needed spice to the meals at Linderhof!