One of my Christmas gifts this year was a cookbook – “Justine cooks”. My daughter gave it to me. I started reading it. Yes, you can read cookbooks apparently – something that the author claims as well. I had noticed quite a while ago when we went out for dinner that the fine distinction that differentiates exquisite restaurants from more mainstream ones are often dips and sauces, delicately added to core ingredients and creating a layer of flavors and colors on top of otherwise perhaps more common dishes. The author of the book has a section for these, so I picked two to try as my first adventure into cooking dips and sauces. One of the recipes I picked was a shimmery, peppery hot sauce. It calls for Jalapeno peppers and Fresno peppers – ingredients that I commonly do not use in cooking. So, during the last grocery shopping trip I bought these ingredients and two days ago made the sauce. All went well! In the meantime, we have tried it with tofu, and it tastes well – bearable from a spiciness point of view. That night though presumably my inexperience with these ingredients struck me hard. Fair to say that by bedtime I had washed my hands many times. Still when I took out my contact lenses that night I thought I would lose my eyesight! Foolish me! I kept trying to get the lenses out even though a burning sensation had already set in. In the process I lost one lens since my movement became more and more feverish and later, I laid in bed with truly fiery eyes. I don’t remember how long it took to recede since eventually I fell asleep. My next attempt after additional hand washes and the morning shower worked out better! Lesson learned – next time I should keep the two essential fingers out of the cooking affairs! (or better yet I need to learn how to wash it off properly).