It’s funny how an average day can turn into an extraordinary day when you have met a new chilehead in the most unexpected places.

For those of you who don’t know, we own a very rare breed of dog called the South African Boerboel. That link, you will find, leads to a blog I have begun for them. They are the ultimate family protector. It’s not a breed for everyone, though. It’s a dominant breed that requires a dominant owner who is used to very large dogs. Our latest addition to the family, Marinda, is almost 8 months old and about 90 lbs. She will grow to be about 120 – 140 lbs. She is awesome and we spend tons of time training her so that she doesn’t rule our house. But I digress.

Every month on the blog I have a photo contest. Nothing is awarded except the notoriety of being the Boerboel for which everyone voted. It’s a lot of fun and you get the chance to see lots of different Boerboels of different colors, sizes and from all over the world. Well, for Halloween I decided to have an actual contest. The winner would win a $20 USD gift certificate to the online store of their choice (had to do this because of entries all over the world). I had a deadline set up and received an email from an owner in Sweden who asked me to extend the deadline because she had just received a witch hat to place on her female Boerboel, Chili, which she would be using for an upcoming party. I extended the deadline like she asked and it turned out that Chili won. I was excited for her and wrote an email back. In that email I included a “by the way” statement that Joe and I run a hot and spicy website. I didn’t know why she had named her dog Chili, but if there was any hot and spicy food connection, I was reaching out. Through a return email, and with much excitement, not only did I find out that she was a chilehead too, but that she was growing Naga Morich’s in Sweden and that she had been to our site before and had it bookmarked. A new friendship had begun.

Ewa, the Swedish chilehead, will be a new writer here on the HZOB. We believe she will bring a unique perspective to the blog as she writes about hot stuff sent to her, but mostly about what she finds overseas and what she makes with her own resources. I’d have to say you can’t really go wrong with Naga Morich as a resource. In fact, today, Ewa & her husband Goran are making a turkey that will be glazed with the first BBQ glaze they’ve ever made, full of dried apricots, passion fruit and Habanero. Maybe we’ll get lucky and that will be her first official post.

Look for Ewa’s introduction soon and give her a warm, HZOB welcome.

Oh, and Chili’s bio is pretty interesting. If it weren’t already obvious, Chili definitely lives up to her name. I’ll include it below.

Chili’s Bio

On the 18th of July 2004, 10.30 AM, Chili decided it was time to make her entrance into this world. She weighed 550 grams then, which nobody believes today when they look at her, weighing 60 kg and still growing!

Our lives, house and garden will probably never be the same again after Chili’s entrance. She’s one stubborn teenager that knows best on her own – Well, that’s what she likes to believe! She’s full of energy and mischief. One prank she loves to get up to is to steal my Chile plants in the summer and do as much damage that is possible. This normally causes me to go running after her, trying to save whatever’s left! I don’t know if she’s trying to tell me she gets too much chile in her food or if it’s the opposite!

When Chili was 4 months old she started obedience class and when she was 7 months old we started her on search (and rescue) training. I was going to make an rescue dog out of her but found out that one of the rules to become a registered search dog meant that I had to be able to pick her up and carry her a certain amount of distance first, well Chili grew and she grew and she grew…..I’m sure there’s a pony mixed in somewhere in her heritage! So I had to give the certification a rest and go body build first. But Chili kept up the training and LOVES it.

Chili shares the household with another Boerboel, Gretchen Mubi, who came to live with us when Chili was about a year old. They get along great and really enjoy creating even more havoc in the garden! Fortunately enough none of us is especially interested in gardening so we leave it to the girls to keep the garden in the standard they prefer!

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI