Hot Pepper Jelly

One of my most distinct early food memories is also one of my most unhappy. In my mind I can re-create the emanation of a pot of field peas simmering with a ham hock. As soon as a bowl was filled with them for the dinner table, my grandmother began shaving the tiniest slivers of a green cayenne pepper directly onto the peas. My curiosity led me too close, and just as I peered over the table top and into those peas—pow!—the cayenne caught me right in the eye. I lost that battle, but won the