First the important stuff! Chapter 12 has been submitted and should be posted soon.
My continued thanks to Guns97, CoullPert, and yellowperil, who once again spotted bad grammar, awkward sentences, and perilous punctuation. Their corrections, through Chapter 11, have been made and revised chapters posted.
On a side note: Chile or Chili?
I've received more than a few emails regarding my spelling of chile. Most of these emails insist that the correct spelling is chili and point to various dictionaries as proof. However, I was raised in New Mexico and in that State the spelling is chile.
Senator Pete Domenici, on the floor of Congress in November 1983, stated for the Congressional Record, that chili, "that inedible mixture of watery tomato soup, dried gristle, half-cooked kidney beans, and a myriad of silly ingredients that is passed off as food in Texas and Oklahoma. The different tabascos and jalapeno sauces added to the mixture do little good and in most cases simply cause a casual visitor to suffer great gastrointestinal distress."
"Contrast this to New Mexico, where ordering a bowl of chile is a delightful experience . . . Hospitable as we are to all visitors, we have chile that is mild enough to make a baby coo in delight, or hot enough to make even the strongest constitutions perspire in a sensual experience of both pleasure and pain.
"I could go on and on about the wonders of red and green chile, but in reality, all I wanted to do was inform Congress on the correct way to spell the word."
~ Domenici, P. 1983. The correct way to spell chile. Congressional Record 129 (149) (Nov. 3) ~
Regional competition and humor aside, in New Mexico, chile is the correct spelling when referring to the capsicum peppers and food items made from them. Chili is the term used for a protein based food dish such as chili con carne.
In Britain, I understand, for both the pepper and the food dish, the spelling is chilli.