Personal: My Username

My favorite mint is the 'mentha x piperita', commonly called peppermint. Some years ago I was rather active in LotR-circles and created an awesome little Hobbit-OC. Seeing how they are mostly named after plants or other natural products, I took the easy way and just took my favorite green as a name
Despite the story she starred in being cancelled and a backstory that abruptly ends in the middle (at least in written form), this gadgeteering genius girl grew greatly (yeah, alliteration beats textflow, sorry) to me and with time I began to switch usernames over to her likeness as she was awesome, had an awesome origin and my old tags were rather...stupid, potentially typoed, generic?

Originally I was switching quite a lot between 'Piperita' and the shortform 'Pip', in fact during my anon-days on EQD I went mostly with the short form. I think one of the reasons might have been that Pip is a lot easier to type and that during the name's conception I might have been a bit overprotective of my masculinity. But despite being a nice shortification as a calling-name, it just doesn't feel right with permanent accounts for me - it doesn't capture the name's origins, is rather generic and who the heck cares whether something sounds feminine or masculine? I know who I am and neither names nor assumptions will change that, so why should I censor myself and hide the name I want to go with?
After getting this out of the way, when I get into third person or introduce myself here I still use 'Pip' and I have absolutely no problem when I get called as such (in fact I even like it, feels a lot closer ), it just should be obvious where this form comes from!

Why do I like peppermint so much that I named one of my characters and my new online-identity after it? One of my best friends is Moroccan and on big gatherings or special occassions his family brewed traditional tea out of their homegrown plants which always was something special and a nice conclusion to great days.
In my own garden I now have a few bushels myself, as well as a nice pot at my student home's balcony. Whenever I feel down, just breathing in their wonderful smell often is enough to get me into a better mood and whenever there is something to celebrate or I feel particularly hyped, I can always make myself something special

Generally, peppermint has quite the lot of uses. Self-made peppermint-ice for example is just wonderful, unfortunately it is quite hard getting the right dosation: Too few mint and it is just bland, too much and it is way too bitter. It is also a wonderful asset to meat-dishes, just put it on top of the steak or under bacon-bandages and the meat will taste refrshingly minty without losing its own aroma. Of course there is also the whole industry of peppermin-sweets and cough-drops but I neither have the necessary experience with them nor are they among my favorite uses, so I'll leave the judgement for others.
Currently I'm experimentating with using them as a basis for sauces and specialized soups. The main problem in the moment is that sometimes leaves are overlooked or they bristle into so many parts that not all are retrievable, resulting in the liquid turning rather bitter.