Chewer Chileheads?

As you may know, fans of hot and spicy food are sometimes referred to as "chileheads" (as in chile peppers). For the uninitiated, no I'm not making that up. Personally, I can't get enough of this stuff. I'm a huge fan of hot food of all kinds: Indian Curries, Buffalo wings, Mexican salsas, Chinese Szechuan dishes, etc. I'll put hot sauce in or on damn near anything, too. And I make a mean bowl o' chili.

So just 'cause I'm curious: any more of you get bitten by the capsaicin bug on a regular basis? What other Chewers are also Chileheads?

I don't know what the hell it is about chili, but in some of the recipe books I have, in the chapters on chili they discuss these chili cook offs they have, and they're like these big social events, involving really serious competition. And restaurants develop fanatic followings if the make a good bowl o' red. I have this one reccipe I tweaked a little (added more jalapenos, used 1 less bell pepper, that kind of thing) that I got from "Heat Wave: The Best of Chile Pepper Magazine", and it's got a devoted following among my family & friends. My brother will come over any time I make it. I had a friend I only saw a couple times a year until he moved to Florida, but one of those times was the day I called him to tell him I made a pot of chile every November (Get it? chili in November?). Fucker would literally bring his own bowl and spoon. Few other foods inspire such devotion.

A) As a Jersey Chewer, who lives very near Edison, I beseech you to name this restaurant.

B) I'm totally with you on the grow your own peppers thing. They're so damned tempremental. Most of them have 60 day growing seasons; habaneros 90. With the last frosts coming later & later every year (and it getting harder to predict when they'll be) it's getting harder to grow these all the time. I haven't even tried since I moved into the new house. I do recall growing some really successful jalapeno crops that made nachos more interesting for months, and I dried a bumper crop of cayennes into ristras that i picked off of for stir fries for years. And I routinely make flavored vinegar w/ hot peppers, among other ingredients. The best for this application, I thought, were the Hungarian wax peppers I used to grow, just to make this stuff.

C) You're right about the pussified palates; I'd say that, ethnic enclaves aside, with the exception of the Southwest, that's probably true for the country at large, though. Stll, it pisses me off when I order something touted as a "spicy" chicken sandwich, for example, and find it's got a little more black pepper on it than the regular chicken sandwich, and that's about the extent of it.

When I was in college, a bunch of us would get together and order like 125 of the hottest level Buffalo wings we could get (because in Upstate NY, every pizza joint made & delivered wings), and sit in a circle in someone's dorm room with a jug of water or Kool Aid or whatever handy, eating wing after glorious wing, sweating, crying, noses running. . . and enjoying every damn second of it. I'm sure to an outside observer we looked absolutely miserable, but these are some of my fondest memories of college.

Also I admire your determination in continuing to give the stuff the old college try.

Supposedly, the chemical in peppers that makes them hot (capsaicin) releases natural endorphins, so you get something of a high while eating spicy food. I know it increases your metabolism; I've felt my heart rate increase while chowing down on wings and such. GNC sells capsules full of cayenne pepper powder to exploit this effect.

Like it says on the bottles of Jersey's own Blair's Death Sauce:"Feel Alive!" I couldn't agree more.

I will NOT rest until you make some of those wings for me. Next ChudBQ, we'll go get the fixin's & you work your magic. Please.

And say what you will about the place, but Hooters makes some good wings, I think. Best ones around me, anyway. Which isn't saying much, I know. But south of Albany, good hot wings are hard to come by.

I had no idea you were such a hot food aficionado. I have yet another reason to like you.

Get a large, airtight jar, & clean it thoroughly. Pour 16-20 oz. of white wine vinegar over 4 peeled garlic cloves, 1 cup fresh oregano leaves & 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves (slightly bruised), and add 3-4 (or more, if they're small) hot red peppers. I usually cut small diamond shaped holes in mine (or cut them in half if they're too long to immerse all the way in one piece), so that the vinegar can get at the capsaicin-laden veins inside the pepper. Store in a cool dark place, & shake every couple days for 2 weeks. Drain thru cheesecloth or a coffee filter into an airtight bottle, and enjoy.

I particularly find this good drizzled over bready items, like calzones, garlic bread, stromboli, or Jeno's Pizza Rolls (don't knock it til you've tried it). A Filipino friend of mine hipped me to the Filipino custom of dipping egg rolls in vinegar years ago, and now I won't eat them without it. This recipe is EXCELLENT for that purpose.

In the alternative, pour 16-20 oz. of red wine vinegar over 4-6 jalapenos (slit as above), 4 peeled garlic cloves, and 2 Tablespoons of whole black peppercorns. Use as above. Possibly even better on egg rolls.

I like to slice them and spread them liberally over a plate of homemade nachos. After I've eaten 3 or 4 right from the jar, of course.

I went to an Indian restaurant w/ my brother years ago, and ordered a chicken vindaloo. The waiter got all apolegetic and said "I must warn you sir, the chicken vindaloo is very spicy." My brother laughed out loud and said "You don't know who you're talking to, do you?" I told the guy I knew it was spicy, and that's why I was ordering it. About 5 minutes into the meal (which was very, very good) he comes back over: "Is everything all right, sir?" I did kind of a Homer Simpson "Can't talk; eating!" thing and just gave him the circled thumb and forefinger "OK". We tipped them very well, and even though we only got back there every couple months, we got excellent service every time we went there. Until they closed. I miss that place. . .

I think I know what I want for Christmas. . .

Anyone ever deal w/ Salsa Express? I had some good stuff come my way from them, but I visited their website lately & it's a shadow of its former self. They still have a pretty wide variety of things to order, though. Shipping's expensive, but the prices of the products themselves are pretty reasonable, I guess.

I just bought a bottle of Angelina's Habanero Ketchup (I fucking LOVE Wegman's; they have EVERYTHING). 1st couple times I used it, I thought it barely had a kick, and wasn't that impressed. Got to about the 1/3 thru the bottle point, though and God DAMN did my mouth catch fire. If it wasn't just a little too sweet beneath the heat, this could be the best hot ketchup ever. I had a jalapeno enhanced ketchup that I bought from Salsa Express a few years ago, that still has it beat by just a smidge.