Burn baby, burn....

As a fifth-generation Texan, I am very passionate about spicy foods. My two favorites being, of course, Mexican from my mothers "Texas" side and the other good ole' Cajun from my daddy's side. In the years that I've have enjoyed spicing up my food, over the spice that's already in the dish, I've become somewhat immune to the heat that folks of lesser abilities might call hot. I put Tabasco and Franks on just about everything that hits my plate. I just love the extra depth of flavor the sauces add and the nice little "kick" it brings to the dish.

Today I was wondering what I was going to do for lunch. I didn't really want to go out so I dug in the bottom of my desk and found a can of Progresso Chicken and Sausage Gumbo Soup. MMMmmmm...before I had it opened it was tantalizing my taste buds. So after I heat up the soup, I go back to my desk and pull out my little red bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce. I keep at least five different brands in my desk for all types of foods...Louisiana Hot Sauce, Franks, Iguana Deuces, Louisiana Supreme and one called "Bull Snort, Texas Tongue Torch". All of them are really well-flavored with a nice kick that isn't too extreme.

I said a little prayer of thanks and cut up a small tomato a co-worker had brought from her husbands garden and seasoned it with salt and black pepper. I, LIBERALLY sprinkled the Louisiana Hot Sauce all over the top of the savory-looking soup and picked up my spoon and dove in. Within seconds, the follicles on my skull begin to retreat and take the hair within it back into my scalp like a Moray Eel retreating into its den. My tongue broke into a native fire-dance all over the inside of mouth trying to escape the fiery inferno.

I frantically looked around for something to drink and duhhhhh, I didn't bring my ice water back from the kitchen! So, I begin to shove golf ball sized pieces of tomatoes in my mouth hoping to quell the furnace that's burning out of control in my mouth. But nothing is working. I didn't want to run through the halls so I sat there and took the fiery heat. At this point, I'm feeling sweat bead up on my upper lip, my forehead and of all places, my bald spot. I reach up and touch the spot where my head is poking through my hair and it's literally wet! Not damp, or moist, but there are actual sweat drops beading up and running down the back of my head.

One good thing about habanero's, the burn, mercifully, doesn't last as long as a jalapeno'. So when I finally gathered my wits and quit bouncing up and down in my chair, I thought, to myself, "Why is that hot-sauce so hot?" I've always been able to use any amount of Louisiana Hot Sauce that I wanted. I picked up the bottle and immediately saw my dilemma. Just below the title of "Louisiana" there was a little eight letter word... "HABANERO", I'm thinking that literlly translates into English as "Blood of the Devil". I had sprinkled three big table spoons of  Habanero Hot Sauce into my soup. It was a new bottle and I hadn't bothered to look at it when I bought it a the neighborhood dollar store.

I pride myself in being able to handle pretty much any hot sauce there is, but once the Skovill Heat Units surpass 100,000, I morph into your average wimp and choose not to partake into that level of torturous burn.

So, the moral of this little story is, when you're shopping for your favorite hot sauce and right before you sprinkle three heaping tablespoons onto your plate, READ THE LABEL!!!

The Impulsive Texan