This is not really a View From Your Table, but it made me so happy I had to share it with you. How many people do we have in the readership who love hot-and-spicy food? I have a mistress, and her name is Vindaloo. I cannot get enough hot stuff. Sitting here typing this, looking at that photo I’ve posted above this text, my mouth is literally watering. Here’s the back story on what you see, from the reader who sent in the photo above, and the one below:

This was dinner, Cochinita Pibil from Salsitas in Shreveport, LA. Salsitas barely seats 10 people, but this was one of the best meals I have had in a while. Think a more spicy, saucier Cuban style pork. Plus before dinner we had chips and 10 different homemade salsas. Be careful with that unlabeled one.

Somebody bring me to Shreveport to give a book talk so I can eat at Salsitas! Here’s what the reader ate:

Let me ask you hot-stuff lovers in the room: what’s the hottest thing you’ve ever eaten, or the craziest thing you’ve ever done with hot (as in spicy) food? I have two answers:

Hottest thing I ever ate: A few years ago, we were at Noodle Wave, an excellent Thai restaurant in a strip mall in the north Dallas suburb of Richardson. (Peter K., go there, now!), when I asked the waitress what the hottest thing on the menu was. She said it was some sort of sliced Thai beef. I told her I wanted that, and I wanted it spiced like Thai people would eat it, not like Americans. “Are you sure, sir?” Yes, I’m sure. So it came, and basically, if you could capture leaves of flame in beef, that’s what this stuff was. I could not get enough of it. The endorphins flooded my brain, and I felt like I was drugged. Julie looked at me like I had lost my mind, and I kind of had. It was so painful, but so exhilarating. I had to drink a pitcher of water, but it was worth it. I don’t see it on the menu now, alas.

Craziest thing I ever did with hot food: Julie grew habanero peppers in our backyard in Dallas one summer. One scorching summer day, I came home from work, plucked a pepper from the bush, sliced it in half, then got down my blender. Into the blender I threw half the pepper, frozen strawberries, frozen peaches, and frozen pineapple, cranberry juice, a big slug of Tito’s vodka, and filled the rest with ice. Vroom, vroom. A few minutes later, I was relaxing with a frosty vodka cocktail that hit the mouth like a blast from a sweet, icy blowtorch. Bliss. It was so good that I repeated the deed the next day with the other half of the pepper. But there was a problem. I had made the elementary mistake of cutting the pepper in half horizontally instead of vertically, which meant the hottest part of the pepper — even after deseeding — was the part I hadn’t used the first day. I knew this, but threw it into the blender anyway, thinking I could handle it. Well, it tasted like a lava daiquiri. It was hellacious going down. I could literally feel it as it moved down my goozlepipe and through my digestive system. But being a male person, I could not let my wife see that the drink had defeated me. I drained every drop in my tall iced tea glass. It was a painful lesson.

Your hot food stories are requested.