Light me up

I really love spicy food.   Anyone that knows me knows how much I love to eat things that make me sweat.    There is a Thai restaurant close to my office where I eat fairly regularly.   The owner knows me and she knows how much I like my spicy stir-fried pork and basil.   She always asks how spicy I want it, but she already knows the answer.    She has about 4 levels of spice that you can ask for.  

·         Mild

·         Spicy

·         Extra-Spicy

·         “Native”

Of course I always ask for native.   Sometimes I’ll even tell her “extra native”.   It’s usually pretty hot.    I’ve found that spice is somewhat inconsistent at all restaurants though.   I speculate that some of it is just based on the chef that day, but that it’s also sometimes inconsistency in peppers.   Sometimes they are hotter, sometimes not.    Occasionally I’ll get something that is “native” that will really light me up.   Sometimes, it’s just a good spicy dish.   

I went over the Thai place yesterday for lunch.   I was actually doing a lunch interview.   I took one my candidates over there thinking that it would be an okay place to grab lunch and talk through his previous job experience.    We ordered and I got my standard pork and basil stir-fry.    She asked me how spicy and I stopped and thought for a minute.   I needed to be into the conversation.   I needed to be concentrating on what he was saying.   This wasn’t a time for tweaking my taste buds.  

“Extra-spicy”, I told her.

She smiled a knowing smile and left the table.  

My waitress knew me too well to just go with extra spicy.   She went with native; possibly double native.   This dish was hot.   This dish was “light me up” hot.   I’m not sure I’ve ever had a dish there that was that hot.   My eyes watered.   Sweat beaded up on my forehead.     My nose ran like a faucet.   Then the most dreaded of spicy food symptoms; my ears begin to ring.     Here I am trying to conduct an interview and I’m having a spicy food experience that I only manage to find a few times a year.   The irony was astounding.   The one time I ask for something less spicy, I get the experience that I would normally love.

The interview was painful for me, trying to maintain eye contact through watery eyes, wiping my nose after every bite.    I actually had to apologize to the candidate.   I could barely concentrate on what he was saying.   There was one saving grace though.   The food was awesome.