I love spicy foods. Always have. Even if I have to pay for it in the end later…I torture myself with the heat. (Didn’t mean for that to be pun…but quite appropriate I would have to say looking back on it).

I sit here and torture myself now finishing off a bit of very spicy salsa with some fat-free chips I paid an arm and a leg for in order to get my torturing in done right. It’s that damn spice. I can’t stay away from it. Even it causes my menstrual cramps to worsen. I still must complete my spicy task!

Is this an ingrain dysfunction? Will I always have this need to set my mouth on fire and then enjoy the dying of the flame with water or beer or whatever is on hand? Did my mom add salsa to my breast milk as I was developing? Well, I do know that she craved the candy Red Hots when she was pregnant…maybe that has something to do with it??? Ah, but if that were true my son would be addicted to sausage, cereal, and cantaloupe.

But as I move throughout my days that need for the burning spice arises again. No matter how hard I try to resist….it’s boiling at the surface. And no…you are right. I am no longer talking about my food spice fetish.

I keep it at bay. I’m a “good girl” now after all. I fantasize about the different spices from around the world. I imagine how they taste and their textures and the different types of burning they would bring to my mouth. But that’s all it is…harmless daydreaming.

And I’ve tried…really really REALLY tried bringing the spice to my own bedroom. We both have. But his spice is starting to taste sour. It’s starting to mix with his vinegar he seems to constantly have on hand. At the hardest and worst times I have closed my eyes and imagined a spice that is most flavorful in order for us both to enjoy the time there together. I replaced my thoughts for other spices with that of my own spice I have at home. So why don’t the flavors ever seem to blend? He has the need for spice such as I do. We see eye to eye on the spicy scale. We agree on spice factor. But we aren’t able to offer each other a new flavor. I mean red pepper with red pepper is still red pepper! In the past we were always the spicier flavor of the combination. Always sprinkling flavor into worlds that had not yet experienced such a flavor or ventured into spicier flair.  

I am not saying I only yearn for a new flavor. There are ways to town down your own tastes, flavors, as the same goes for the partnering taster. I was fine with our mixing of flavors for a long time. But the vinegar is starting to taste worst afterwards each time. I smell raw cut onions and stale moldy components. Smells affect what you taste. I’m starting to taste nothing at all. I walk into a house of pickled feelings and souring pain floating at the top like the white stuff that forms over time at the top of a pickle jar after a long long time. And the pickled red pepper is not as bright or vibrant. He no longer offers his flavors and I don’t wish to ask for them. He doesn’t attempt to try new recipes and I wait for the kitchen to close.

We are two tired ass cooks. Exhausted professional spice tasters. Letting dust settle on our cooking utensils. I hear about his desires for other flavors often. Much too often at times. It again makes me question my own flavor. Have I started going bad? Do I taste old and moldy? And we let our spice sit on the shelf. Waiting for the other to make the first move. Neither wants to. A bashing of knuckles when we do at the same time. And the wounds fester. Then heal. And then reopen when we bash again. Scars are forming from our cooking disasters. And now the red pepper just brings pain to those wounds. And neither hand is making a move.