The Hottest Meal of My Life

I'm kind of a hot food junkie. You know the type; I slather hot sauce over everything I eat, my wife gets upset when I'm in charge of the cooking, and I once ate the Three Mile Island buffalo wings at Hooters. I'm toning things down a bit in my old age but I'm still not afraid of a hot dish here and there.

The other day I found myself strolling through a mall around lunchtime and I thought I'd grab a quick bite to eat. The Indian food is really pretty good around here, so I opted for a nice looking Indian place and ordered the lamb vindaloo, thinking to myself that it is often a spicy dish and this improved my chances of avoiding a bland lunch.

After putting the first bite in my mouth, my brain got the following telegram from my taste buds: "Jesus Christ, Sir, there's something in your mouth that really should not be there. I can't tell if it's battery acid or molten lava, but please spit it out."

Bull, I thought, I'm committed at this point because I paid for it and I've never backed down from a meal. I carried on, and soon found that it was too painful to stop for breaks. My only choice was to pound it as fast as I could. Predictably, I was soon sweating and found myself nearly out of water. The thought actually occurred to me that I might be on the New Zealand version of Candid Camera because 1)it would have been really funny to watch me struggle through that land mine of a dish, and 2)I couldn't believe that anyone would ever serve anything half that spicy to the general public without having them sign a hold-harmless form first.

It was sort of a neat experiment because I really wasn't sure what would happen to me if I ate it all. I've had hiccups from spicy meals before, but I wouldn't have been surprised if this had caused bleeding.

I'm staying the hell away from that particular place in the future, but all this talk of Indian food makes for a nice segue into telling you a little about our suburb. Wellington is organized into suburbs, to the point that they are included in our address while a zip code is optional. Our house is about three minute's walk from the Kelburn shops (follow the link for an unimpressive but accurate panoramic view of our suburb's center). There are two Indian places that are amazing and we have budgeted 48% of our income towards dining out as a result of this.

Kelburn is located on top of a pretty serious hill, which may be more accurately desrcribed as a mountain. The views from up here are quite nice as a result. I've been meaning to do a write-up about the house, but this seems as good a time as any to show you what the views are like. Here's a pic from our kitchen window:


With that, I'm heading to bed. My stomach kinda hurts.