I think I am the only one in the world who can't eat spicy food. It can make me react with a really severe cough. Having lived for years in the American Southwest with much spicy Mexican food as well as spicy food from everywhere in the world, you would think I would have gotten used to it by now. Its very embarrassing to have to be very careful about how to order food in a restaurant or in accepting food served at someone's home. It seems like everyone else but me can eat it.

“Everyone else” includes my young son. I remember when he was one year old and his father and I stopped to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the state of New Mexico and somehow our son got some pretty hot chile sauce in his mouth. You could hear him howling miles away! My husband had to take him outside for a long walk so he wouldn't disturb the other patrons.

Then just 3 years later when we had some of my husband's friends over to help paint our house and I served them all a very spicy Mexican dinner, our son ate it like it was the most normal thing in the world! I was shocked. He hadn't had any hot chile sauce since the restaurant in New Mexico! How did he get used to it? Or was it just the fact that he was a guy (even though he was only 3 1/2 years old!) and he had to eat what the other "big" guys were eating? He always ate hot food just fine after that. But I keep to the cooler stuff.

Have you ever tried hot chile ice cream?