Man, yknow, ya’d think I’d have learned this already, but somehow I just haven’t gotten it programmed into a habit yet. If you’re cooking with chili’s — chopping, pulling out seeds, even just moving the damn things from one place to another– wash your hands with soap afterwards.
Today I made a Thai soup. I pulled the seeds out of a couple of chilies with my thumbnail, and thought ‘I need to pee’. This sequence of events has happened before (I like hot food), so I knew I needed to wash my hands before grabbing my dick. I rinsed them off pretty well, and dried them on a towel, went to the toilet, peed, washed my hands again and got back to the kitchen. A minute or so passed, and I thought ‘hmm my genitals feel a bit warm’, but I figured I’d washed my hands so it wouldn’t get any worse. I was wrong. A few minutes passed, and I yelled to Bettini ‘argh, chili dick!’, and rushed to bathroom. First I tried washing them with a wet, cold, soapy washcloth, but as soon as the cloth was removed the burning sensation returned. So I had to take off my pants and jump in shower and let cold water run over the equipment for a few minutes, massaging gently with cleaning products. The creamy stuff seems to work better than the soap, probably because the active ingredient in chilies is oil soluble.
I’m really glad none of the restaurants I ever worked in cooked spicy food. I can’t imagine telling my boss in the middle of the dinner rush that I had to go and stick my balls in the sink… I have to find the best way to get rid of chili residue on my hands. Maybe wash them with oil. Or just scrub really thoroughly before doing anything else.
On an interesting side note, Bettina found the soup too spicy, and had to pick some of the chilies out. Me I didn’t even find it sharp. But my balls and thumbs (which I used to scrape the seeds, you remember) still burn a little. I guess I’ve just burned out the receptors in my mouth.