I used to order buffalo wings from a local spot, and I'd gotten the "hot" previously, eating them like KFC; this wasn't hot! This was boring! This time, I got the "Wild", one step up from "hot".

I remember biting into the wing, and the next thing I know I'm running cold water over my tongue, mouth under the kitchen faucet. Ow ow ow!

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Quaker Steak & Lube's Atomic wings for me. The only way to put out the fire is with chocolate -- I carry Hershey's Kisses with me when I go to The Lube for wings. They really work!

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"Thermonuclear" wing sauce from Cluck-U Chicken, in the D.C. area. I have a pretty high tolerance, and I was pretty well knocked backward.

Sour cream takes the heat away pretty reliably. I think that's why so many "Mexican" restaurants serve it.

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Home made chilies rellenos: http://foodmonkeys.blogspot.com/2007/09/chiles-rellenos.html

We still don't know what kind of chilies they were.

There were tears, and this from the guy who goes through sriracha at a rate of about a bottle a week!

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In the suburbs of Seattle, there is a place called Dixie's Southern BBQ, that serves up an incomparable hot sauce.

It's called "The Man" and the chef/owner/pitmaster walks around with a small saucepan of this nuclear concoction asking patrons if they've "met The Man"

I love spicy foods, but the first time I tried this, i nearly died. I was drinking everything that was available. I was not the same for a day, as my tongue burned and I lost all taste.

This stuff is crazy.

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While in culinary school a visiting Asian chef made some spicy shrimp stir fry. The only way to describe it was a euphoric heat. The nerve centers in my brain were going nuts. It really was like I had taken a few shots of vodka.

Now I jokingly refer to it (after seeing the Simpsons episode where Apu makes food for Homer and the gang) as so hot "I could see through time".

There was nothing I could find in reach to subside it.

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For really hot food, have milk standing by instead of water or a soft drink. The capsaicin that causes the heat will be dulled by the dairy. I learned this back when I was eating a lot of habaneros.

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Father-in-law recommended peanut butter one time after eating some habanero peppers. Seemed to do the trick.

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About 13 years ago, the Magnolia Cafe in Austin had a guest chef, whose name and other restaurant affiliation escapes me. His special was "7-Pepper Pasta", with everything from bells to habaneros. I was fighting a cold, so I figured the vitamin C and heat might do my sinuses good, so I took the plunge.

Normally, I'm a very quick eater, but this was way too hot to gulp down, so I took my time and drank lots of milk and water. When I was about halfway through, I realized I was still blowing on the food to cool it as I brought it to my mouth. I glanced at my watch. I had been eating for 45 minutes and the pasta was room temperature, but I still had the sensation of heat as I brought the fork near my lips.

I asked for a to-go container and they brought an aluminum pan with a cardboard lid. The next day, the aluminum was completely pitted and corroded, and my digestive tract felt the same way.

But the cold was gone.

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Fats help quell the spice: cream would work better than milk, and a lavishly buttered cracker would help. The fat in peanut butter is what does it, I imagine.

For those who like spicy, take a look at the "Rim of Fire" products: http://www.grindhot.com/Catalog1.html

Good stuff.

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I was at a bar in Columbus, OH, visiting my parents - think it was Thurman's - and got something called the 120,000 BTU wings. I seriously think I was hallucinating when eating them.

Before that it was the first time my favorite bar in Charlottesville, VA, made their honey habanero wings (St. Maarten's). The cooks didn't know how much habanero to put in, so they put in as much as they would jalapeno. Woo.

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I have a number of Indonesian friends who use coconut milk, ground nuts, including sometimes peanut butter, and palm sugar (djaggeray) with sambal. This forms sort of a stealth burn so you eat about half the plate before realizing how much pain you are in. By that time its too late so you just have to go with it, and yes, it gets you high as a kite. Many of my Indonesiand friends are Moslem so no alcohol (except an occasional beer, they are not fanatics), but you can get quite a buzz just with the endorphins from chiles. I grew up in Colorado with Chicano and Mexican friends, and my mother currently lives in Sonora, so I respect chiles and consider them comfort food, but this kind of food is a whole different level in that you first taste the bland sweetness of the coconut and the nuts, then the savoriness of the meat, and only then the zing of the chiles, but it is masked by the other ingredients so you don't get the full effect for a few minutes.

My favorite Indonesian based dish is one I developed myself and call Buffalo Rice:

Take four or six boneless chicken breasts or a whole cut up chicken, fry it up with sambal or other extremely hot chile mix. Don't be shy with the heat. Remove chicken when done, add good quality rice like jasmine or basmati, add enough water to properly hydrate, bring to boil and cook until rice is done. You now have some very hot rice. Add half a pound or more of bleu cheese, mix well, now add quite a lot of mayonnaise. You will know how much when the texture changes. This is not remotely diet food. It tastes like buffalo chicken wings with rice and blue cheese dressing, it is extremely simple to make, and is incredibly tasty, plus also gives you that stealth burn and endorphin rush. We usually drink hot coffee with it.

To cool heat? Mix a quart of orange or pineapple juice with a half pint of yoghurt to make a bootleg lassa. You can use coconut milk instead of Yoghurt, but I like the slight sourness. The sour, sweet, and salt flavors overcome the heat on your taste buds.

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Sri Lankan crabs in thick rich dark red and very spicy sauce at an outdoor cafe somewhere outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It had to be 100 degress outside. We washed the crabs down with cold Malaysian beer. I was in KL for a week or so working on a project. One of the locals I was working with kept telling me that his boss wanted to take me to have these crab. During my visits there I had developed a reputation of being able to take the piciest food they could find for me.

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Emily- Why can't you call out Prince's Hot Chicken Shack by name? Say it loud and proud!

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Larp at Thai Cottage in Leeds city centre. Soooo hot. And really really hot when you tried to eat the rice or noodles (weird that).

I found yoghurt great for cooling - something like raita always does the trick with a fearsome curry (or mango lassi - but then I always drink so much I am full!)

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I ate a Sri Lankan curry dish in Sihanoukville, Cambodia- OMG! It went to 11... My tummy hurt for half the next day, but it was so good going in!!!

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Sadly, my hottest dish was my own. I didn't know a lot about hot peppers at the time. I was making shish-kabob and I bought these cute little peppers at the local Mexican fruit market. I remember the bagger picking up the bag they were in (I bought A LOT) and laughing. I put these cute little peppers on my kabobs and grilled them up nice. Then I ate one, and my head almost exploded. Damn habaneros are HOT.

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Surprisingly, the spiciest dish I've ever eaten was Thai Green Curry Chicken - at an Irish Bar in India, while drinking Mexican beer and listening to a Bulgarian band sing Country Roads.

I'm not the most seasoned pepper-belly, and I don't actively seek it out, but living in Asia for so long, I've come to enjoy spicy foods from many different countries. However, this time it got the best of me.

When the waiter saw the steady stream of perspiration running down my face, he brought me a fresh lime juice to drink and lime wedges to squeeze on my food. It seemed to do the trick, and I was able to enjoy the flavor with a bit less heat.

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Sichuan hotpot in Chengdu. The woks are set into tiled tables with a burner underneath, and hot chiles are added throughout the evening. If you get there late, as we did, you get the cumulative heat of all the previous diners' oil (and sometimes some of their leftovers swimming in the bottom).

You order plates of meats and vegetables, including live fish and eels if you want them (we didn't).

You dunk your food in the oil to cook it. Then eat. Or not. I had one bite and thought my head might explode. I swear, I saw stars.

I spent the rest of the meal drinking orange soda and eating raw vegetables.

The next day my tongue was blistered.

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Growing up, I had a friend whose parents were Sri Lankan diplomats. They had a party one day while I was at the house. Everyone told me to try what I wanted, but avoid the shrimp. I was a huge fan of spicy food and regularly ate whatever they conjured up -- so when no one was looking, I took a shrimp. It didn't take long for the inside of my mouth to erupt into an altar to the gods of fire. It took days for the feeling to completely go away -- but everyone joked about my mouth for months afterwards.

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