Why do you like spicy food?

   I am quite smitten with the Cajun style of sustenance. My personal style is I’m cooking for grandma too. The earthy style with the AIEEEE applied at the table works well in our house.
   My wife and I fell in love with habaneros years ago and it has become our number one source of warmth as well as flavor. We also use a variety of chili’s both fresh and dried to pump up anything from Jelly to chile. While we wouldn’t win a pepper eating contest we cook daily with the help of capsicum.

"Spicy" and "hot" aren't the same in our house & cooking. Like Meg, we eat a wide variety of foods from all around the world. I thoroughly enjoy masala chai (especially with the addition of rose petals), and spice cake, ginger snaps, cinnamon rolls (heavy on the cinnamon, please) - and a long list of other foods considered 'spicy', that are not at all hot. They're merely heavy on the ingredient category of spices.

Now on heat... I used to always love it, as long as it was as flavorful as it was hot. Most of the time, I still do, and have many times 'out-hotted' the awesome Thai servers who would gently warn me against the hottest items on their menus, telling me, I wouldn't be able to eat them, that they couldn't even eat them. But, I ordered anyway, loving both the incredible flavors and the heat they brought, and those servers were mystified at how I could happily polish off every last morsel. I still enjoy that level of heat, more often than not, but my gut occasionally rebels, now. Why? I think it kicks my endorphins into high gear - a huge shot of dopamine...