I absolutely love eating and cooking with chilies. Half of my family lives in South Texas and I've learned some mean recipes from them -- stuff that will make your sinuses clear for months!

But I have one cautionary tale for all cooks.

Once I was making jalepeno poppers. The way I make them I clean out all the seeds and save them so that I can include them in the batter. The seeds are the hottest part of the jalepeno and so are worth the effort. Well, I was being very careful not to get any of the oil from the peppers on me and not to touch my eyes or nose while working. I was even wearing latex gloves! Right as I finished battering the peppers and before I started frying them I needed to go to the restroom. I took off my gloves and went off to urinate. Apparently there had been a small hole in my gloves and one hand did have some of the pepper oil on the fingers. Needless to say I was in intense pain for about 2 hours as a part of me felt like it was being burned off.

So when working closely with peppers, especially the inside of peppers always wash your hands thoroughly before touching any part of your own body, no matter what other precautions you might have taken.