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Get hot for the holidays

"Every hair on Dave Matschina's head was drenched in sweat.  It crept into his eyes and dripped off his nose."   So begins Twincities.com  tale of a feast of hot wings made made with the fearsome Naga Bhut Jolokia or Indian Ghost Pepper -- a chili that makes the formerly top dog habenero taste like a slug of Milk of Magnesia.  So how hot is it? Chili heat is rated by Scoville Units.   Your plain old supermarket jalapeno is rated at five thousand Scovilles.  The ghost pepper burns in at one million.  If that kind of thing appeals to you, you might want to check in at Insane Chicken -- an online purveyor of nuclear condiments

My hot stuff collection includes Crystal hot sauce, which I prefer to Tabasco,  hot bean sauce for Szechuan dishes, powdered cayenne, Sriracha and chili oil.  What's in your pantry?

"I had a spontaneous nosebleed..."

– Chef Jim Malinowski on the first time he prepared his ghost pepper sauce.

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.