Oh, the things I will endure for the love of cooking. I've burned myself on the oven, I frequently slice my fingers, and I once dropped an entire frozen chicken (and the plate it was sitting on) on my toe.

Now I have a new experience to add to my list: inadvertently burning all the nerve endings in my fingers with jalapeno oil.

You see, yesterday afternoon I looked at the big bowlful of cherry (and a few Roma) tomatoes I had picked off our lovely tomato plants and decided that we just might have enough to make a batch of salsa. My husband, a lover of all things spicy, was going to be home from a trip soon, and I thought it would be a great idea to welcome him home with a jar of fresh, home-made salsa from our very own tomatoes.

As I chopped the jalapeno, habanero, and Anaheim peppers, I took a few precautions. I made sure I did it when the baby was napping. I didn't want to touch the spicy peppers, then thoughtlessly touch her poor little baby skin. I made sure I chopped the non-hot ingredients--tomatoes, oninons, cilantro and garlic--before turning my knife and cutting board to the hot stuff. And I made sure to wash my hands well when I was all done.

That's why I was surprised when, 20 or 30 minutes after I had completed my chopping and washed my hands, I touched my finger to my lips and immediately felt a burning sensation. I licked my lips. Mistake--more burning! I drank some milk and washed my hands twice more. The mouth-burning subsided.

Then, another half hour or so later, as I was putting my jars of salsa into the fridge, I noticed a burning sensation under my fingernails. It wasn't excruciating, but it wasn't comfortable either. I washed my hands again, thinking surely whatever pepper oils were lingering had to be gone.

By 10 p.m., my fingernails were fine, but the burning had moved down, to my finger tips and the area around the first knuckle of each finger. I googled to determine what to do when your pepper-chopping turns on you, but there was so much conflicting advice: soak your fingers in milk! soak them in vinegar! soak them in bleach-water! rub them in a tub of ice cream! (who wastes good ice cream by rubbing their fingers all over it?) that finally I just went to bed clutching an ice pack in my fiery fingers.

By morning, they were feeling much better, though still sporadically tingling and burning. Then I went and picked blackberries, and the purple juice soaked my fingertips. By the time I came home, the burning had stopped! Did the acid in the blackberry juice neutralize the capsaicin from the peppers? I was ready to call myself healed and chalk it up to a blackberry miracle, but now--about 24 hours after I first touched the darn things--my fingers are back to feeling somewhat sore and achey, though no longer fiery.

I have no idea what happened. I've chopped peppers before without this delayed and painful reaction. Did I happen to get the spiciest peppers in the whole wide world this time? Has my skin somehow transformed into a sponge that eagerly soaked up the capsaicin?

Whatever it was, I'm thinking now of not eating this salsa at all, but keeping it as a sacred memento of the pain I endured to create it.

Or...I could let my husband crack open the jar and enjoy it with some chips tonight.