Chili with an accent over teh i

As another person pointed out, the Spanish word is "chile", NOT "chili".
Note that "chile" does not have an accent on it anywhere. That's true
whether you're talking about a chile pepper or the country Chile. That
means that:

(a) If you were to write "chíle", you'd be wrong for putting an accent where
it's not needed. The first "i" already has emphasis in this word, and
putting an accent on it would be redundant.

(b) If you were to write "chilí" (note the accent on the second "I"), you'd
be wrong on two accounts- first, spelling the word incorrectly in the first
place, and second, emphasizing the wrong syllable in the word.

In order to use the correct Spanish pronunciation of "CHEE-lay", it takes
a bit of tongue-work that we, as speakers of English, aren't used to doing.
Because of that, many persons say "CHI-lee", so persons who try to spell
phonetically tend to write "chile". Yet another of the nearly infinite
examples where trying to use phonetics to spell an English word will just
bit you in the butt!

Note, also, that there is no such thing as a "habañero" pepper, but rather
a "habanero" pepper. A classic exageration of "over-culturization".

steve