Hatch Chiles and Hoarding

Last week while I was in Maine with Adam's parents, just us girls (his mom, my mom, and me) went out and about in my tiny little hometown to do some shopping. We hit a lovely gift store, where I bought a fruit basket for my new kitchen, and an art gallery (so small it has no website, OMG), where Adam's mom bought some beautiful jewelry. We also stopped at my mom's happy place: The Good Life Market. She is such a loyal customer that when she walks in the door, the kid behind the counter says "Hi Suzanne! You want coffee?" and when she says "Hi Ian! Yes please!" he starts making a decaf-nonfat-extra-hot-mocha-latte-with-only-one-pump-of-chocolate-and-no-whipped-cream. WITHOUT HER HAVING TO SAY ANYTHING. Seriously, if you're in the Sebago area of Maine, get thee to the Good Life posthaste. They're great people.

ANYWAY. I got some pickles while we were there. Not just dilled and garlicked cucumbers, but pickled fiddleheads and dilly beans. I've never had dilly beans before, but I love the sound and the idea of them, so I brought them on home to Boston and stuck them in the cupboard, and thought to myself, oh, I'll just bring them out sometime when people are over and we need something to snack on. I have a bit of a thing for being prepared for these spontaneous drop-bys, don't you? Do you ever buy fig jam and overpriced crackers or some frozen mini quiches thinking, hey! how cute will this be if I just *happen* to have this on hand for when people stop by? And then nobody stops by and you end up eating them yourself when even your emergency frozen pizza is gone and you can't bear to cook? No? Just me? So fast forward to Sunday evening when a few friends had stopped by to drink some beers and combat the Sunday Night Blues. Adam asks about the dilly beans in the cupboard, all casual like: hey babe, what are these? Can I open them?

AND I PANIC. But! But! If you open them, then we'll eat them! And then they won't be around when people stop by! And then what will we do for snacks???

Luckily, this was all in my head. On the outside, I'm cool as a cucumber and I'm all suuuure babe, open up the dilly beans! Yeah! And we proceeded to eat the whole jar and they were delicious. I saved the jar, and last night I put some more blanched green beans in the pickling liquid, added a bit more vinegar and some of the blanching water, and stuck it back in the fridge. I tasted one tonight - they're just as good, crunchier even. I think I've proved that you can have your pickle, and eat it too.

Which brings me to the entire point of this post (my, I CAN ramble, can't I?). I bought some hatch green chilies from New Mexico today. I do not know what to do with them. I roasted them under my broiler, a-like so:

They're currently in the freezer on a cookie sheet, and in a minute I'm going to put them in a bag so they're ready to go later in the year*. We did eat one tonight, and I sooort of get what all the fuss is about: they're smoky from the roasting and flavorful with a little bit of kick but not too much. So now I'll just have to decide what to do with them the next time people stop by. I'm partial to these chiles rellenos from Use Real Butter, or this green chile cornbread from Simply Recipes. And there are a lot of green chile stew recipes out there, too... So school me, people. What's the best way to use these puppies?

*Speaking of putting up summer's bounty for use later in the year, have you joined the Canvolution yet? Adam and I are signed up and psyched to be a part of the Somerville event happening on the 30th.

And now it's Tuesday.

This weekend I went to Maine. I've shown you my parent's house before, back in July, but this time it was girls only. And it rained..... all weekend.

Except Saturday morning, before we took off on a shopping extravaganza in Freeport, which is when I went out and took some photos. Isn't this stone duckling sort of creepy?

The people who owned this house before my parents were really into ornamental fountain grasses, which is cool because look at the neat colors they turn in the fall!

Saturday night we went out for dinner, my mom, Alyse, mom's friend Barb and Barb's daughter Christy, and me. We went to the Frog and Turtle.

We had a 7pm reservation, and we didn't leave until 10:30. People, if you are in southern Maine and you want some damn delicious food in a relaxed and cozy spot, you could not do better than F&T.

We started with a cheese and charcuterie plate with house cured pickles, and moved on to mussels and salads and rabbit tart and crepes with ratatuoille and meatballs served stroganoff style and cheesecake. Yum. And man, did we have FUN.

I've got no recipe (again) today; I've actually spent most of the day on the couch after spending yesterday sneezing all over my cubicle. You know how you lose your appetite when you have a cold? Yeah, sorry about that. I'll be back to the kitchen soon enough, but in the meantime, have a good week, everyone.

Big sigh, the weekend is here

Well, friends, it's finally Friday. It's been quite a week, hasn't it? Lots of crazy things happening in the news, fall weather making its first appearance, me RESISTING going to the Farmer's Market ALL WEEK.

The reason I haven't bought any veggies this week is twofold: I bought some at the SoWa market on Sunday, and I'm not going to be around this weekend. I'll be going up to Maine tonight with an old friend to hang out with my mom and enjoy the many outlet shops of Freeport. We're trying a new restaurant in Westbrook on Saturday night, so there won't be quite the same level of feasting as my last trip to Maine, but I'm sure I'll have plenty to share next week.

Until then, please enjoy this pictures of the most bizarre of the family Brassicaceae, the Romanesco. Some people call it cauliflower, some people call it broccoli, everyone agrees it's fractal and awesome. If you're in the northeast, try to stay dry this weekend. It's going to be very good soup weather! Have a good weekend, everyone.

On Tuesday I made a mistake.

I went to the grocery store without a list on Tuesday. As I left work I was thinking of the greens in the fridge and how I'd better have a salad since they are probably not going to be good for too long This is as bad as, if not worse than, going to the grocery store hungry. Everything looks so gosh darn tempting! Over in produce I fell victim to the siren song of a cute potato, which I boiled up and made into my second attempt at this delicious potato focaccia. Of course, that meant that I had to buy a sleeve of overpriced but smokey-yummy cherry tomatoes. (Quel bummer, non?)

While I wander my way through the oh-so-narrow aisles, my mind almost always races. What recipes have I read this week that sound wonderful? What foods have I been mulling over trying to think of a way to transform them? What on earth is in my tiny cupboard at home? What's in the fridge? Anyway, with all these swirling thoughts and wonderful recipes bouncing around, you probably think I ate something shockingly complex for dinner, right? Nope:

I had an avocado for dinner. One of my favorite things to do in the kitchen is open and pit an avocado. There is something very satisfying an primal about the thwack! of the knife into the pit, and when you twist to remove it you get this beautiful creamy green cup. So I filled it up with Balsamic vinegar, sprinkled it with my new no-excuses salt, and dug in with my trusty spoon. In the end, all that was left in the bowl was a pair of little leathery boats.