The Lure of Big Jim

A lecturer on vegetables during Garden Day at the community college told the class that it was too late to plant chili seeds. "Get them in before March 15^th or it's too late."

 "What?' I asked, alarmed. "What if I get them planted this week?" (It was April 2.)

 "It's over for them."

I don't think she understood the cruelty of her remark. She is a no-nonsense upstate second-generation farmer, who wanted nothing to do with fancy seeds, like heirlooms or, horrors, those from New Mexico. On the other hand, why am I so worried?

Green chilies, specifically Numex 6 and Big Jim, may be the primary reason why I'm leaving New York. Michael introduced me to them 25 years ago on my first trip out to Albuquerque, where he grew up. Duran's, a drugstore, across from Old Town, served a cheeseburger graced with green chili -- spicy, slightly sweet, with a subtle sweaty undertone. It grows on you. Eventually everyone becomes addicted. Sometimes people overdose. (My daughter who moved out West with her husband and kids years ago was a major addict but recently and unexpectedly has switched over to red. She sent me a recipe yesterday that was obviously intended to undermine my faith!) 

I started my first vegetable garden up here nearly 10 years ago with the intention of growing the basics for my favorite dish -- eggplant Parmesan. I had previously identified the perfect eggplant -- Rosa Bianca -- at the Union Square greenmarket, which is about four blocks from our New York apartment. You slice this oval, beautifully tinted lavender fruit into pretty thick rounds, coat it with flour and parm and sauté it first before you bake it layered between homemade tomato sauce, cremini mushrooms, and fresh mozzarella. When it's cooked through (and that's important!) the eggplant comes out tasting like thick custard, and everything else is dense, gooey and fabulous.

So I planted this eggplant and its pals San Marzano tomatoes and basil, and tossed in a cast of boring extras -- beans, cucumbers, squash and other WASP vegetables that my farmer lecturer would approve of. That first summer the beans turned to rust, and after one salad I let the cucumbers bulge and rot, because I didn't know what else to do with them. But the tomatoes and eggplant and basil thrived. My landlord Dave and I bought a freezer together, and I loaded one side with tomato sauce and grilled eggplant, ready for winter.

Encouraged by the egg-parm success, I introduced green chilies a couple years later. I bought the seed from Chimayo, New Mexico, a small town north of Albuquerque, which has its own eponymous chili and is known for a church that has a pit inside filled with miracle-established sacred soil that is sold by the teaspoonful. I bought a tiny box of it along with a couple of green chili packets, added them to my garden plan for the season, and, although not expecting much, by August, the miracle had worked. There they were, long, shiny, and green, dangling like jewelry and nearly invisible underneath the green shiny leaves that they closely matched. The first thrill every August is this discovery.

The second is grilling them on the Weber in the yard behind the barn, watching them char, then shoving them into brown paper bags, where they cool a little and their skins loosen up. Sitting like an old dog in the late summer grass, I flay the chilies and pile them up in steel bowls, ready for freezing.

The third and ongoing thrill is using them: The fattest ones are doomed for a pseudo chili relleno, stuffed with cheese, lathered with a batter, and baked for an hour. The thinner chilies are typically chopped and cooked with onions, garlic, and chicken stock. I might just freeze this mix, or put it in the processor with roasted tomatillos and cilantro (both growing in the garden) and mush it all together for salsa verde. This serves as a base for almost everything I cook over the winter. It goes into pasta sauces, mayonnaise for sandwiches, marinades for any kind of meat, and it cheers up soups and stews I am also planting cucumbers again for making sweet spicy pickles with raw chilies. Last year I threw soaked apple wood into the weber and smoked the chilies, which processed into a subtle chipotle. If I could put green chili into deserts I would.

I can't always count on the heat of the green chili, so I also plant two serranos, which emerge as tiny hot green thumbs early in the season. They have a neutral flavor and reliable spiciness, so I can throw them in with the New Mexico chili sauce to boost heat if I need to. And at the end of the summer, when the serranos turn red, I roast and process them by themselves with turmeric, cilantro, ancho chili powder, cumin, garlic, and a thick tomato base to make a phony harissa. Note to daughter: this does not predict any movement in my belief system to the red state. Serranos are no substitutes for the Numex 6 and the Big Jim. Nothing is.

I still buy my seeds from an online site located in Chimayo. Unfortunately, no one else grows New Mexico chilies around here, so if my plants don't make it, I won't even be able to buy the final produce in local farmers markets or even in the Ur-Market in Union Square. I don't know why I’m worrying. I'm a victim of upstate expertise, even against my own experience. The farmer down the road who nurses my new plants every spring in his green house never gets the seed in until April. One year, a chipmunk broke in and ate every one of the green chili plantlings, and he had to replant them again in early May. Even then the chilies still grew, although a lesser crop. But if the lecturer is right and "It's over for the peppers", then I guess we'll be forced to move to New Mexico.  Although I planted some Italian broccoli and cauliflower last year that were pretty great...And then there's a new kind of eggplant and Mosque de Provence pumpkin, which lends itself to all kinds of variations on its theme..We'll probably stay here even if Big Jim betrays me this season.