A food pilgrimage, like heading to the Meccas in DenCO (aka known as Green Chile stands in Denver, Colorado), which sprout up on Federal Boulevard and usually allow for patronage though the month of September,
like in music, and religion, is a long journey or search of great moral significance. The great thing about a food pilgrimage is that delicious meals are guaranteed to come of your campaign, both during…(Pho for breakfast!)…and once you bring your booty home, cyrovac’d by trained professionals.

Reminded that it is now Fall and faced with the geographic dilemma of living in Santa Barbara (no leaves don’t change here), where not only is our county dry as compared to say Boulder, CO (I mean as far as Anaheim or Hatch Green Chile are concerned), Dan and I mulled over a number of options of how we were going to score Green Chile (GC) this year. Last year we tapped one of our favorite Uncles living near the source in New Mexico, who magically turned two Liters of Walnut Oil into a box of Hatch Green Chiles on our front porch. We were thankful for that box last year, but it seems to only have compounded our addiction as this year our GC plans ballooned into a pilgrimage of a slightly different magnitude.

We discussed a special road trip. Then maybe a flight followed by a road trip back. In the end we settled on sending one representative, via a Canada Regional Jet to purchase, peel, bag, and return with as much GC as allowed by TSA.

So what is that measure? How many peppers are we talking about? Or better yet, how will one know when they are standing at Mecca how much to ask for? Best to send the representative who can speak in “bushels” not “pounds” and certainly not “Liters”. But wait, what the Hell is a Bushel? To which you and I can now reply with its many equivalents:

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Quality salmon and a pile of mangoes can mean only one thing: Ceviche!  There are a lot of ways to make ceviche – this is the way that has been handed down to me by my father.  As a kid, I hated when he made this, because it used up all of the perfectly ripe mangoes he’d been hoarding and mixed them with raw fish and lime juice, rendering them inedible.  The dish hasn’t changed, but I have: this is now one of my all-time favorites.

The basics of ceviche:  raw salmon and onions cured in lime juice with a few diced mangoes, some bell peppers, and cilantro, topped with popcorn.  Yep, popcorn.

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Anything with coffee gets me going. Add chocolate and you are tapping a high density of dopamine… Combine these two ingredients with Guinness, butter, and sugar to create an Octo-choco cake …Well then you are asking for a late night Twin Peaks marathon.

I can’t shut up about this cake. First, I am no not a baker, nor am I a “chocolate cake guy”, especially not in the sense that our favorite Polish-American roommate is (let me stress the Polish here…the dude keeps a jar of nutella under his pillow). That said, take a Chinese-American who dedicated a childhood to obsessively studying cake decorating and let her go sick on a pound of chocolate and you start to understand my obsession.

About all I can say for my contribution here is the outstanding coffee ( Alegra Sumatra medium-roast), Uta takes the cake here. Enjoy the pictures, and remember I got to eat this beauty.

Every now and again a meal changes – fundamentally – the way we think about cooking. This meal is one of those. This simple chicken dish, adapted from Ad Hoc at Home so thoroughly blew us away that it took us a few days to be able to move on to a new topic of conversation.

It’s a pretty simple idea, really, just some chicken, sausage, and grilled peppers in a RFCS base.

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I am a firm believer that one great meal should follow another.  And nothing plays the supporting role better than a dope breakfast after a dinner of “barely legal pork-belly” (stay tuned for upcoming post). Be it a breakfast burrito with some of Satan’s Hellfire Green Chile (shout out to the Budros Gali and Andrew), or since  we are celebrating the local -Boomer -season here in Santa Barbara let it be Chanterelles and eggs (and lots of butter). It is just that simple, 3 ingredients, (OK 4,because we do count good black coffee) eggs, butter, and “the Champagne of mushrooms”.

I like to serve the eggs “fluffy scrambled” (that means I add whole milk or even heavy cream mmmm.) accompanied by a crustee french baguette, and let’s be honest the eggs are really a vehicle for delivering your favorite hot sauce (ours being The Blue Sky Cafe’s very own blend of peppers) so enjoy your Sunday with what Uta has proclaimed as her Best Western Breakee.

In celebration of a great man turning 60 years young, I would like to acknowledge the idea of what he calls his “Birthday Month”.

As part of Tony’s HBM, he has already been to Females On Fire, his daughter’s 5 course, 5 wines, and 5 chefs, event to support Women in the culinary arts and in this Foodie-spirit of Birthday-month I am posting 3 Tony Lucero original recipes that have been a serious thread in my life and that I think my dad would be happy to share with you all.  These recipes have helped me survive grueling Colorado winters and Sunny Santa Barbara ones as well. So everyone lift a shot of Tequila and help me wish my dad a Happy Birthday Month. Cheers!

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