Whole Foods Has Roasted Chiles

At least at the Pearl Street store. They are $2.99 a pound, come in rather large containers in the refrigerated section in the produce department, and freeze well to use across the winter, so long as you lay them flat in the bag rather than letting them get balled up. Instead of Hatch NM chiles, this year Whole Foods is going with ones from Pueblo, calling them "local." For truly local, I'm looking forward to the ones Full Circle Farm will hopefully be roasting soon at the Boulder Farmers' Market. Those also have the advantage of being identified by chile type, unlike the ones at Whole Foods that were simply tagged "mild" or not indicated at all. I love to play with the differences between Big Jims, the ever unpredictable heat of mild to hot Sandias, and those diabolical Dynamites.

Green Chile Roasting Coming Soon

It seems a bit premature (although we are almost into August), but the Whole Foods on Pearl Street has already rolled its chile roaster out to the garden area, with a big sign that green chile roasting season is coming soon. Also that they will be closer to local this year, coming from Pueblo rather than Hatch, NM. I knew I already needed to work on the remainder from last year's season, still in my freezer, and had already scheduled a corn and green chile chowder for this weekend, working in the first of Munson's local corn for this year as well. But it looks like I need to speed up using up the remainder...

Chile Pepper Update

Frequent readers of this blog (thank you!) know I'm a bit fanatical about freshly roasted chiles, and look forward to their summer arrival almost as much as I look forward to Munson's corn. A cult seems to have developed around Hatch chiles from New Mexico, but there are many other options, including some very local organic ones that get roasted right in front of you at the Boulder Farmers' Market a little later in the season. I was disappointed to find that Whole Foods jumped the gun, advertising on an outside board that they'd be roasting first of the season Hatch chiles last weekend when in fact they weren't able to get them, but I noticed that Lucky's in Longmont had a roaster outside yesterday with a sign that they were already roasting, probably the chiles from Pueblo they were advertising last week. Heavy rains are evidently slowing the Hatch crop, as this is the latest from Whole Foods (and the hype regarding Hatch is a bit annoying, considering there are other options):

Hatch Chile Peppers

It's time to get your hatch on. At least it's almost time. Hatch chiles, famous in this area and around the globe, are now in season! Excessive rains in New Mexico have soaked the fields, keeping farmers from harvesting them all at once. The result? These little guys are even more coveted than usual and will arrive later this week. We'll waste no time getting them into the roasters, upon their arrival.

Chile Festival Tomorrow

The Pearl Street Whole Foods store will celebrate my favorite Hatch green chiles with a festival tomorrow, the 27th. Sounds fun, but the thing I'm really waiting for is Full Circle Farm bringing their roaster to the Boulder Farmers' Market. When I talked with them a bit ago, they expected to start roasting the first Saturday in September, but maybe we'll get lucky with them tomorrow. Not only are their chiles organic (although chiles are natural bug repellents anyway), but Full Circle also identifies them by type of chile, like Big Jim or Sandia, in addition to their heat. With the grocery stores, you're lucky if you even get a designation of mild, medium, or hot. Anyway, here's what the Pearl Street store says about tomorrow's festival (now if they could just spell chile correctly):

Saturday, August 27th

Hatch Chile Festival
12 noon - 6 pm

Regional favorite Hatch Green Chili season is here!

Today's festivities include:

-Live Music

-Corn Hole for prizes!

-Hatch Green Chili Inspired demos!

-Hatch Green Chili Meal Deal!