An odd couple.

+ =I love summer. It includes my birthday. And while --this year, anyway-- it does not include rain, it does include two of the best things to come off the vine: tomatoes and yes, hatch chiles. The hatch season is barely a flash in the pan and by the 4th of July, whispers of the coming harvest are buzzing around. While many hoard the peppers and freeze them, I choose instead to wait patiently every year. I think this makes me appreciate the arrival of hatch season better, plus it's a good excuse to put them in every dish I can imagine while it's possible. And being as how I've also never met a chocolate I didn't like, I decided to try my hand at combining these two loves (with inspiration from a spicy brownie recipe from Serious Eats). I gotta to say, the result is a delicious treat, better than the hatch brownies at Central Market. You can thank me later:

• 5 oz. good quality dark chocolate (I used 100% cocoa baking bar from Ghiradelli), broken into pieces (also, you can substitute 1 oz. chocolate bar with 3 tablespoons cocoa powder+1 tbsp. oil, although I'm not sure you'll get the same fudgy consistency)
• 10 tbsp butter, plus a lil more for greasing
• 2 tbsp hatch chile, raw, seeded and ground (I used the hot variety. If the batter tastes a bit too spicy, that's fine, some of the heat bakes off)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (this will set a nice background flavor profile for your hatch to take stage)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate with chiles, cinnamon and salt. Stir regularly and be careful not to burn your chocolate!
3) Grease a 9"x9" pan.
4) In mixing bowl, combined melted chocolate mix with sugar. Add eggs. When it's smooth, fold in the flour.
5) Transfer to pan and bake approx. 40 minutes.
6) For the best result, let your brownies "rest" at room temperature for several hours/overnight, before cutting. And devouring.

A real prize winner.

I don't like New Year's Resolutions. This is because once I'm told not to do something, I have no choice but to do it. Call this a personality flaw. Call it rebellious. Whatever. Instead, I opt for New Year's Bonuses. These are things I take on to make my life better. Last year I started sponsoring a little girl in Guatemala to go to school. The year before that I started drinking at least 32 ounces of water daily. This year PB and I started making a trip to the Farmer's Market every Saturday. Our challenge is cooking one dinner per week made exclusively from local vendors. It's been a fun learning experience coming up with our own recipes unique to what is local and in season here in Central Texas.

Last week I made the trip solo and got there less than an hour before closing. The guys at San Miguel Seafood hooked me up in a big way...I was hoping for a couple nice filets, but they were out of absolutely everything except whole fish. I was hesitant but they offered me a 2 lb., 11 oz. Red Snapper for only 10 bucks. Can't say no to the end-of-day deals.

At any rate, I also snatched up some mustard greens and baby collards before heading out. I felt pretty great with my giant fish in his ziplock bag and was instantly transported to being a kid at the State Fair of Texas. And folks, the State Fair is a big effing deal here in Texas....

I remember this one time, maybe I was eight or nine, and our family went to the State Fair. In the game area, I became absolutely obsessed (in only the way a child can really, truly, obsess) with winning this giant, plush, stuffed Coca-Cola can (scarily successful marketing). I'll never remember what the game was, but that I played it incessantly for more than hour. I used all my money just trying for enough tickets to get that stupid plush Coca-Cola can. At the end, I had enough to get some crappy consolation prize. Whatever it was, it was small and worthless compared to what I had been trying for. The Fair was closing down and I was dejected. At that moment, I probably should have learned that no matter how hard we try, we don't always get a good deal. But instead, I felt small and insignificant. I felt I'd been cheated and taken advantage of...the man running the game got all my money, after all!

I walked away and Mom asked me how my game went. I explained to her my disappointment. For the record, neither my Mom nor Dad were ever "helicopter" parents: instead, they fostered some serious independence and free-thinking in all of us. So I was surprised when my Mom turned around, marched over to the game booth and made a case for me. I watched within earshot as Mom asked this goober if it would really hurt anything for me to trade out my little toy with the big one I really wanted and had worked so hard to win. He flatly replied "no," and that is pretty much where things ended...although in my fantasy world, Mom decks the guy in the face.

...Anyway, back at the Farmers' Market, I felt my giant fish needed a name. After all, people were staring at the two of us together. I called him Barney. PB and I read up on cooking Barney whole, with his head intact. We rubbed him in olive oil, sea salt, and cracked pepper, and stuffed him with fresh tarragon and sliced dancing tangerines. Yes, Barney was absolutely delicious. We sat outside on the deck with wine, enjoying our good fortune.

As I savored our prize winning fish, I thought back to that day at the State Fair. I remembered that life isn't always fair, it isn't always nice. That some people think everything is black and white. That "rules is rules." But I also learned family will fight the good fight for you.

And some twenty years and a few hundred miles south, I learned that sometimes your very best efforts really can go rewarded.

A gobble-gobble-gobble and a ho-ho-ho!

Christmas. I have mixed feelings about this holiday. OK, maybe they're not so mixed: basically, I see this day as entirely inferior to Thanksgiving. You know how sociologists talk about "white guilt"?-- as a Liberal Arts educated kiddo in Austin, I no doubt suffer from it-- well I'd like to talk right now about Thanksgiving guilt. I actually feel burdened by the fact that the rest of the world does not have Thanksgiving. It is positively troubling. We are endlessly fortunate to have one day a year that entails the following:

• Gluttonous food, heavily focused on carbs, fat, and sugar
• A guaranteed four-day weekend
• Copious amounts of alcohol
• Family, friends, and football (American)
• No stressful gifting

But anyhow, this is supposed to be a Christmas post...On the 23rd, PB and I had some friends over to his place for a traditional -English- Christmas dinner. I ate parsnips for the first time. Thumbs up. We made a trip to the Farmer's Market to get all the good vegetables, and of course some duck bacon for the roasted brussel sprouts (shout out again to the Kocurek Family Charcuterie!) Got a small turkey from a farm in Waco (via Whole Foods).

About the turkey: at Thanksgiving, my sister prepared the most heavenly turkey. Well, heavenly for us, not so much the bird. On second thought, maybe heavenly for the bird, assuming he was a good little guy. Anyhow, PB followed her recipe to the T and wow! Success! I was charged with roasting vegetables and making a goat cheese cake (with ginger snap pecan crust and lemon pumpkin topping-- not to brag or anything)

Anyway. The turkey had to bathe in brine for about 12 hours. We needed a very large bucket for this task. Between the two of us, we did not have a very large bucket. At least one *not* covered in paint. I was midway through cheesecake and just about to offer up a quick trip to Home Depot for a new bucket, when I looked over and there was PB: removing the vegetable crisper drawer from his fridge. For reasons unbeknown-st to me, the glass top has always been missing from that section of his fridge. Without blinking, he triumphantly declared he would simply put the brine and turkey in the drawer and return it to the refrigerator. It was one of those moments in the relationship when you think to yourself, "Wait a second. This is my boyfriend, right?" I watched with relative horror as in went a 9 pound turkey, a gallon of ice water, and a gallon of salty brine, with the greatest, most ginger of care (of course).

...But then again, we all have our "things." We clip our nails in the bathtub. We wear the same socks for eight days straight. We drink our milk over ice. We know every word to Big Trouble in Little China. We brine turkeys in vegetable crispers.

Blessedly, we also create love for each other despite it all, despite the oddities and warts. And if that isn't the spirit of the season, by golly, I don't know what is.

Cheese?

If you know me, you know I love cheese. Plain and simple. I almost congratulated myself this morning for having gone four days without cheese, until I realized I made baked feta for dinner last night. Meh.

So this being Texas, what more popular cheese dish than queso? On Friday, had some gal pals (yes, I channeled my mother just then) over for dinner at the house. With our sweet potato enchiladas and guacamole, we just had to have queso. Which means Velveeta entered my house. Shameful, I know...but it melts so well!

Here's the scary thing: ever try to find Velveeta in your neighborhood grocery store? Yeah, good luck with that. I spent no less than 18 minutes prowling the aisles in search of that yellow box. Because really, where do you look for the stuff? It's not really cheese, so it's not in the dairy aisle. Canned vegetables? Pasta? Condiments? Just what the hell IS it?

Think about it: anything that says "Pastuerized Cheese Food Product" on the box is not your friend. You should never EVER have to specify on the label that a product is indeed food.

Finally, in total exasperation I found an employee and inquired about my precious Velveeta. Apparently, it's housed on an end cap. All by itself. At the end of the toy aisle. Yes: TOY AISLE.

Yup. Behold a "food product" so unclassifiable, so inexplicable it stands alone, save the Limited Edition Malibu Barbie.

Bon appetit!

Recap.

Yes, I've slacked off for the past week. Frankly, life has just been too much fun for blogging. Kidding! Nothing is better than this sweet, sweet piece of cyberspace right here. Anyway, here's the weekend highlights:

• Went to The Highball with my [visiting for one-night-only] brother and friends. Had a great time...pros: excellent cocktails and food, cons: too many hipsters and apparently I suck at bowling.
• Saturday farmer's market made for a lovely brunch spread. I made: mini zucchini-leek frittatas, rosemary new potatoes, Fredericksburg peaches with [made from scratch] whipped cream, and sliced up some early girl tomatoes. P.S. Kocurek Family Charcuterie makes outtathisworld Czech style bacon.
• The game Twister is much smaller than I recall...seriously, don't you remember struggling to reach right hand red? Turns out, the damn thing isn't much bigger than a postage stamp.
• Best weekend discovery? Pudding shots. Yes, you read that correctly.
• South Congress Cafe has the best bloody mary in town. Hands down.
• 80s dance parties never get old. NEVER.

Sadly, I'm now grounded until Friday...all this playing meant absolutely zero studying got finished. Which leaves me shackled to 250 painful pages of reading about Czech politics circa 1968, before class...tomorrow.