{"id":65714,"date":"2019-07-11T15:39:55","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T21:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/shishito-peppers-a-summer-delicacy-available-at-your-farmers-market\/"},"modified":"2019-07-11T21:39:55","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T21:39:55","slug":"shishito-peppers-a-summer-delicacy-available-at-your-farmers-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/shishito-peppers-a-summer-delicacy-available-at-your-farmers-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Shishito peppers: A summer delicacy available at your farmers market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Shishito
Shishito peppers are quick and simple to prepare and also delicious doused in olive oil and salt and singed under high heat.<\/span>Rachel Turiel\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

My 14-year-old son Col is searching for a new mountain bike and I\u2019m a bit boggled by his stringent requirements.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not really sure what disc brakes are or why someone would want to propel themselves down a steep, curvy, rock-strewn path while applying them. When I showed Col some suitable mountain bikes I\u2019d located on Craigslist, he looked at me with kind sympathy, as if something was lost in translation and I had pulled up prom dresses for sale.<\/p>\n

Our passions don\u2019t overlap much. To be clear, I am the one inhaling the perfumed scent of June lupines lining the trail; he is the one barreling down it.<\/p>\n

Like much of Durango, you may get up at 4 a.m. in August to climb some lightning-wreathed Fourteener; I will devote similar hours to squeezing a gallon of juice out of three times as many chokecherries so we can have crimson syrup on December\u2019s pancakes. Sometimes, I wonder what it\u2019d be like to feel more casual about seasonal food. Like, \u201cOh, tomatoes? Yeah, sometimes they all ripen, sometimes not, no biggie.\u201d And then I\u2019d skip off to do something fun and frivolous, something lost on people who stake their well-being on several hundred red fruits ripening.<\/p>\n

Instead, come September, I\u2019m pacing the garden, seeing each crimson orb as a future indispensable player on the field of roasted tomato sauce.<\/p>\n

But, I love how the urgency of seasonal ripeness grounds me in work so vital and immediate; how a speck of seed nurtured with water, sun and soil becomes life-giving nutrition; how the very caloric abundance of seasonal food brings out my most generous self, i.e., if you come to visit in June, you will leave with a bag of arugula.<\/p>\n

\"Because
Because each plant produces continuously from late June through the first frost and are picked small, shishito peppers make financial sense for a farmer in Southwest Colorado.<\/span>Rachel Turiel\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

And now that summer has arrived like that guest for whom we\u2019ve been anxiously awaiting at the proverbial window of seasonal change, I am thinking about shishito peppers. I am remembering how I scoop shiny, finger-long peppers into bags at Saturday\u2019s farmers market, and how by Tuesday I am again deficient in shishitos. I\u2019m remembering the way their green skin blisters under searing heat, unlocking a soft sweetness that lands on your tongue as a verb between crunch and melt. The way they are not a condiment, not a meal, but occupy some crucial middle ground.<\/p>\n

This little East Asian variety of capsicum annum has rocketed to a certain vegetal celebrity status in the past decade. Maybe it\u2019s because they are so quick and simple to prepare; maybe it\u2019s that they\u2019re uncommonly delicious doused in olive oil and salt and singed under high heat. Maybe it\u2019s because there is something magical about eating something at peak freshness in season: Under that sweet, green punch is the taste of impermanence.<\/p>\n

Linley Dixon, who runs Adobe House Farms in Durango, has been growing shishitos for five years. Dixon appreciates that shishitos grow quickly in our short season and that her daughter \u201ceats them like crazy.\u201d Shishitos are generally not spicy, though the conventional wisdom is that one in 10 can have a bit of heat. These peppers are, however, high in Vitamin C.<\/p>\n

Because each plant produces continuously from late June through the first frost and are picked small, they make financial sense for a farmer in our climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re an awesome delicacy that works well for us,\u201d says Dixon, whose farm produces just 10 crops. \u201cBuying shishitos is a great way to support farmers, instead of demanding red bell peppers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red bell peppers require a much longer growing season and each plant puts out a fraction of the amount of fruit as shishitos. Because of our cool, wet spring, Dixon says that this year\u2019s shishitos are a bit behind; look for them at the market now.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much to obsess about in a Colorado summer. There are peaks to climb, trails to ride and fruit to pick. There are white-crowned sparrows to spot in the alpine willows, as if migrating 1,500 miles biannually were no big deal. There\u2019s the sweet and time-sensitive pleasure of gathering in the evenings with friends, deliciously jacket-less as the sun cashes out on another day. And there\u2019s the ordinary miracle of food spilling from this beloved Earth.<\/p>\n

Col still hasn\u2019t found a mountain bike, but I have 20 shishito pepper plants in the ground; I trust we will both feast this summer.<\/p>\n

Linley Dixon\u2019s Shishito Peppers<\/em>Ingredients:<\/em>Shishito peppers<\/em>Olive oil<\/em>High quality salt<\/em>Optional:<\/em>James Ranch belford cheese<\/em>Lemon<\/em>Sesame oil<\/em>Method:<\/em>Heat a splash of olive oil in a wide saut\u00e9 pan, cast iron or skillet over medium-high heat until it\u2019s good and hot but not smoking. Add peppers. It\u2019s fine to leave the stems on, so once cooked, you can grab peppers by the stems and eat with your fingers.<\/p>\n

Stir every 2-3 minutes until peppers are blistered and starting to brown in spots, then toss them with salt and remove from heat.<\/p>\n

If desired, once they come off the heat, add a squeeze of citrus, dash of sesame oil and grated cheese.<\/p>\n

Source:<\/em> Linley Dixon of Adobe House farms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

shishito peppers pack flavor and can be found locally<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,438],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-food"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65714"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}