Pimientos de Padrón

Eastside Road, July 26, 2010—

I FORGOT TO PHOTOGRAPH them; sorry. Do a Google Images search for "pimientos de padrón"; I'm sure you'll find lots of photos. You may find sources for them, too. We got ours in Berkeley last week, at The Spanish Table, one of my favorite stores.

I've been looking for them for a while, because I was thinking of maybe setting out a few plants — apparently it's not that easy to get plants, though seeds come on the market, The Spanish Table told me, in season. Season, of course, is the key. We first tasted these delicious peppers in Spain, but for all their trips to Spain, T and E never encountered them: they were there out of season.

The peppers are famous for their unpredictability. Most are not particularly piquant, but now and then one'll be noticeably "hot." The trick is, you fry them in hot olive oil (just not quite smoking), letting them char almost brown but not quite, and you sprinkle them with coarse salt, and maybe you have a cold beer or a glass of Fino with them.

Also on the menu tonight, fusilli with little cherry tomatoes, crushed anchovies, and crushed garlic; then the green salad. We'll have bowls of mulberries a little later: our tree's generous this year.

Pomegranate juice with sparkling water