Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

The season for hot lips

 by Julie Carter

I could smell the sharp, toasted aroma as it wafted through my window. Much like the smell of cedar smoke in the air on a cold winter morning, this scent quickly brought feelings of comfort and home.

Not the cooler weather, not the turning leaves, not the pumpkin patch promotions, not the Christmas decorations already in the garden center, not the election junk mail – none of those things catch my attention as a marker for the coming of fall like the smell of roasting chiles.

Icon of the Southwest, the chile is meeting its maker as tons of them roll through drums with a high flame roasting them with every round.

I love small towns and their traditions and I love that many of them still have old neighborhoods that haven’t lost track of what is important – chile roasting and porch  sitting.

This time of year offers up both in a New Mexican Currier and Ives, or perhaps Currier and Chile, sort of way. Even the tiniest, oldest home on the street has a few chairs or an old couch in place out front for some serious, dedicated porch sitting.

These people still have a hold on the enjoyment of a simple life without high tech, high speed and high noise. But you won’t notice them from the highway as you pass through at the speed of sound. However, they are there --tucked along the side streets, back streets and shaded neighborhoods.

They just sit. Sometimes they sit alone and watch a little traffic, or sometimes they gather with family and friends. Kids are playing ball and frequently chase it into the street, unaffected by the fact it is a street, albeit a quiet one.

They always offer a friendly wave when you drive by, but without missing a beat of their conversation or interruption to their quiet gaze off into the summer evening.

It’s my belief the world needs to do a little more porch sittin’. Not the fancy patio kind with a feng shui design, but the kind where nobody on the porch knows what feng shui is.

When the guy next door is roasting chiles and the smell entices you to saunter by, you don’t mind pulling up a remnant1950s kitchen chair and keeping him company. While you visit, he turns the handle on the drum -- toasting, roasting and cooking a bushel of fresh-picked chile.

If the splendiferous aroma doesn’t send your taste buds into overdrive, the fresh flour tortillas that inevitably arrive soon after, will.

Peeling a hot, freshly roasted chile and laying it on a homemade tortilla, sprinkling it with a little salt before rolling it up and biting into it, rates right up there with the ultimate utopian moment.

Just one piece of advice to the gringo set. Always ask first if the chile is a batch of hot or mild. Once the acute burn begins and the capsaicin from the chile begins to numb, it’s a little hard to carry on an intelligent conversation except to gasp and run for something to drink.

Moreover, when the chile guy is ever so amused, he will take advantage of your weakened state to make some sarcastic quip about a new name for you.

This moment truly gives new dimension to the moniker “Hot Lips.”

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.