The smell of autumn is in the air...

Growing up, I fondly remember the smell of autumn in the air. In New Mexico it means the first crisp morning where you wake up and feel a slight chill as you gather the blankets around your body. Where the smell of wood burning fireplaces permeate the air. Pretty soon the leaves are changing color in the bosque - the cottonwoods and aspens turning shades of yellow and orange. Walking into restaurants and coffee houses you can smell the baked goods wafting cinnamon, vanilla and anise through the air. Fresh apples and school supplies line the aisles of the grocery store. One holiday blends into another and with it, the smells.

But one of my favorite memories growing up was my grandparents traveling to Hatch or Escondido, NM to purchase burlap sack upon burlap sack of green and red chile. For those of you not familiar with the Land of Enchantment, chile is a religion. No seriously. We don't joke about these things. In fact, the state question is "red or green?" Peeling roasted chile was a family event. Aunts, uncles, cousins - everybody showed up at the Martinez Household to sit around the yellow and chrome vintage kitchen table....and peel....and peel...and peel. But part of the fun was sitting around, cracking jokes, watching the kids run around. These are the things that you don't appreciate at the time. It was not until later that I realized how much these memories would mean to me. After I moved away to college and later to Dallas, my grandparents would still send me bags of frozen green chile. Even after the deaths of both my grandparents, the smell of freshly roasted chile still takes me back to their kitchen.

Once a year, in August, one of our local grocery stores hosts a Hatch Green Chile Festival. Eric and I take this opportunity to go and sample some of the tasty treats on display. And to buy green chile of course! However, we may have been overly ambitious this year. We purchased an entire bushel of roasted HOT green chile. It was only after we got home and sectioned our culinary gold into freezer bags, and after we sampled the fire, that we realized we may have gotten way over our heads!

Liam could hardly contain his excitement!

Eric and I spent way too much time inhaling the heavenly smell of roasted chile.

Our 15lbs of green chile. Unfortunately our freezer doesn't have much room for anything else. If you are in the neighborhood one night, feel free to drop by for green chile cheeseburgers, green chile and sausage pizza, green chile breakfast burritos, green chile chicken enchiladas, chiptole green chile chicken....I think you get the point. So while we are still quite aways from waking up to the crisp mornings, for now I do believe fall is in the air.