I know, I know, all I ever talk about any more is cherries, but isn’t it comforting to know that despite all the changes life can throw at you, some things remain constant? One such thing being cherry season which always comes around this time of year without fail.

I specifically get excited about sour cherry season not just because sour cherries are the most useful for doing anything with, but because it means I can once again make my yearly pilgrimage up to Cherry Tyme in Leona Valley for a day of cherry picking. For the past three years I have followed this tradition, and I don’t plan to change anything this year.

I served up this recipe for homemade maraschino cherries in a cocktail called the “The Corpse Reviver #2″ at my sisters wedding last year and it was a big hit. Since then, people haven’t quit bugging me for more info on how I make the cherries, so here’s everything I know:

Pre-Temperance Maraschino Cherries

Ingredients:

• Sour cherries with seeds and stems
• Luxardo or Maraska Brand Maraschino Liqueur
• Glass canning jars like this, or you can use the half pint sized ones which make nice gifts

Method:

1. Pick out the largest, most beautiful, firm, and intact cherries you have and rinse them thoroughly without bruising them.
2. Pack them into your jars as efficiently as possible.
3. Pour your Maraschino liqueur over the cherries until they are covered by 1/4 inch.
4. Seal the lids tightly.
5. Put them away in a cool dark place.
6. Inspect once a week for the first month or two, flipping the jars over each time you put them away.
7. If lids are bulging with pressure, loosen, and let gas escape, then re-seal (this is normal).
8. Cherries should be ready in about three months.

Notes:

• Through extensive testing I have found that the Balaton variety of sour cherries is the most suitable for this recipe. Morello would be my second choice, and Montmorency would be a distant third. I found that the Balatons were the only cherry that still looked good after a year of pickling, while the others ended up somewhat shriveled and ugly.
• I like to keep the pits and stems intact because the pits give a nice almond flavor and the stems look nice. If you don’t want them for a specific application you can remove them at that time.
• If you can’t wait three months, an expedited method is explained here.
• These cherries are delicious for eating straight, garnishing cocktails and ice cream, and even as an ice cream ingredient along with chunks of chocolate truffles. Yum!
• For more info on the history of Maraschino cherries don’t forget to read my other post “Sour Cherry Pickin’” (same link as above).

Sometimes life is like a bowl of sour cherries… but I’m not complaining!

Yes you heard me right, sour (tart) cherries are now ripe and ready for picking in the Leona Valley (just North of Los Angeles, CA near Palmdale).  SOUR cherries?? you’re probably thinking, why would I want those?  Because, let me tell you my friend, they are the way to true cherry pie bliss.

And cherry jam bliss…

and real Maraschino (pronounced “maraskino”) cherry bliss.

No, you don’t need any red #40 to make these, but you do need real Maraschino Liqueur.

I have to admit that two years ago I had never tried a sour cherry.  To be fair to myself though, most Californians haven’t.  It’s more of an East coast/European/Persian thing.  Why that is, I’m not really sure.  Maybe because sweet cherries grow so well here.

This all started when I discovered the Manhattan cocktail a few years back.  I loved this cocktail, but hated the garish garnish.  For some reason those noxious things people call “maraschino” cherries just freak me out.  I knew there must be something more.  What was the origin or inspiration for these cherries?.  A little googling around and I was on to something.

The first Maraschino cherries were cooked up somewhere on the Dalmatian coast near Croatia and Italy.  They were made from small, black, sour cherries that grow wild on the hillsides around those parts.  Their name was the Marasca cherry.  A sweet liqueur known as Maraschino had long since been distilled from the fruit, stones (pits), and leaves of these wild cherry trees, but until the 1800′s no one had ever tried to pickle the Marascas in their own liqueur.

Some years later American tourists discovered Maraschino cherries and brought jars home to share with their friends.  They were a big hit and news spread quickly.  Before long, they were all the rage in America’s finest saloons acting as garnish for delicious pre-prohibition cocktails like the Manhattan.  But, sad as it is, the salad days of the real Maraschino cherry in America were numbered.  Things changed when a guy from Oregon, with too many cherries (and chemicals) on his hands, developed a way to preserve them in a less than appetizing way.

How on Earth did these offensively colored new substitutes catch on?  I can only guess.  I’m sure the Temperance Movement didn’t help.  God forbid children should be tempted to sneak one of these liquor soaked cherries!

The new and improved “Maraschino Americano” was also incredibly cheap compared to the imported varieties, and you know how we Americans are when it comes to the cost of food.  The cheaper the better.

Yum…

Thus began my personal quest to re-create the original Maraschino cherry as closely as I could.  A google search for “sour cherries Los Angeles” yielded few results, but I finally found what I was looking for.  It was a place called Cherry Tyme Sour Cherries in the Leona Valley about an hour and a half North of Los Angeles.  Bingo, I thought!

But wait, it was August and all the sour cherries were long gone according to the pleasant lady on the phone.  I had just missed the season!  As you can imagine I was devastated, but the lady offered me one bit of consolation.  I could leave her my e-mail address and the next year they would let me know when the season opens.

Sure enough, the next July I received an e-mail stating it was “Cherry Tyme!”  I recruited my dad to go up there with me and help pick.  We came away with 13 pounds of fresh, sour cherries of three different varieties: Montmorency, Balaton, and Morello.  The Montmorency were large, pale, very sour, and extremely delicate.  I used them for my pies, and they left me with memories I won’t soon forget.  The Balatons were small, firm, dark skinned, and not quite as sour as the Montmorency.  I thought these seemed most like the wild Marasca cherries of the old country, and used them for my Maraschino cherries with great results.  It’s been a year since I put them up and they’re still firm and delicious!  The Morello cherries were medium sized, dark fleshed, sour, and very flavorful.  For some reason they were the most attractive to me.  They embody a perfect balance between the other two varieties, and I used them to make my preserves.

Pitting was a bit of a challenge without a proper cherry pitting tool, but we got pretty good with bamboo skewers after the first hundred or so.

The cherry massacre!

The fun starts tomorrow morning June 27th at Cherry Tyme in Leona Valley.  Their hours are from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm; open daily until all the cherries are gone.  Bring your own boxes!

Cherry Tyme Sour Cherries:

39913 107^th St West

Leona Valley, Ca 93551

(661) 270-0649

cherrytyme@email.com

Hope to see you there!  Recipes coming soon.

This is a straight-up, kick in the ass, try it if you dare sort of salsa. It’s also quick, simple, and surprisingly complex, thanks to the carrot and two wonderful varieties of chiles.

We almost always keep a homemade salsa around the house, and I’m not usually the one to make it.  But after finding fresh ancho chiles at the farmers market, I was inspired to try my hand at developing a signature salsa to rival Will’s.  I’ve been told that in Mexico most folks don’t put garlic in their salsas.  I have to admit that I never asked anyone while we were living down in Oaxaca, partly because I’d rather not know.  I love garlic in salsa.  I suspect that, like with most Mexican cooking, the differences are regional.  At any rate, this recipe doesn’t claim to be authentic – just delicious!

I got my ancho chiles from the fabulous Tierra Vegetables.  If you can’t find fresh, dry will work fine, but you may want to use a little extra liquid.

Spicy Smokey Chile Salsa

Ingredients
1 cup dried chile de arbol, stems removed
3 fresh ancho chiles
5 cloves garlic
1 cup vegetable stock
1 cup water
1 tbs grated raw carrot
1 tsp salt

Method
In a dry cast iron pan, roast the dried chile de arbol, stirring frequently, until they begin to darken.  Make sure to turn on the hood fan for this – the roasting chiles will be quite pungent!  Remove chiles from the pan and place them in a blender.  Place the fresh ancho chiles in the same pan and roast them until they begin to blister and soften, turning a few times so that they cook evenly.  Remove stems and place them in the blender with the chiles de arbol.  Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth.  Adjust seasoning to taste and transfer to a glass container for storage.  Makes about 2 cups.

Warning: this salsa is hot!  If you want to make it less spicy, you can remove the seeds from some of the chiles, or substitute a milder chile for the chiles de arbol.

So . . . what do all of these dishes have in common?

• crab apple blossom drops with Meyer lemon sour mix
• warmed olives with fava beans and rosemary
• nasturtium pesto
• watercress, nasturtium, and miners’ lettuce salad with pine nuts and fresh flowers
• and braised dandelion and nettle with wild mushrooms

Yep – they are all made from ingredients foraged from the Bay Area! We cheated a bit, I’ll admit, buying a few things that couldn’t be conceivably foraged, and allowing for a few other foods that could have been foraged with a lot of difficulty – i.e. pine nuts and wild mushrooms. We also admitted the fava beans that conveniently came in our most recent Eatwell Farm box.

Another admission: I’m more likely to be found “foraging” for my house keys than clipping nasturtium leaves from the backyard. But oh, what abundance awaits those who go looking through local fields and paths (and even farmers markets) for edibles.

Now, please don’t go stealing the first tomatoes from someone’s community garden plot, and don’t go eating every wild plant you can get your fingers on! Foraging should be about about finding the fascinating and nourishing foods that surround us, overlooked, every day, but it’s important to use careful judgment, both about what to eat and what to pick. Don’t eat anything you can’t positively identify (as edible!), and always leave some behind for other people, for the birds, and to allow the plant to continue thriving.

We assembled all of the dishes for a small dinner party that some friends held, and the cocktail and the nasturtium pesto were the biggest hits. I can already see a completely foraged dinner party in our future!

Crab Apple Blossom Drops

We used the delicious Hanger One from St. George Spirits, and it was well worth it.

Ingredients

• 7 oz vodka
• 1 cup crab apple blossoms (reserve enough flowers to garnish each drink)
• Rind of 1 Meyer lemon (in wide strips, pith removed)
• 3 oz lemon juice
• 3 oz simple syrup
• 3 oz triple sec
• Sugar (for rims)

Method

Place the vodka in a glass jar and add the lemon zest and flowers. Gently bruise the flowers in the vodka, cover, and allow to infuse overnight. The next day pour through a fine strainer or cheesecloth to remove flowers and lemon rind.

To assemble the drinks, coat the rim of each glass with lemon juice and dip in granulated sugar. Place infused vodka, triple sec, simple syrup and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Adjust flavors if you like, adding more simple syrup, lemon juice or vodka as your tastes dictate. Strain drink into glasses and garnish each with an edible flower. Makes six small cocktails, or twice as many shots.

Nasturtium Pesto

Ingredients

• 1 lb nasturtium leaves (or use half nasturtium leaves and half Italian parsley leaves)
• 1/2 cup good quality olive oil
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Method

Combine ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth, adding a little more olive oil if necessary. You could use a mortar and pestle, but with the nasturtium leaves, the pesto tastes better very smooth, so be prepared to grind for quite a while! Adjust seasoning to taste and use as you would traditional basil pesto.

• crab apple blossom drops with meyer’s lemon sour mix
• warmed olives with fava beans and rosemary
• nasturtium pesto
• watercress, nasturtium, and miners’ lettuce salad with pine nuts and fresh flowers
• and braised dandelion and nettle with wild mushrooms

Tonight we’ll make a shopping list, and tomorrow try to prep what we can in anticipation of Thursday. We’re hosting Thanksgiving for the first time this year, which, in an odd way, feels more like a milestone than the 30th birthday I’ll be celebrating in a few weeks. Andy’s parents will be there, as well as my mom and my stepfather Ben, Andy’s cousin, our housemate Keith, and a few good friends. In lieu of a turkey, we’re preparing a whole, wild, line caught salmon, which we plan to parchment steam and serve with a Bearnaise sauce “gravy.” On the side, we’ll have a wild rice pilaf, potatoes mashed with garlic, wasabi, and savoy cabbage, cornbread, and a salad of citrus and bitter greens.

Will is also hosting a Thanksgiving celebration this year, and he is soon to add his more classic version of a menu. We’ll both be adding recipes as we find time today and tomorrow, but for now, I’ll leave you a starter . . .

Rose’s Thanksgiving Menu

To Start

Champagne Cocktails

• Dry champagne
• Brandy
• Angostura bitters (or homemade!)
• Sugar cubes
• Unsweetened dried cherries

Plump the dried cherries in brandy at least one hour beforehand. Thread the cherries onto toothpicks (about three to a toothpick is nice – two is bad luck according to old bartending lore) making enough for all of your cocktails. Place a sugar cube in each champagne flute and moisten the sugar with a few good shakes of bitters (be careful though, you can overdo it!) Fill glasses with champagne, and garnish with the brandy soaked cherries.

• Endive boats with Roquefort and caramelized walnut – I stole the idea for these from Le Zinc, a charming little French place in Noe Valley. They make a light and tasty accompaniment to the cocktails. Simply separate the endive leaves and place a small cube of Roquefort cheese and a caramelized walnut at the white end of each.

• Curried almonds

• Fruit and cheese plate

The Feast

• Whole parchment steamed salmon stuffed with shiitake mushrooms and edameme beans
• Eggless Bearnaise sauce “gravy” – The cooking juices made such a nice sauce that we did away with the additional “gravy.”
• Potatoes mashed with garlic, wasabi, and savoy cabbage – Cube and steam 3-4 lbs russet potatoes, leaving the skins on. While potatoes are steaming, thinly slice a small savoy cabbage and place in a large bowl with 3 cloves crushed or diced garlic and 3 tsp powdered wasabi (or to taste). When potatoes are very tender but still firm, toss them with the cabbage until it begins to wilt. Add about 2 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup milk or cream, and plenty of salt and pepper to taste. Mash until potatoes are soft, but not entirely uniform.
• Citrus salad with bitter greens
• Wild rice pilaf - Combine 8 cups water, 1 1/2 cups wild rice, 1 1/2 cups long grain brown or white rice, 1/2 cup sliced almonds, 1/2 cup dried cranberries, and 1/2 tsp salt in a rice cooker, or add ingredients to the boiling water in a large pot with a tight fitting lid. Return the pilaf to a boil, lower heat, and cook covered for about 1 hour, or until the wild rice is firm but tender to the bite. Fluff and allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving.

• Wine pairings

Dessert

• Pumpkin pie
• Orange whipped cream
• Quady Essensia Orange Muscat dessert wine

***

Will’s Thanksgiving Menu

I’m not sure how classic this really is, but here goes:

To Start

The Gin Buck

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. gin (I use Junipero Gin for its robust flavor and ability to stand up to a strong ginger beer)
• Ginger Beer ( I’m a huge ginger beer fan, and my favorite brand other than my homemade stuff, is Fentimans out of the UK, now available at Cost Plus World Markets)
• The juice of 1/2 lemon
• Lemon wedge to garnish

Method:

1. Pour the gin and lemon juice into an ice filled highball glass
2. Top off with ginger beer
3. Add the lemon wedge as a garnish
4. Enjoy one of the best highballs known to man

Fresh sourdough bread with butter
Cheese plate
Olives

The Feast

• Fresh (never frozen) pasture raised Heritage Turkey roasted to perfection with stuffing, leeks, carrots, and quince
• Gravy
• Mashed potatoes made the old fashioned way without any “new fangled” fixins
• Hashed Brussels Sprouts With Lemon Zest
• Fuyu persimmon salad with cumin-lime vinaigrette
• My original home cooked cranberry sauce (see recipe below)
• Wine pairings

Will’s Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 bag fresh cranberries (rinse thoroughly and discard the rotten ones)
• 1 organic orange, zested and then squeezed
• 1/2 tsp. freshly grated ginger (heaping)
• 1 pinch black pepper (my grannies trick)
• 1 pinch grated nutmeg
• 2 dashes orange bitters (optional)
• 4 Tbs. real maple syrup
• 1/2 cup cane sugar
• 3/4 cup water

Method:

1. Combine orange juice (about 1/4 cup), water, sugar, maple syrup, orange zest, ginger, bitters, black pepper, and nutmeg in a sauce pan over medium heat
2. Stir to dissolve all the sugar
3. Add the cranberries
4. Stir often, and wait until all the berries have popped
5. Continue stirring as the mixture foams up
6. When the mixture calms down and turns a deep red it’s time to turn off the heat (the whole process should take less than ten minutes)
7. Let cool
8. This recipe keeps very well and can be made well in advance of Thanksgiving

Dessert

• Mary’s Cranberry yam apple crisp
• Butternut squash pie
• Cointreau flavored whipped cream (I’ll let you know how it turns out)
• Bonny Doon Muscat “Vin de Glaciere” (ice wine)

With any luck things will turn out as delicious as they sound and i will be posting more recipes in time for the next round of holiday festivities.

I would like to remind everyone that Fall is officially here in California and the quince fruit is now in season and available at your local farmer’s markets. Early in July I wrote about my first attempt at making jam. It was quince jam, and it turned out to be delicious! You can view that previous post here if you’re interested. There’s no more jam left now and everyone I gave it away to loved it and wants more. It’s time to make another batch, and what better time than right now when fresh local quinces are in season. The quinces I found back in July at a local Asian market had been imported all the way from Chile, and though not bad, were nothing like the beautiful ones pictured here at top and bottom.

Many people may not realize it, but the word pesto literally means: to pound or to crush, in Italian. It seems obvious when you think of similar sounding words like mortar and PESTLE, but for some reason, until recently, I never made the connection.

Homemade pesto sauce was almost a weekly tradition for me and my sister growing up. Both my stepfather and my stepmother each had their own unique and delicious methods for preparing the sauce, but unfortunately both methods involved the use of a food processor. Neither of them realized how much better their sauce could have been had they made it the traditional way: with a mortar and pestle. I should give them the benefit of the doubt though, as they were both hard working people with more to think about than gourmet food preparation, and the ones largely responsible for developing my lust for good food. Perhaps they did realize it would have tasted better the old fashioned way, but gave in to the allure of modern convenience and efficiency in a world of conflicting priorities. I won’t judge them negatively for their choice, but I will insist that something was lost in their process(ing). I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is, but having tried both now, I’ve concluded that pestled pesto just tastes better. It’s sweeter, more aromatic, colorful, and flavorful.

Many of the finest distilleries in the United States made a comparable mistake while re-outfitting their whisky stills shortly after the repeal of Prohibition. With new capital, new technology, and the desire to make things bigger, better, and longer lasting, they started using stainless steel to build their stills instead of the traditional copper. A copper still typically has a life expectancy of only around ten years, depending on production levels, whereas a stainless steel still lasts indefinitely. A description of the result, is best made by Jim Murray, author of Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible. When asked what whisky would taste like without copper used in the distillation process.

“That’s an easy one,” he said. “As often as not, diabolical. The less copper you get, the less sweetness and honey tends to be around. Often you pick up a cabbage water aroma—at its worst, it takes me back to the old days when my mum used to boil hankies. Copper adds a sparkle to the nose; stainless steel stills offer something often flat and lifeless.”

It took years of research and large sums of money to discover why copper was so necessary in the distilling process. Turns out that one of the major reasons is that it acts as a catalyst, extracting sulfur and other nasties from the passing vapors. Much is still unknown about copper’s benefits, and perhaps will be left a mystery for many more years to come.

The moral of this whisky tangent, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, is that in most areas of life, it’s best to adhere to the time honored methods our ancestors developed over thousands of years. They work!

Here we go again… you’re probably thinking, another article by Will or Rose on how to spend an entire day in the kitchen making something that could be bought pre-made, or should only take a few minutes using modern technology. Let me assure you, that the following method only takes about 5 minutes more than the food processor method. I personally find the grinding process to be a labor of love, and I think my wife Mary can taste the difference.

Traditional Ligurian Pesto

Ingredients:

• Leaves from 2 bunches fresh basil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted, plus crushed pine nuts for garni sh
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese, grated, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt

Method:

1. Combine basil, toasted pine nuts, garlic, and salt in your mort ar.
2. Grind with pestle in a pounding and/or rotating motion until a paste is formed, about 5 minutes.
3. Add cheese; grind until combined.
4. Briskly stir pesto with a wooden spoon while drizzling in the olive oil.
5. Drizzle pesto with more oil until desired consistency is reached.
6. Let rest while cooking your pasta.
7. Stir pesto into drained pasta while still hot.
8. Garnish with extra cheese and crushed pine nuts.
9. Try throwing a handful of chopped tomatoes on top (my mom ‘s touch)
10. Enjoy!

    

We’re brimming with heirloom tomatoes from our farm CSA box, but somehow none of my usual uses for tomatoes have seemed appealing lately. The tomatoes this year have been so good that they mostly beg to be eaten straight – sliced with a bit of sea salt and good olive oil, or layered into a caprese salad with basil and fresh mozzarella. But there are only so many fresh tomatoes we can eat, and I came home tonight to find a couple handsome heirlooms on the verge of decline. It seemed a good night to try and put together a real ketchup.

Commercial ketchup, like commercial mayonnaise, bears little resemblance to the real thing. Raised like everyone else on the supermarket formula consisting mostly of high-fructose corn syrup, tomato paste and celery powder, it never occurred to me that ketchup could be anything more than a fast food side. But a little breakfast joint on our old neighborhood happened to have a fantastic homemade variety, and I’ve been meaning to make a batch ever since.

This recipe lends itself well to experimentation – all of the spices can be adjusted to taste, and many others would be worth playing with. For a spicier sauce, add a few (or many) dashes of hot sauce. It also turns out a delightful golden orange color if you use a mix of different colored tomatoes.

– Heirloom Tomato Ketchup

Ingredients
*2 tbs olive oil
*1 medium onion, finely diced
*1 red jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced
*4 cloves garlic
*3 lbs assorted heirloom tomatoes, peeled and seeded
*1/3 cup + 3 tbs apple cider vinegar
*2 tbs dark brown sugar
*1 cup water
*1 tsp cardamom
*1 star anise
*1 tsp celery seed
*1/2 tsp cloves
*1 tsp cinnamon
*2 tsp smoked paprika
*1 tsp chili powder
*2 tsp salt
*freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method
1. In a non-reactive sauce pan, sauté the onion and jalapeño in the olive oil until golden and very soft, about 20 minutes. When the pan starts to dry out, add 1/2 cup of the water. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, then stir in tomatoes, 1/3 cup vinegar, and the sugar.

2. Place the cardamom, star anise, celery seed, and cloves in a spice bag, or tie in a bit of cheesecloth, and add to the tomato mixture. Add the cinnamon, smoked paprika, chili powder and salt and stir well.

3. Cook the ketchup until thick but not completely dry, about 2-3 hours. Adjust seasoning to taste and transfer to a blender. Puree until very smooth. You may need to add the other 1/2 cup water if the ketchup is too thick. Pour in the additional 3 tbs vinegar (or to taste) and pulse to combine. Transfer to sterile jars and refrigerate, or process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner. Homemade ketchup should last about 2 months in the refrigerator.

Yields 2 small jars.

I’ve finally done it! I’ve successfully reverse engineered Taqueria El Favorito’s (fresh) green salsa, the best salsa I’ve ever encountered in all my travels. Now let me tell you, I’ve eaten Mexican food in Mexico, Portugal (please don’t even ask), France (same goes for here), Italy (and here), Venezuela, Arizona, New Mexico, and in hundreds of places across California, and I’ve decided that the best (fresh) green salsa comes right out of my own hometown, Santa Rosa, CA, at Taqueria El Favorito (formerly El Farolito).I must admit that I’ve never been to Texas, save the airports, and I’ve never tried Ninfa’s Green Sauce now made famous by the Houston Chronicle and the Homesick Texan who swears it’s the best, but I can tell you that the recipe shown below will be much more robust in the garlic and cilantro areas, and it will keep looking fresh longer because it has lime juice which slows down the oxidation process.

Now let me explain why I keep putting (fresh) in front of green salsa. It’s because I don’t want to step on my brother in law’s toes. Andy is already famous for his green salsa, but his is the cooked version, and it’s the best damned cooked version I’ve ever tasted. It was a big hit during the cocktail hour at my recent wedding. Unfortunately he’ll only divulge what’s in it, not how much of what’s in it, is in it. I can only hope that one day he’ll come clean and share the secret recipe.

Back to my salsa! Where was I? Oh yes, I just wanted to let you know that my wife Mary loves this salsa so much, that today after finishing off the last of the tortilla chips, she began to eat the salsa on soda crackers. I, on the other hand, went straight for a spoon.

–The Best (Fresh) Green Salsa

*1 pound of 1″ size tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and quartered
*1 bunch fresh cilantro (about 2 ounces by weight after trimming the stems), rinsed, and roughly chopped
*2 limes, squeezed
*9 cloves of garlic
*1 small white onion or half a large one, chopped
*2-3 green jalapeno peppers (makes a medium spicy salsa), stemmed, and chopped
*2 avocados, sliced
*1 1/2 cups water depending on the viscosity desired
*1 tsp. cumin (or to taste)
*3 tsp. salt (or to taste)
*1/2 tsp. black pepper (or to taste)

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender, except for the cumin, salt, and black pepper.

2. Blend until a smooth texture is achieved.

3. Add spices and mix thoroughly.

4. Adjust spice levels to your liking.

5. After numbing your taste buds doing too much quality control, insist that your spouse or a good friend keep testing it to see if it tastes like the real McCoy.

6. Continue this until they feel ill.

7. If they come back for more the following day, or later that night, you know you’ve got the real deal.

8. This recipe yields a little under a quart of salsa. Refrigerate what you don’t eat right away.