A few weeks ago, I was bemoaning the predations of bird and beast in our tiny backyard garden, and questioning the investment of time and effort for such meager return. But not today. Because I have just harvested the first batch of peppers. And I LOVE peppers! Sweet or spicy or fiery, fresh or dried, stuffed or roasted, in soups or salsas or curries, it doesn’t matter. I love them all.

My appreciation of the genus Capsicum did not develop until well into adulthood, mainly due to a lack of exposure. Growing up in rural North Carolina, there was only one type of fresh pepper (bell), which came in two colors: green, used primarily for chow-chow, and red, diced up in salads. Hot peppers came in the form of Tabasco sauce, or in the vinegar shaker that was used to season turnip greens or collards. While living in New York City after college, I enjoyed a variety of spicy cuisines that contained peppers, but was only vaguely aware of the different types. It was in Tucson, Arizona that I received a proper education in the glories of peppers.

Tucson lies in an arid valley, filled with saguaro cactus and ringed by mountains, part of the Sonoran desert that extends north from Mexico. That geography is reflected in its food, where chiles are an integral ingredient in many Sonoran dishes. Friends introduced me to their favorite varieties. Kurt’s salsa was flavored with chiltepines, a tiny wild pepper, and Giordi’s flaming orange wing sauce was little more than habaneros, garlic, and a dash of Texas Pete hot sauce. For a spicy food potluck, I made a duet of chile pepper ice creams: jalapeño vanilla and chipotle chocolate. I bought two pepper plants – an ornamental ordoño and a prolifically producing sinahuisa – at the Botanical Garden’s annual Chile Festival and discovered that, with Tucson’s 350 days of sunshine per year, the only growing requirement was water. Best of all were the roasted green chiles at the farmer’s market, big fleshy Anaheim and Hatch varieties, cooked onsite in a giant wire mesh drum over a gas jet. Mmmm, the smell! Years later, while visiting Aspen for a summer wedding, I followed that tantalizing aroma through a crowded street fair for two blocks to find the chile roaster (I’ll take a large bag, please! Now, how will I get these past TSA at the airport?)

This year’s crop was started in February from seeds, courtesy of Tucson’s Native Seeds/SEARCH and New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute. Our sunroom doubled as an ersatz greenhouse until the seedlings were transplanted into the garden in early May. Peppers require a lot of sun and heat, so the plants didn’t take off until June. But now I’m literally reaping the benefits. Sweet Italian corno di toros for pasta, Spanish piquillos and pimientos de Padrón for tapas, poblanos for stuffing, jalapeños for salsas and smoked chipotles, Thai bird’s eyes for curries, New Mex Big Jims for roasting. I’ll freeze or dry what I can’t eat now (although I can eat quite a lot), to get me through the winter. And I’ll share some with friends. Who knows, perhaps one of them will become the next pepper fanatic!

h.