Mystery and Hatch Green Chile

“Food is a gift of God given to all creatures for the purposes of life’s nurture, sharing and celebration. When it is done in the name of God,
eating is the earthly realization of God’s eternal communion-building love.”

from Food and Faith
by Norman Wirzba

Nicole spent the 1990s working on guest ranches in southern Colorado, and much of those years were spent in the kitchen. It was there that this Chicago girl was introduced not simply to the life-altering world of green chiles, but specifically to the “Hatch” – a legendary New Mexican chile with a fanatical following. She discovered that there is no best Hatch recipe, only a relentless store house of best recipes. There’s not even agreement on what to call many of the most sought-after Hatch dishes – is it Hatch green chile soup? Hatch green chile stew? Hatch green chile sauce? The world of Hatch chiles is a never-ending mystery, too deep and wide to fully experience, one filled with never ending delight and discovery.

With Hatch chiles, we are learning that in growing food, preparing food, and cooking food, we participate in a mystery we didn’t create, a world of variety too big for us to control or fully experience. But we are invited and permitted to experiment, contribute, and discover. We are welcomed by God as co-creators.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2-3 Tablespoons of oil for sautéing vegetables
1 large onion, chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chipotle chili powder (or regular chili powder)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon dried oregano
Salt to taste
1 lb fresh tomatillos, chopped (or 1 cup canned tomatillos or diced tomatoes)
4 green chiles, roasted, seeded and chopped (Hatch, Anaheim, or 4 oz. can)
1 large bunch of fresh cilantro, stems chopped separately from leaves
2-3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 Tablespoons lime juice (fresh is preferred but not required)

Either:
2 cans of white or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
Or
1 lb of pork tenderloin, cut for stew

Instructions

• If you’re making the pork version, begin by searing the tenderloin pieces in 1 Tablespoon of the oil. Just brown lightly. No need to cook it through. Then set it aside. If you’re doing the vegetarian version, just begin with the next step.

• In a large pot, over medium heat, cook the oil, onions, celery and garlic until tender. About five minutes.

• Add the spices: chili powder, cumin, oregano and salt. Stir together about 1 minute.

• Add tomatillos (or tomatoes), cilantro stems, and green chile. Reduce heat and stir to combine.

• Add the 2-3 cups of stock (you choose how thick or soupy you’d like it).

• Add your beans at this point, if you’re going vegetarian. Or add the seared pork to the mix.

• Simmer for 20 minutes or until the pork is cooked and tender.

• Add the cilantro leaves and cook another 5-10 minutes.

• Add the lime juice, taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

• Serve! We love it with plantain chips. But rice and pan-fried corn tortillas go well too.

Hubris and Humility

The word around these parts is “rebuild.”  And it’s inspiring, much of the time.  People who have made their homes in high mountain canyons, because they have sought refuge, solitude, and a taste of freedom – they’re not going to let anyone take that dream away from them.  And even though this kind of disaster isn’t supposed to come around very often, they’ll spit into the wind and try it again.

Here’s what troubles me, though.  There are over 200 miles of roads in these Rocky Mountains that were actually damaged to the point that they cannot be used, or absolutely swept away, along with millions of tons of rock and gravel and reinforced concrete that lay under them.  There are some 150 bridges, I’ve heard unofficially, that will have to be rebuilt.  These were built based upon what was learned from the last horrible floods of 1976, when a flash flood shot down the Big Thompson Canyon and killed a lot of people in a very short, few minutes.  The bridges, roads, and the support underneath these roads were all, or most, built with the Big Thompson flood clearly in view.  They were built to withstand another Big Thompson flood.  And I have some sense that they might have been able to do just that.  Only this flood was bigger.  It was not expected that there would be another flood bigger than the one in 1976 for at least 100 years, when bridges are in need of replacement, I guess.  So, they built these to withstand anything shy of the 1976 tragedy.  But people are calling this flood a “1000 year flood.”

What troubles me is that when I talk to engineers about whether there is a limit to what engineering can do, whether there might be storms that NO AMOUNT OF ENGINEERING and construction might be able to withstand, I am not getting any answers.  It’s almost as if those of us molded by Modernity have so ingrained in us the illusion that the human being is the center of the universe, and that our right and ability is to bring creation to heel, and that we will always find a solution no matter what the problem, that we will always triumph in the end. . . we are so infected by this disease that when, a mere 37 years after what people called the most horrible flood in western history, and after the very best science knew to do to protect that same strip of turf from it ever happening again, the roads and man-made walls were torn and tossed away like beach toys, we assume there is no limit to what we can control and overcome.

What I wish I was hearing is a good dose of humility and honesty.  We may have to build bridges that we cannot guarantee beyond certain limits of creation forces.  We may not be able to afford 150 top of the line, state of the art bridges that might survive a next catastrophe at the cost of billions of dollars; and they might not. We obviously have no clue when the next one will take place. I think everyone’s too afraid to say it out loud, because it goes against the way we’ve been taught to respond to catastrophes.  That is, “We’re in control!  We’ll get it right the next time.”  And that’s why much of the finger pointing at global warming as the real culprit in all of this alarms me, too.  This may indeed be related to the usage of fossil fuels, and we may have the ability to put a dent in how that is impacting the globe.  But the frightening thing to me is that that very  drive feeds in all of us the same lie that we have far more control than we actually do.

Hubris is a dangerous thing in all of us.  We think more highly of ourselves than we ought.  After I hear too much of that attitude, I seek out a meeting I attend regularly around here where the issue is the mess they have made of their lives because of pride, and the answer is the currency of humility by which they have seen their lives returned to happiness, joy and freedom.

Right-Sized

When I arrived in Austin, Texas, 26 and 1/2 months ago, the state was in the worst drought since the early 50’s, and certainly the first one that involved the staggering (and burgeoning) population of Texas today.  Austinites apologized profusely for the horrible conditions, telling me that it was far worse than most of them had ever seen – in hopes, I suspect, that I would love Austin in spite of the drought.  One thing I remember from that summer was one rain shower that fell in late July 2011, lasting perhaps 5 minutes.  I did not see another drop of rain until the blessing of a rain pulse coming through in mid September, I believe.  Another thing I remember from that summer was that I was powerless to change the weather, as we suffered through 90 days with temperatures over 100 degrees.

Fast forward to this last week.   When Nicole and I arrived here in Fort Collins, CO on Labor Day, the state had had some relief from drought with some timely thunderstorms and systems this summer.  But everyone nonetheless spoke of the drought cycle that the state has been in for years now, and how concerned people are about the need for timely rains and snowpack this coming winter.  On Monday, we became aware that the 95 degree days were about to shift, as rain came into the picture.  The forecast was for a full week of clouds and rain, pulsing through the days and nights.  And they were exactly right – only no one seemed to grasp the volume of rain that would come down.  It was (and still is) breathtaking, especially for Central Texans who have often gone to bed in the last 2 years, pleading for rainstorms to put us to sleep.  At this point, the calculation is that the amount of rain that has come down, if it had been in inches of snow, would be the equivalent of over 12 feet of snow.  Today the flooding is so severe that no one can drive from Fort Collins to Denver.  Every bridge between here and there is compromised.  It is, as they are saying, a “100 year flood.”

 

Two opposite experiences, totally contradictory.  Except for one thing – in both situations, we experience our utter powerlessness.

One of the great truths which Nicole and I sit with this day is the step which begins each of our days – to admit our powerlessness to do almost anything we pretended all our lives that we had within our power.  Drought and floods remind us that we are not God, and that we are grateful – not only that such things require a wisdom and intelligence and power far beyond ours to be able to manage or direct or redeem – but also that we are relieved from the horrible pressure of trying to control or cure, or feeling the responsibility that we have caused most of what occupies our world.  We are given a reprieve today from playing God, and it is the greatest lesson from creation that I can imagine.

And so, though I have no power whatsoever to cause this to happen, I will pray that God will give Central Texas, indeed, all of Texas, the refreshment of the rains that it needs.