From the Chef’s Writing Desk

Every family has a story they bring up at gatherings forever.

For ours, unfortunately, it involves Pork Green Chile… and what Everett now refers to as “The Pepper Incident.”

It happened on a Saturday afternoon while I was elbow-deep in Hatch chiles, roasting and peeling peppers at the kitchen counter like a man possessed. The whole house smelled incredible — smoky peppers, simmering pork shoulder, garlic, onions, cumin drifting through the air like the beginning of a country song.

George stood nearby “helping,” which mostly meant stealing pieces of browned pork whenever he thought I wasn’t looking.

Everett had fashioned himself a cowboy chef for the occasion and insisted on wearing my apron despite the fact it dragged behind him like a wedding train.

Meanwhile Shanna sat at the kitchen table calmly sipping wine and wisely refusing involvement in whatever chaos was unfolding.

Now anyone who has worked with hot peppers knows there are rules.

Important rules.

Rules written in fire and suffering.

And chief among them is this:

Wash your hands.

Thoroughly.

Before touching literally anything attached to your body.

Unfortunately, somewhere between chopping the peppers and stirring the pot, I became distracted by Everett loudly announcing that he was opening “Texas’s first soup saloon.” George immediately countered by claiming saloons don’t sell soup because “cowboys only eat beans and revenge.”

Somewhere in the middle of this deeply important historical debate, nature called.

Friends…

I did not wash my hands.

At first there was only silence from the hallway bathroom.

Then came a sharp inhale.

Then another.

Then what can only be described as the sound a wounded mountain lion might make if it suddenly understood regret.

Shanna nearly fell out of her chair laughing before I even made it back into the kitchen.

George looked terrified.

Everett whispered:
“Dad got bit by the peppers.”

I returned walking bowlegged, eyes watering, carrying the full weight of my poor decisions upon my soul.

Shanna, unable to breathe from laughing so hard, simply lifted her wine glass and said:
“Well… I bet you’ll remember next time.”

And reader…

she was right.

To this day, every single time I make Pork Green Chile, one of the boys inevitably asks:

“Dad, you wash your hands yet?”

The answer is now always yes.

Immediately.

Aggressively yes.

But despite the temporary destruction of my dignity, the chile itself turned out perfect. Rich pork falling apart in the pot, roasted peppers bringing that deep New Mexico heat, broth thickened with time and patience until every bowl tasted like warmth after a long cold wind.

Some recipes become family traditions.

Others become family warnings.

This one somehow became both.

— Chef Dave Trosko