In New Mexico, September is Green Chile Time. We prepare for the coming cold months by packing our freezers with bags of the roasted green chiles. The smell of the roasting chiles is almost as good as eating them. I think it is the reason I will never move away from this state. I need that aroma in September.

The best way to get your supply of green chiles is to find a farm that has picked and roasted them that day. According to all that is holy to chile lovers, this is the only way to get the most authentic flavor when you thaw and eat the bounty of freezer, one bag at a time, after growing season.

This past year we moved away from the farms we used to drive out to every fall. I searched, sampled, sought advice and we finally bought our bushel of roasted greens from Fred of Socorro, just off St. Michael’s Drive in Santa Fe. Fred swore the chile was picked just the day before and he looked like he knew how to roast it. We came home with our bag of hot, just roasted chiles and went to work on dividing them up into quart baggies for the freezer.

Our car still smells like chile, and the ice frozen in close proximity to it will have that slight tinge of chile flavor for the next week or so. We are ready for winter.