Sorry–summer break lasted a pretty long time. Sugar Duck just told me in no uncertain terms that he was tired of being laughed at by the whole internet, so we’ll bump him down a post.

I spent a lot of the summer in New Mexico, working on my book about Arabic and updating my New Mexico guidebook. In the past, I’ve been a little mealy-mouthed in the guidebook about when the best time to visit is. Oh, all the seasons have their merits, blah blah blah (except spring; dry, hot, windy spring).

After this last trip, at the end of August, though, it’s just ridiculous to claim there’s any better time to visit. I drove around for about four weeks just gasping out loud, to myself, “It’s so GREEEEEEEEN!”

I haven’t been in New Mexico at the end of the summer in years, and I had forgotten how much a couple of months of decent rain can transform the landscape. I came back from my trip and raved to Peter too. “It was so GREEEEEEEN!” I told him.

This is the first photo I showed him.

Funny, he wasn’t all impressed. “But, but, that’s, like, a volcanic wasteland normally,” I spluttered. So I showed him some more photos.

That one didn’t do it either, really. “That looks terrible,” said the city slicker. All I could say was “Well, it is where the Dust Bowl was.”

“This is the Navajo rez,” I said. “Look how green!”

“Enh,” said Peter, noncommittal.

“C’mooooon, look: Gallup! Totally green.” He was starting to come around. “Look–by the Very Large Array. Where the deer and the antelope play!”

Peter: “Ohhh-kaaaaay.” Finally, I just cheated and showed him pictures of up north, where it’s green almost all the time.

My last few days were during the crazy rainstorms that flooded so much in Colorado–and tons in New Mexico too. The clouds were wreathed on the mountains like this everywhere–I felt very briefly like I was in Hawaii.

But Peter still wasn’t wowed. I agree, the photos aren’t totally capturing it. You really need before-and-after pics. But I was wondering if Peter might just be color-blind.

Then this pic came up.

“Mmm, green chile!” Peter said. Well, not color-blind.

And this, my friends, is the other reason the end of the summer is the best possible time to visit New Mexico. It’s green chile season. Hot DAMN. Like I said, I haven’t been there this time of year in so long, I forgot how intensely wonderful it is. On this trip, I even stopped in to Hatch, the self-styled green chile capital of the world. It was hopping. Packed with farmers and people in pickups who’d driven up from Cruces to buy 40-pound sacks of chile.

The deal is, you buy your 40-pound sack, and then the guy at the store–or in the supermarket parking lot, or wherever you’re doing your chile deal–tosses them all in a roaster, and lets it spin till the skins are all blackened.

Then the roaster dude tosses your blackened chiles in the cooler you brought, and you drive home with your loot, and you sit around and peel all those little f–kers until your fingers sting (gloves, what?) and in the process you accidentally touch your eye, or your nose, and then you wrap each chile up carefully and freeze the whole haul, to get you through the winter.

Hatch smelled so damn good. The smell of roasting chile is like a little Proustian overload for me. I was standing all swoony by the roaster, and told the guy, “Wow, it smells so good.”

He just looked at me, kinda tired, and didn’t say anything. I guess if you work all damn day for the whole month of high chile season, it doesn’t smell so good anymore.

I exercised my privilege as a tourist and breathed in deep some more, bought some salsa, and then went and stuffed myself at El Bruno’s, in Cuba, where every year a team of ladies sits under the cottonwood tree out back and peels those little f–kers all day, every day, until they have enough to last the rest of the year at the restaurant.

Now, Peter and I can agree, that’s so GREEEEEEEN.