This week at Chaos HQ

We are surrounded by an abundance of warmth and food. I'd blag on about abundance more, but it's two months till Thanksgiving and the global economy continues to be in the toilet.

From Bedfordshire with love. 

We are currently munching on these green beauties courtesy or our favourite chili farm. And we are scheming up delicious plans for some lovely NoCal reds from Truffle.

All this, and we are still feasting on chilies sent by my lovely mama, who turns sixty this month.

I am roasting the Bedfordshire greens under the broiler. Skinned and bagged, they will live happily in the freezer for the next year, crucially getting Chaos HQ through the dark winter months via the trusty medium of enchiladas.

Doctors in Britain don't tend to prescribe capsaicin for Seasonal Affective Disorder, which I just find sad. So in the wacky homeopathic self remedy department, I've taken to blathering on about the heavenly qualities of chili at all times and to anyone who will listen. It's my own clumsy, gluttonous form of The Secret. Judging by this week's catch, my strategy has born fruit.

September sees fiestas in Santa Fe and a chili harvest in Hatch. Home is on my mind.

You can't easily get there from here. But the worrying black cloud of chili smoke wafting in my kitchen makes me feel closer to there. I can almost taste the fry bread and feel my hips magically balloon with each imaginary bite. And if I cock my head towards Camden, I can just about hear Zozobra groaning tiredly as a troupe of camp fire dancers yap at his toes for the umpteenth time.  

Of the twelve months to be there, this is the one. It is hard to beat calabacitas and yellow aspen leaves - covered in an early dusting of snow if you're lucky - under a harvest moon.

Happy birthday Mama.