Outdoor Festival at Basha's and Roasted Chile

Yesterday was our Outdoor Festival at the Basha's in Scottsdale. Even though the news reported a potential for rain yesterday, we had no rain and great weather for the Festival. We experienced a little overcast sky in the morning, but by noon the sun was out in full force. We watched the clouds build later in the afternoon when we started breaking down.

This Festival was located at 8423 E. McDonald, Scottsdale. The Basha's there is absolutely beautiful. When I first walked in, I thought it was one of those fancy gourmet stores. The Director, Dan, was the organizer of this month's event and he had everything clicking away very efficiently. Even though the official event time was from 10-4pm, vendors were not supposed to appear to set up until 8 am. Vendors appeared by 7 am and Dan was already there to direct them into the assigned spots. What was really neat about this particular Festival was that Dan had put about half of the vendors in the covered parking spots. If you have ever had to set up and tear down a tent each event, you really come to appreciate the benefit of having a cover that you don't have to set up. We all brought our tents if necessary, but it was very enjoyable not having to set them up.

What else was fun about this festival is that I finally worked up the courage to try the roasted chilies. The other Basha's Outdoor Festivals we have been to also offered the roasted chilies, but as good as they smelled, I didn't have the courage to try them. Saturday was the first time I had the fresh roasted chilies, and I am in love... At these events, Bashas has a large tumbler where they put a lot of those large green chilies. They then turn on four jets of flame and literally char the chilies as the tumbler turns. The scent of roasting chilies will really get your mouth watering.

What we learned is that to properly eat those roasted chilies, you need to scrape off the charred portion of the chilies and then eat the tender insides. I expected to have my first bite turn into my last. My usual experience with green chilies has been very spicy hot. Not so this time. I am not sure if the roasting took some of the spice out of the chilies, but boy, they were tasty. There were several people who still believed the chilies to be spicy, but I found the spicy to be more of a general warmth, not one of mouth-melting heat. The flavor of the roasted chili is like nothing I have tasted before. I am now a real believer in roasted chilies.

We purchased additional chilies to bring home. They can be frozen but we ended up stuffing the ones we brought home with cheese. Boy, were they tasty too. Needless to say, we don't have any additional roasted chilies to chop up and add to other dishes, but there will be another Basha's Outdoor Festival (in two weeks for us specifically) and we plan on purchasing more of those wonderful fresh roasted chilies.

Until tomorrow...