The move is nearly here. Less than a week from now Dave’s Kitchen will relocate two block down and across the street to a new apartment, blown by the changeable winds of rental life. I’m very sad to leave the kitchen in my current place – the new one is a bit smaller, but promises to be quite functional. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to tell as I learn my way around it. And of course as the move gets nearer I’ve had no time for the kitchen, except to put the kitchen into boxes. I’ve been subsisting on takeout, spending my time packing stuff, sorting stuff, selling stuff off at a stoop sale. I’ve missed out on a beautiful month of spring weather and – worse – a month of my favorite spring food.

One weekend though I did manage to pick up these oddities. They looked like jalapenos, but came in the red, yellow and orange of fancy bell peppers, which is, in fact, what they were. Baby bell peppers. I’m sure I’d never seen them before. Two of the produce markets on Court Street – Pacific Green and Jim & Andy’s – had them on the same day, and I bought them wondering if they’d grill up next to the farm-raised steaks I’d bought at the Borough Hall farmer’s market. Oh, and indeed they did. They needed no more prep than a wash and a thin coat of olive oil, then onto the grill 10 minutes or so before the steaks went on. I turned them frequently and watched closely so they wouldn’t burn, and soon the smell of charcoal and searing beef was perfumed with the tang of roasting pepper. They charred nicely, proved tough enough to stand up to the grill, and went directly onto the plate – no need to de-vein or de-seed or peel off the skin. Delicious and a perfect compliment to the steak.

The next week I was invited to a BBQ (the last ever John Fritz rooftop party, as it happens), and thought I’d bring a bag of these delicious treats to throw onto the grill.  But at Jim & Andy’s I found only the last wrinkled dregs of the previous week’s crop. Same luck at Pacific Green, where the shopkeeper brought out the leftovers from the store-room (they were too withered and ugly for display) and offered to sell me as much as I wanted for a dollar a pound. I came away with a pillow sized bag of them, then sorted out the worst of them when I got home. They tasted just fine coming off of John’s grill, and I think all the partygoers liked them but then again I may have eaten them all myself.

But they left me with a mystery. What were these strange little peppers? The sign in the market called them “baby bell peppers,” but they couldn’t’ve been just young bell peppers, which are green. No doubt they’re a variety bred to ripen small, and with the benefit that they don’t need the extensive prep work of a full-sized roasted pepper. I’ll ask around in the markets and maybe someone will have them again, but if not I’ll look for them next year.

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