The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

Simplicity is everything for me right now. Over the past couple weeks I’ve been in the process of cleaning out our over cluttered apartment in preparation for the month long separation from our beloved home during the winter Olympics. As of Sunday we’ve managed to clean out almost everything in the bathroom, closet, bedroom and living room and as of this weekend we will finally be forced to do the same to our kitchen. Sigh.

I knew when it came down to it it would be challenge, but I suspect the magnitude of the challenge will be greater than I initially thought. Over the  last 3 years I’ve managed to develop an extensive collection of spices, condiments, flours, grains, dried goods of all shapes and sizes not to mention every gadget under the sun and I’m absolutely in love with every single piece of it, even the extremely unnecessary and underused – garlic peeler I’m looking at you. I think this might have something to do with being a pack rat, or at least that’s what my husband would say, I’m more comfortable with the term collector to be quite honest.

About two weeks ago I was totally seduced by my supermarket. I found myself in line with all kinds of ingredients in great quantities that I knew would require extra attention to use and not waste. I would have to be creative.

It was obvious that we could not possibly eat 4 pounds of fresh plums, a crate of the most perfect mission figs as well as a dozen each of every available variety of peach under the sun. Call me crazy but there is something about the end of summer and all of the amazing produce that calls my name and instantly inspires dozens of recipes that would be next to impossible to produce in one week.

Peaches and plums aside, the ingredient that had the most impact on me that day were these amazing bags of mixed hot peppers. They were extraordinary! Their perfect, spotless shapes with red, yellow, gold and green called to me and the possibilities just seemed endless. I couldn’t possibly just grab one bag and without a second thought I had 2 bags in my basket and my hand on a third as my imagination ran wild with thoughts of hot pepper sauces and the perfect jar of pickled peppers.