Doing it for the Chimichurri

Okay, quick if you don’t know what a chimichurri sauce is – it’s a fresh uncooked herb forward sauce from Argentina.

My version of chimichurri (verde) is: • Cilantro (classically it’s parsley…which is fine I used to use parsley / cilantro mix) • garlic • shallot • oil • acid- vinegar or lemon juice • and a fresno or jalapeno petter • S&P and rarely a dash of liquid smoke or smoke paprika.

Nothing fancy.

Nothing particularly interesting… but fuck, this on in Cusco, Peru… I’ve been thinking about this for years. Base is the same… oil, acid, herbs, etc.. But then there were these finely diced aji Amarillos (yellow Peruvian peppers) that were as prevalent as the herbs. It’s more of a chimmchuri roja (typically uses roasted red peppers with herbs etc) and I can’t describe any other way than “fuck it’s delicious”

If the restaurant bottled it I would have bought a gallon. I did play around some with aji amarillo paste but it’s just not the same….flavor was muted and the texture was off.

Now, after several years, I’m tired of dreaming and thinking about it. I just want to make it happen.

I just need some peppers. Could I simply order them? Yeah…probably…but that actually is weird to me and maybe later I’ll get on my soapbox on that topic.

Anyway, so I started researching grow Peruvian peppers in Seattle and here we are!

So, yes, this entire project partially exists because I want a this damned chimichurri from Cusco.

The other partial motivation?! My wife and I have talked about buying land and building a tiny homestead…like so many tech workers in the Seattle area. Now my goal is not to go completely off grid. I just want to reduce our reliance on big corporations.

So.. what is this?! Is this a garden blog? Yes and No. This is just a place for me to document different experiments…to try and grow some goddamn Aji Amarillos in Seattle.

Whoa… experiments?! Whatchu talking ‘bout Willis?! Yes, I have a bunch of old tech shit laying around from when my kids were young… It’s either use it or purge it. So, what can we learn / do with some Arduinos, Raspberry Pi, old computers?! So early warning: there will also talk about AI and other techy bullshit.

And, yes, I heard your eyes roll at that statement. More fucking AI bullshit…what does it have to do with chimichurri?! Don’t worry, I’m not going to evangelize any technology.

It’s more like me sharing my “WTAF Claude…why?!” moments. Or how I’m think about and am leveraging AI for this project…And there will be posts about different sensors I’m playing with to observe this reality.

Oh, you know those food/recipe blog posts that are novella about someone’s dog getting sand between their toes… and the recipe is about making labneh at home.!? My goal is to not do that shit…too much.

My personal goal is to post longer posts weekly. And possibly have 1-2 smaller update posts throughout the week. Alright… onward.