Verdant agricultural fields spread throughout the valley were one of the main reasons we chose our lot, but the prevalence of farming and availability of fresh produce was one of the reasons we chose Pescadero. As you know by now, food is a critical part of a happy life for us. While I love canning and preserving, I’ll admit I’d have a difficult time living somewhere fresh vegetables and fruits weren’t available year round.

Last weekend, I flew down to Pescadero for a quick visit. For a quick house update, we are about 3 weeks from completion on the house. We still need electricity (which is also about 3 weeks away) and windows (also 3 weeks away). Switch and I keep purposefully mis-quoting the line from Oh Brother Where Art Thou, “Well ain’t this place a geographical oddity …. three weeks from everywhere!” In that three weeks while the concrete floors are curing, we’ll complete the wall in front of the courtyard and start arranging for the cabinetry which will be built from scratch locally. I’m sure there are a few more things, but those are the major pieces.

But, let’s get back to talking about food, because really, what is more important? Having fresh produce available all year round does not, however, mean everything is available all the time. Sure you could drive the hour to hit Costco or Walmart and get strawberries from Chile and Asparagus from Australia year-round, but if you follow the seasons and buy from the local farmers, you get better quality and tastier produce.

I enjoy the seasonality of produce and it is very apparent when buying locally in Baja. We have lettuce season, potato season, onion season, and so on. You don’t really need a schedule to figure it out because it is obvious. Just like when I walked into the local Pescadero grocery store and was met with a heaping tub of these beauties:

Right before I flew down, I happened to watch the second episode of Ugly Delicious on Netflix. It’s a really well crafted show made by the creators of Lucky Peach magazine. I’m not going to spoil the episode for you and I highly recommend you watch it, but I learned several mind-blowing things. The most surprising was the origin of tacos Arabes/Al Pastor – which I had always wondered about. But I also picked up a technique for pineapple. Apparently, Mexican residents of the Yucatan (and maybe elsewhere) soak fresh pineapple briefly in salt water to reduce the acidity. So the first thing I did when I got that puppy home was to slice it up and do a little saltwater soak. I’ll definitely need to play with the salt level and timing of the soak, but it was delicious and definitely reduced the acidity. Cool stuff!

It seemed a shame to waste the extra pineapple fruit on the cut away skins, so I scraped as much pulp as I could and threw it into a marinade for BBQ pork. It would also be great with chicken. I don’t have any pictures, but I’ll leave you with the recipe:

Pineapple BBQ Pork

• 1 pork tenderloin
• 1/4 c finely minced or blended fresh pineapple
• Zest from 1 lime
• Juice from 1/2 lime
• 1/2 – 1 jalapeño, minced (scrape and discard the insides for less heat)
• 1-2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
• 2 tbsp good tasting tequila
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Generous salt to taste
• Fresh ground pepper to taste
• 1 tsp agave, sugar or honey (optional)

Trim any silver skin and tendons off the pork tenderloin and pat dry with a paper towel. If you don’t want to do this step, ask your butcher to do it for you.

Cut the pork into 2″ thick medallions. Pound the medallions to 1/2″ thick by placing each piece (one at a time) between two pieces of plastic wrap and pounding them gently with a mallet, rolling pin or bottle (I used a tequila bottle). Do this pretty gently because pork tenderloin is delicate.

Add all remaining ingredients except pork to a shallow bowl and whisk briefly to combine.

Add the pork to the bowl with the marinade and let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Grill over hot coals for about 3-4 minutes per side or until slightly pink in the center but charred on the outside. Rest 5 min before serving.