Critter Classifieds: Find a furry four-legged friend

Longmont Humane Society

9595 Nelson Road, Longmont, longmonthumane.org

Welcome to Critter Classifeds, a new column where you can meet four-legged friends who need your love and support. Boulder Weekly is currently working with Longmont Humane Society to feature a few pets each week who are looking for forever homes. We hope to bring other organizations in on the fun in the future. Longmont Humane Society provides temporary shelter to thousands of animals every year, including dogs, cats and small mammals who are lost, surrendered or abandoned. Visit the shelter to learn more about these featured pets and others up for adoption and fostering. If your organization has volunteer needs, please reach out to us at editorial@boulderweekly.com

Note: The animals you see here may have been adopted since this article was written. Please visit longmonthumane. org or stop by the shelter located at 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont to view all available animals.

Your support makes a big difference to the Longmont Humane Society. For those in a position to help, LHS is currently experiencing a shortage of adult dog food, dog treats and small/medium milk bone biscuits. Donate these supplies and more directly from the LHS Amazon Wish List — visit the longmonthumane. org to learn more.

1

H Jumanji

Handsome Jumanji is 4-years old and looking for his forever home. He is very friendly and starts to make biscuits on his blanket as soon as he sees you. Jumanji is a big boy at 12lbs, but at heart, he’s still a kitten who wants to curl up in your lap. He would love a home with children of any age to give him lots of cuddles — he loves to rub his cheeks on people.

2

H Sadie

Sadie is a loving 6-year-old girl. She currently weighs 74lbs and could use an exercise buddy to help her shed a little weight. This enthusiastic gal can be picky with her doggy friends, but once she warms up, she loves to play and chase toys. She cannot live in a home with cats. Sadie would love a home with older children to play with.

3

H Rufus

Rufus is a 3-year-old boy from Texas. This southern gentleman weighs 62lbs and would do best in a home with high school-aged children since he is not a fan of being hugged or having his tail touched. Rufus is still learning to mind his manners around cats, but could do well with a cat willing to help him learn. Rufus gets along with most of the dogs he’s met at the shelter, but he is still learning how to ask for personal space.

Coming soon to Pearl Street in Boulder

LONGMONT’S NEWEST STEAKHOUSE

featuring NoCo’s Best Beef and Freshest Seafood in town

HAPPY HOUR DAILY - 3pm-6pm Live Music on the Patio Friday and Saturday $3 Wells, $3 16oz drafts Bud and Coors Light. $4 House Wine, $4 pints of Modelo and Blue Moon, $5 House Margaritas. Dragon Berry Lemonade, Elevated Seltzers, Breckenridge Brewery. Half o select Appetizers Under New Management • New Menu

Overdue praise for the shishito

by Ari LeVaux

It wasn’t love at frst bite, but I fnally warmed up to the shishito pepper.

The name is an abbreviation of shishitogarashi, which is Japanese for “the tip of this pepper looks like a lion’s face.” This description is as fanciful as looking for faces in clouds, but you don’t need to imagine a lion in order to appreciate the shishito.

Shishitos are fnger-length, thin-skinned, wrinkled and usually mild, but every now and then you’ll get a hot one, which keeps things exciting. My introduction to this pepper came at the farmers market in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where growers bill them as “frying chiles.”

This distinction is important because roasted green chile is a sacred autumn tradition in New Mexico, where chile roasters are everywhere, in seemingly every parking lot and empty space. These propane-heated rotating steel mesh cages resemble giant hamster wheels. As the hot roaster spins, the chiles inside are tossed and cooked until they are collapsed and blistered, releasing their intoxicating fragrance into the air. Locals call it New Mexican aromatherapy. It makes everybody within smelling distance happy and hungry.

Roasted green chile is arguably the backbone of New Mexican cuisine, thanks to a simple and delicious formula: add green chile to food, and add the phrase “green chile” to what you call it. Thus, a cheeseburger becomes a green chile cheeseburger. Scrambled eggs become green chile scrambled eggs. Enchiladas become green chile enchiladas.

At the Santa Fe farmers market, shishito growers have skillets in their stalls which they use to demonstrate the shishito’s fryability. They fry their shishitos in a few drops of oil, and put them on plates for customers to sample. I was one such sampler, and I was not impressed. The frying thing seemed like a gimmick, and didn’t fll the air with as much fragrance as traditional New Mexican chile varieties like Big Jim, Sandia and Numex. It took a farmer in Montana, where I now live, to turn this perception upside down. And all he had to do was let the shishitos ripen.

Any pepper will eventually turn red if you leave it long enough, and my farmer friend waits until his shishito

crop resembles a Christmas sweater before bringing his red and green mix to market. The red shishitos add a pleasing sweetness to the mix, making it more complex. Finally, after years of denial, I hopped aboard the shishito bandwagon.

Back in Santa Fe, the lower heat of the shishito was a turn-off, but now that I’m older and have less to prove, I don’t mind milder chiles, because I can eat more of them. And without being surrounded by chile roasters on every corner as one is in New Mexico, I’ve noticed that blistered shishitos actually smell pretty good. With the help of my friend’s red and green shishitos, I’ve been converting my burgers, eggs, soups and pretty much

everything else within reach into New Mexican-style cuisine. Here is a recipe for lemon miso shishitos that brings us full circle to the pepper’s Japanese roots. It’s based on the blistered shishitos on the menu at the acclaimed Nobu restaurants. I’ve added salmon, to make it a complete meal rather than an appetizer, and because the lemon miso glaze is a perfect sauce for salmon. I serve the shishitos and salmon with jasmine rice rather than Japanese rice, because jasmine rice adds a lovely fragrance that dances elegantly with the aroma of the shishito. This recipe employs white miso, which I greatly prefer to the darker varieties. White miso contains rice fermented with the usual soybeans, which makes for a sweeter paste into which I will liberally dip my spoon and snack on while making this dish. And while shishitos are sold as frying chiles in New Mexico, I prefer my shishitos broiled. Email: letters@boulderweekly.com

TRADITIONAL VIETNAMESE PHO HOUSE

BEST PHO

2855 28th Street, Boulder, CO 80301 • 303-449-0350 • Boulderphoco.com 2321 Clover Basin Dr, Longmont, CO • 303-834-9765 • Boulderpholongmont.com DINE IN - TAKE OUT

Lemon and Miso-glazed Shishitos with Salmon

Combining elements of East and Southwest, this transcontinental recipe is so delicious that you won’t know where you are.

1 pound salmon fllet, cut from the thick end 1 pound fresh shishito peppers, washed and dried 1/4 cup white miso paste The juice of one lemon 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon butter 3 tablespoons sesame seeds Soy sauce, to taste Jasmine rice (serves 2)

1.) Turn the oven to broil. Position an oven rack about seven inches below the element or fame. 2.) Combine 2 tablespoons lemon juice and the miso, and stir together until completely mixed. 3.) Sprinkle the fsh with salt. Let sit for 15 minutes, then rinse it with the remaining lemon juice. Smear the fsh with half of the lemon miso mixture. Let it sit in the fridge until it’s time to cook it. 4.) Rinse the shishitos and put them on a baking pan. Roast them under the broiler, tossing and stirring often, until they are blistered on all sides — about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven to cool. (You can roast any chile this way, including New Mexico-style, Anaheim, poblano, Jalapeno, etc.) 5.) Put half of the butter on the salmon and place the fsh in an oven pan under the broiler, skin-side down, and cook until browned on top and solid to the touch — about 10 minutes. Remove and let cool. 6.) Toss the shishitos with the remaining lemon/miso paste and the remaining half-tablespoon of butter. 7.) Plate the shishitos and salmon with rice, garnish with the sesame seeds and a lemon wedge, and serve with soy sauce.