It kills me to rub it in, but while you were most likely freezing and cold these last weeks, I was having fun in the sun in Baja. OK, maybe I'm gloating.

I haven't spent much time in Baja and it's a very weird wonderful place. Despite being Mexico, it's not "my Mexico" and the focus seems to be more on the wild beauty of the place than eating and drinking.

I went hoping to find a wild bean (frijol silvestre) that I'd heard about but didn't have much luck finding it. There are some wonderful species of cactus, obviously, and a lot of odd and beautiful legumes, but I never came across a good bean for eating. The markets in La Paz, the capitol, were pretty sad and I'd guess most of the beans were from the American Midwest.

On a hike to a waterfall near a small town called Santiago, I was lucky enough to find some wild tomatillos. About the size of a pea, these sweet, small yellow tomatillos were worth saving so I brought the seeds back and with a little luck, should have them available this autumn.

After finding the seeds, I started looking around our rental property and found a similar, slightly bigger tomatillo. Of course I brought some of those seeds back as well.