eG FoodBlog: MissTenacity -The Land of Enchilement - A week in Albuque

[pam claughton]

Andrea,

Am loving your blog. I lived out West for awhile too, in Phoenix, just long enough to fall in love with spicy food. So, your pictures are just making me drool, and am now craving enchiladas something fierce, and it's nowhere near lunch time!

:) Pam

[Margo]

"Chow Slut." I want the tee-shirt.

Ms Tenacity, your blog is great. I lived in SFe for four years after college, my pre-work retirement, so to speak. Fell in love with green chile. I'm finally going back for a week in March, can't wait for stacked enchiladas and sopaipillas.

[hwilson41]

Just to chip a bit of my ignorance away, can you compare the NM Red to Texas Red?  Hotter?  Milder?  Different flavor (I assume) from the NM Reds?  Keep them cards and letters comin' girl .

THW

←

You know, I don't know... the heat would depend both on the type of chile used as well as the level of that particular batch of peppers. The only Texas chili that I am familiar with is "tex mex", meaning there are beans and meat involved, as well as other spices.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

←

Now that I think about it, that was probably a pretty dumb question . There are more recipes for Texas chili than for almost anything else I can think of, amd most of them are lousy . Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is whether NM Red will knock your head off or just leave you with a pleasing glow in the stomach. Hell, this is still a dumb question. Forget I asked , and thanks for the great blog.

THW

[Mabelline]

I could live at stufy's, I'm pretty sure. Your diet is enviable to me, Andrea.That is definitely in my realm of favorite cuisines.

[misstenacity]

Breakfast! Once in a while I need good coffee, so I head over this morning to Dawn's, a local shop near where I live:

(Notice the pole & the cigar band on it - the prior owner of the coffee shop - it was then just called "Tom's" - was more of a coffee/cigars/leather-chairs-for-reading kind of place. The current owner is a young woman/bohemian so the theme is more palm readings, tea, and coffee.)

Here's an interior shot - note the bulk teas on the far wall:

And the resident coffee mascot, Chico:

Finally, the other side of the interior with chairs & tables for when they have poetry readings and that kind of thing:

Once at work, I finish my Organic Mexican blend (not as good as African varietals, imho), and have yogurt with a tangerine:

Hope everyone is having a great morning so far!

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[ludja]

Up ahead on this page, you show green chili and scrambled eggs.  Please talk more about the chilies.

←

In addition to what misstenacity mentioned above, here's a link that has lots of info re: new mexico chiles and cuisine.

Here are a couple of quotes from two different articles:

First and most important: New Mexican food is not the same as Mexican food! The primary difference is the featured role of green chile in New Mexican cuisine. The reason that everyone else in the world uses red chile instead of green is that red chile can be dried, lasts a long time, and is easily transported whole or powdered. Green chile, on the other hand, is a fresh vegetable and must be used or frozen immediately upon harvest, and thus tends to remain a regional specialty. [...] Note also that green chile sauce is totally different than tomatillo sauce, which is usually the only green sauce option with Mexican food.

Canned green chiles and fresh Anaheim chiles don't taste the same.

"The intense use of chiles as a food rather than just as a spice or condiment is what differentiates New Mexican cuisine from that of Texas or Arizona. In neighboring states, chile powders are used as a seasoning for beef or chicken broth-based "chili gravies," which are thickened with flour or cornstarch before they are added to, say, enchiladas. In New Mexico, the sauces are made from pure chiles and are thickened by reducing the crushed or pureed pods." (Fiery-Foods.com)

Anyway, tons of info linked from the webpage given above including sourcing for shipping green chiles, recipes, distinctiveness of New Mexican cuisine, etc.

P.S. Your 'improvised' soup looked and sounded really good misstenacity...

[pam claughton]

Thanks to your blog, I now have a new favorite food discovery, pork tamales. Since the craving your blog created for enchiladas would not die, I went out to my favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch. I'd never had them, because I always get the same thing when I go out for Mexican, until today. I just wish I'd tried them sooner.

:) Pam

[Al_Dente]

I'm off to NM for a week's vacation in March. Thanks for whetting my appetite!

[misstenacity]

Breakfast today (after the yogurt) - homemade "instant" oatmeal. This is the same thing as yesterday's blueberry flavor except today it is peanut-coconut.

My problem was this: I like the flavors you can get with instant oatmeal, but think they are too sweet, and the oatmeal itself is gross and mushy. So, what I did was take the "snack size" baggies and make my own flavors with slow-cooking oats. In the baggie went 1/3c of oats plus the flavors: blueberries n' cream (dried blueberries, powdered milk, cinnamon, and walnuts), and peanut-coconut (chopped peanuts, coconut milk powder, shredded coconut). Then, at work I pour boiling water over them, let them soak for awhile, then nuke for a minute or two and its done. So far, so good - I'll have to make more baggies soon!

Anyway, here's the photo of the oatmeal:

I know ya'll want me to eat New Mexican until my ears melt off , but Albuquerque has lots of OTHER good restaurants, too!

As far as ethnic cuisine goes, ABQ is lacking/weak in several: Ethiopian (none), Afghani (had one but no longer), Middle Eastern (a few), other African, Korean (a few), Italian (none great, most poor).

Our strong cuisines? Chinese - decent; Thai - good; Sushi - good; and Vietnamese (great).

For lunch today I visited a location of one of our well-represented cuisines - Vietnamese. There are at least a dozen around town, and most are very good. Closest to where I work is Huong Thao, and of course I had pho (special beef, which included beef ball, rare beef, and roast beef - I forgot to ask for tendon):

The ambiance at Huong Thao is "generic asian", as you can see here:

But none of that matters when slurping up the pho, clearing out your sinuses, and waiting for the Viet Cafe to finish brewing:

Yum!

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[Mabelline]

The only thing I have to contend about the NMSU thread is the bald statement that folks in Arizona don't eat the same green. That's plain BS. Get over it. My parents lived in AZ in the 40's, because of the war. I know for a fact (Having three sons-in-law who are Navaho-Dine- and Apache) that Native American and Latinos have traded culture for centuries. If you all come with me to Tucson or Fort Huachuca or Nogales, I'll show you the same cookin.

[misstenacity]

Quick tour of my desk at work:

What we've got is my ubiquitous cereal (sometimes its Kashi, sometimes granola, sometimes muesli.... always friendly to yogurt and/or oatmeal); a pepper grinder; container of kosher salt; jar of crushed green chile (like the red chile you can shake on to your pizza.... except green. ); spiced honey from Colorado; and mints.

I won't bore you with a photo of my drawers (har har), but in them I have:

tea (about 50 bags of various flavors, mostly Tazo and Republic of Tea brand)

tinned sardines

canned salmon

baggies with my "instant" oatmeal mixes

4-6 cans of soup, mostly Progresso

1 large container of powdered tortilla soup from Comfort Foods, a local company

packets of hot chinese mustard and soy sauce

bottle of imitation vanilla juice

soup cups

...and, the previously mentioned "breakfast of champions".

I do not normally keep "treats" in my desk drawers, as that just invites too much snacking. If I do get the munchies I usually will eat some of my cereal.

Finally, in the public fridge at work I currently have: 2% milk, frozen blueberries, frozen green chile stew, homemade slaw, baby salad mix, and a small wedge of Maytag blue cheese.

Basically, I could survive for quite some time if a catastrophe should fall upon me at work. I would just need to use my spork to fend off coworkers trying to get at my sardines.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[misstenacity]

Dinner! The request was for something "cheesy and peppery and chickeny", and FAST, so no complicated multi-stage feats were to be undertaken.

As much as I fear the wrath of Jinmyo.... I made a quick & dirty meal of braised BSCB with spiced brown rice, topped with a habanero cheese sauce. Wow, does that sound white trashy.

Here's my gourmet description of the meal:

A free-range organic breast of poultry gently braised in its own juices on a bed of herbed whole grain rice, drizzled with fiery habanero-cheddar cream sauce. Better?

Ok, so I thawed out 2 chicken breasts (this is the most tedious part, actually), then seared & braised them in a covered pan. While this was going on I made a white sauce with butter, flour, milk and salt. Into the thickening sauce went 1 finely diced habanero, and 1/4 cup shredded cheddar (at the end).

The rice was also thawed out, then tossed with Penzey's Shallot Pepper seasoning (my favorite blend of theirs).

The plating, if horribly monochromatic, looked like this:

And then, there is the beauty of vanilla and caramel and chocolate:

Quick tour of my kitchen, so you can see what I'm working with. First a view of the stove. Yes, you only see 2 (electric) burners. In the pot is chicken broth from the defrosting of the breasts, reducing for later use:

If my stove space is limited, at least my counter and cupboard space is vast:

Finally, a closer-up of my stoveside condiments (most of the spices from the rack have been relocated to a cooler cupboard locale):

Having a partial island like this has gotten me addicted to cooking while facing the rest of the room. I don't know that I could go back to looking at a wall while doing prep and stove work. Its much more social, and less claustrophobic....

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[chow guy]

THE SOUPER BOWL:

[Warning.... this is a post overloaded by photos and not much text.... I barely remember all the soups I had, suffice it to say that if its in the photo, I tried it.  ]

An annual event put on by the Roadrunner Food Bank, it pits about 20-25 local restaurants against each other in a soup showdown.

Here's the scene, which takes place in their actual food warehouse, but you can see how crowded it gets:

In addition to the soups, you can see that there were lots of desserts.  Many people (including myself) got over to them early on to scope out and sample the items that would soon be picked over and just plain gone.  Here are some photos (all strewn together.... see a theme, here?  ) of those lovely confections:

And, on to the main attraction.....  after you're done cleaning out your short circuited keyboard from all the drool, read further for some comments on the standout specimens.

The one I voted "people's choice" was an artichoke chicken soup (pictured immediately to the right of the vat of matzoh balls, with a floating crouton in it)  from a place called Trombino Italiano (or something like that, they used to have a slightly different name and have recently changed it).  I actually have been disappointed by several of their dishes, but this soup kicked ass.  The close runner-up was the chipotle chicken, pictured along with its red-chile sopapillas, in the last 3 photos.

There has been a slow and steady creep of the number of both chowders and bisques, unfortunately.  A few years running of a crawfish bisque winning the title and no one wants to do a really nice clear soup anymore, which is partly why I loved the flavors in that artichoke soup.  Missing from years past were any bean-based soups, such as black bean.... or even a nice lentil soup.  Strange.  Now this is a "normal folks" crowd, but still I would expect to see at least one cold soup or a fruit soup, but no.  Perhaps I'll see if individuals can enter the competition and gear up for next year. 

Finally, there was a band playing and a silent auction to raise more money:

....and a table displaying how much food the cost of your ticket could purchase. 

With 20x 1-2oz of soup each (not all servings were fully eaten...), I'd say I had about 3 cups of soup total, plus a half dozen bite-sized desserts.  Plenty to make me full but not stuff my gullet.  I could have eaten a lot more but been bloated the rest of the afternoon.   

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[EDITED to fix line-breaks, more than one time(!)]

←

Wow, The Souper Bowl sure has grown since I was involved 8 years ago at Wild Oats.

Do they compete with desserts now as well?

I still have the plaque I won for my Sweet Potato Soup (vegetarian) with green chile and lime cream. I was surpised to even place with all of the seafood bisques and wild mushroom concotions in the competition.

My wife and I are involved with The Empty Bowls project, which has also has gotten huge. It's a great way to raise money for a good cause.

[chow guy]

Up ahead on this page, you show green chili and scrambled eggs.  Please talk more about the chilies.

←

The chiles are one of the shortcuts I use - they come pre-chopped and frozen in 4oz bags and sold 10 bags to a package at Costco. They look like chiles you might get out of a can, but these actually are pretty hot, so that's why I continue to buy them.

When its roasting time (fall), I will buy roasted green chiles in ziploc bags at the farmers market or in local grocery stores and then freeze them. Usually they are partly peeled and have their top attached at that point so a little work needs to be done yet before they can be used in recipes.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

←

I always have some chopped Costco chiles in the freezer too. They are quite good.But....

I got some killer Chile (frozen in large baggies) from Matt Romero for a gig I did at the Santa Fe Farmers Market . He sells at the market weekly (even in winter at El Museo).

He and his family have bred an exceptional green chile with HUGE flavor and HUGE heat. I have forgotten what he called it but I'll be up there again on the 12th to do another gig, I'll get the name.

[Susan in FL]

...I would just need to use my spork to fend off coworkers trying to get at my sardines. 

And here all this time I thought they were foons.

[misstenacity]

(pre)breakfast: 1 Gala apple and huge vat of cafe au lait.

Tonight I have a minor event to document - the first meeting of a newly formed supper club at a friend's house. We will be having "schweinschnitzel" as one of the courses.... Hee!

And, Susan: foon?

chow guy: I have to wonder if this Matt guy is the source for Horseman's Haven, as they have the hottest chile known to my tongue. Hmmm....

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[misstenacity]

Before arriving to work this morning, I realized I was out of yogurt, and also running a little early, so I stopped at Wild Oats. Here's what I left with:

That's a new box of muesli (yay!), a pink lady apple, 2 boxes of Tazo tea (on sale), 1 Balance Bar, 1 Larabar (addictive), yogurt, and kefir. I recently started loving things that are more and more sour/pungent, so I naturally love kefir as a yogurt alternative.

Mid-morning breakfast: yogurt w/ blueberries (not very photogenic, ick), and a package of the Kar's nut mix (not pictured).

Lunch (at my desk today, unfortunately) was some homemade slaw:

....and then some oatmeal (peanut & coconut) and a balance bar:

Whew. I think I got my sweets rush from that Balance Bar - I deliberately chose one of their most confectionary flavors this morning (Lemon Meringue). If I'm having a sweets craving, I will sometimes prefer to eat something sweet that has other "redeeming" qualities to it - in this case, protein.

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday. I'm looking forward to my dinner party tonight....

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[chow guy]

(pre)breakfast:  1 Gala apple and huge vat of cafe au lait.

chow guy:  I have to wonder if this Matt guy is the source for Horseman's Haven, as they have the hottest chile known to my tongue.  Hmmm....

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

←

I doubt it would work for a restaurant since it's very pricey ( they only grow small quantities) and as I recall it has a much richer flavor than HH"s does.

[jhlurie]

Folks. A point of Foodblog etiquette (actually this is a best practice all over eGullet).

Try to not quote an entire post if that post is very picture-laden. It makes reading the thread a lot harder. Use the quote button and edit the quoted material down a bit if possible. Don't change the context of what's been said of course, but try and leave only the section you are referring to, or at least a few representative images.

This isn't a rule, per se, so there are no stones being cast here--it's just something we'd like you to consider going forward.

As Soba is fond of saying... we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog...

[misstenacity]

Breakfast today: 2 cafe au laits, 1 pink lady apple.

Soon to be inhaled: bowl of peanut-coconut oatmeal. I really like this flavor combination, as obviously the two flavors work well together but in oatmeal its new to me. I'll definitely be coming up with new combinations when I make my next batch of little baggies to take to work.

Later this morning I'll post about the little dinner party we attended last night. Much fried meat was consumed.

And tonight, for the final send-off, I will be taking you on a red chile expedition to Mary & Tito's near downtown.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[misstenacity]

Dinner last night. We have a local happy hour group that meets weekly. Somehow the name became "snappy hour", and out of that was born the dinner party rotation, or "snupper club".

The inventor of the club hosted the first night, and we all decided that monthly would be good enough spacing for the gatherings. (I'm all for weekly, of course, but I must go with the prevailing winds...)

The "rules" are - its RSVP; group size should be 4-10, or however many the host wants to take on; and the host is free to provide wines/beverages if desired or could delegate that to someone else in the group.

This first round the menu was sent out thusly:

creamy german soup involving savoy cabbage and leeks

schweineschnitzel (like weinerschnitzel, but with pork instead of veal)

green beans

mashed potatoes

crescent rolls

caramelly peach shortcakes

Because of the Germanic/porky theme, we brought 2 sturdy white wines, a Viognier and a Pinot Grigio. The other option may have been a lighter red, such as Pinot Noir.

Arriving on time as usual, we find that the preparations are going fast & furious in the kitchen. The hostess remarks that she would have done more in advance had it not been for a successful 'social calendar' the previous night.

Her sister and I are quickly put to work frying the breaded piggies:

...and cooking down some peach syrup to even syrupierness, then warming the peaches therein:

The nuker is deployed to defrost the soup, which was prepared earlier and sealed up in vaccuum bags (note the unopened wine - we must have been very serious about actually doing the cooking!):

When the soup is warmed, it is served first (very, very tasty):

Whipping up the potatoes, assembling the dessert, and a quick saute of the green beans in the pig-frying oil, and dinner is served:

A close up of the beans and one of the juicy pig slabs (with lemon wedge barely visible lower right for squeezing on both...):

After we are all very nearly stuffed, the dessert is brought out. This is the Pepin "canned peaches" recipe that was mocked in the NYT.... but it was good!

All in all, a tasty dinner. I haven't had fried meat in awhile, so now I'm craving a chicken fried steak.... mmmm.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[little ms foodie]

What a fun dinner and group!!

[Ling]

I adore chicken-fried steak, but the fried pork looks good too. I'm enjoying this blog very much--I loved the pictures of the dessert bars on the 1st page.

Is that you by the microwave?

[misstenacity]

I adore chicken-fried steak, but the fried pork looks good too. I'm enjoying this blog very much--I loved the pictures of the dessert bars on the 1st page.

Is that you by the microwave? 

←

Nope. But I may have my companion take a photo of me at dinner tonight just for inclusion to the final post of the blog....

And funny you should mention the dessert bars (the green ones, right?). They were "key lime bars" and my SO, who is a key lime freak, tried one and then told me it was icky.

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[chow guy]

Your dinner party looks great and the menu is right up my alley. I've been in dining clubs in the past where everybody tried to outdo each other. Good simple delicious food would do me just fine.

I'm curious about the rules of the club. Does the monthly host pay for everything? I've been trying to get a quarterly dining club going again since monthly won't work with our busy friends. I've gotten resistance from folks about the host being responsible for the whole meal. Several folks want to do it pot luck style. I guess it's my control freak showing but I'd rather see the comlpete meal so people don't resort to their usual pot luck standards.

I'm also a huge fan of key limes. I buy them on a regular basis at Lowes Supermarket (a very unlikely spot) which is located on Lomas Boulevard at 12th Street. They usually have them at the amazing price of 15 limes for a dollar.