James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" Semifinalist 2023 Archives - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog

El Chile Toreado – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno — Fri, 03 May 2024 06:01:14 +0000

Until 2008, the notion of gourmet culinary offerings being proffered by a mobile conveyance was unheard of. Prior to then, food trucks were (often rightfully so) known as “roach coaches” or even worse “barf buggies.” Roach coaches were an eyesore, a medium of last resort usually parked at construction sites, manufacturing plants, public parks or basic military training bases where captive trainees had no alternative. Roach coaches were a pure convenience with no pretense to gourmet (or even good) cuisine. Most of them hawked simple fare such as hot dogs and tacos as well as potato chips, cigarettes, candy and chewing gum. During the era of “convenience stores on wheels,” food trucks weren’t worried about building a brand. Nor were…

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Horno Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 06:01:40 +0000

By the time my Kim and I returned to New Mexico in 1995, the days of my family steam-baking chicos in hornos were long past, but she sure was intrigued by our mud and adobe outdoor ovens. She wasn’t so much interesting in exaggerated tales of our back-breaking labors, but of the process of baking chicos in those hornos. We explained that the process began by building a fire inside the oven and letting it burn for hours–long enough for the hornos’ mud walls and floor to acquire a thermal capacity perfect for steaming corn. The corn isn’t inserted into the horno until all that’s left of the fire is red embers. With the corn nestled comfortably atop the ashes,…

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THE LOVE APPLE – Taos, New Mexico

Gil Garduno — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 06:01:03 +0000

If the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century had had its way, the tomato might not be a ubiquitous ingredient in the cooking of many cultures today. So, just what is it about the seemingly innocuous tomato that once earned it a scurrilous reputation in the Church, the type of reputation which made it the Paris Hilton of the nightshade family? Brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors, it was initially viewed with apprehension, thought not to be edible but purely decorative–and poisonous. Leave it to the French to change that perception by ascribing aphrodisiac properties to what they called pomme d’amour or love apple. This prompted the Roman Catholic Church of the time to declare the tomato the…

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