Category: Mexican

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Mulas – Corrales, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

How many times have you heard an elected official referred to as a “jackass?”  In the village of Corrales, that term could conceivably not be used as a pejorative.  Every year during the last weekend of the Corrales Harvest Festival, a pet mayor is named.  If the newly elected mayor is unable to fulfill his or her duties, a pet mayor pro tem is named to assume the duties of the mayoral office.  Corrales has long prided itself on being a paragon of democratic values and inclusivity though the winning candidate is usually a dog or a horse.  In 2022, the winning candidate was a peacock and in 2020, it was  Chip, a five month old miniature donkey. Unlike human…

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La Sirenita – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Our friends, John Martin and Lynn Garner and I couldn’t help but laugh. There before our very eyes was the depiction of a meme come to life. In the dining room of la Sirenita was a papier Mâché reproduction of the bottom half of a mermaid. It reminded us of a meme we recently shared.  That meme depicted a grizzled sailor marooned on a desert island.  On the first panel of the meme the sailor smiled lasciviously as a beautiful and buxom mermaid approached the island.  The second panel shows the sailor cooking the bottom half of the mermaid on a rotisserie.  Yeah, it’s gruesome, but come on, it’s funny, too. The bottom half of a mermaid wasn’t the only…

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Poké Serrano Asian-Latin Fusion – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Ask most people what comes to mind when they think about Hawaiian food and the likely answer is Spam®.  No matter how much the Aloha State’s tourism department does to showcase the state’s diverse and exciting culinary culture, the stereotype that Hawaiians eat Spam® for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between meals is engrained in many of us.  Because Hawaiians do consume seven-million cans of  Spam® per year (with a population of 1.42 million residents in the Islands), it begs the question “Is it really a stereotype if facts bear out the fact that Spam® is so immensely popular in Hawaii.” Not everyone who spends time on the sandy beaches is as svelte as portrayed by media.  Widespread obesity…

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El Guero Canelo – Tucson, Arizona

Gil Garduno

If asked to participate in a word association exercise, any well-traveled foodie undergoing psychoanalysis would find it easy to name the first food that comes to mind when a city is mentioned: Philadelphia – the Philly cheesesteak sandwich; Boston – baked beans; Chicago – Italian beef sandwiches; San Francisco – sourdough bread; Milwaukee – butter burgers; San Antonio, New Mexico – green chile cheeseburgers.  You get the point.  Some foodies might not know that Philadelphia is the birthplace of liberty, but they know about Geno’s and Pat’s King of Steaks and their decades-long battle for Philly cheesesteak supremacy. You might find it strange that seemingly pedestrian foods would be the defining cuisine of burgeoning cosmopolitan cities, historically significant metropolises and…

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Cocina Chiwas – Tempe, Arizona

Gil Garduno

Chef Armando Hernandez is my new hero.  In an interview with the Phoenix New Times, he was asked about “authentic Mexican cuisine.”  His retort was scathingly brilliant: “It’s very difficult for me to have these conversations, especially among our own people, about what’s considered authentic.  “They’ll be like, ‘Well, my Grandma-’ and I’m like, yeah, I’m not your Grandma though.”  Those of us who grew up in the Land of Enchantment when our distinctive cuisine was widely labeled “Mexican” remain somewhat in the dark about differences between New Mexican cuisine and that of our Southern neighbor.   It was only rather recently that cognoscenti determined New Mexican cuisine is different enough from Mexico’s to warrant its own label–New Mexican. Perhaps…

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Ramona’s Mexican Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.” ~Laurie Colwin, Novelist Watch virtually any episode of Kitchen Nightmares and you might just be convinced that families can’t possibly work together in a restaurant.  Kitchen Nightmares, one of Gordon Ramsay’s eight-hundred or so television shows, is rather formulaic–Ramsay spends a week with a failing restaurant in an attempt to revive the business.  Almost invariably, the failing restaurant is owned and operated by a family.  Almost invariably, the drama falls just short of Homer strangling Bart.  Arguments on Kitchen Nightmares are loud and intense.  Copious…

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Burger Bro’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Such advanced human traits as complex symbolic expression, art as an aesthetic visual form and elaborate cultural diversity emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years or so.  That’s more than four-million years after humans gained the ability to walk on two legs. By comparison, the ubiquitous All-American burger has evolved in the blink of time.  Most culinary historians believe the burger as we know it today was invented somewhere between 1885 and 1904. Even most of us who have lived three or more decades have seen significant changes in the burger.  Many of those changes have occurred during the 21st century–the last twenty years or so. Think about it.  For the most part, the predominant burger many “seasoned” eaters across the fruited plain…

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Los 6 Hermanos – Bernalillo, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Once upon a time (how many of you remember when seemingly all ancient fables and stories began with these four words?) there was a family of six Chinese brothers, each with a unique and amazing power. One of the brothers committed an infraction against Chinese law and was sentenced to death by the emperor. By asking for one last night at home the brothers were able to take each others place and thwart the king’s executioner’s attempt to kill them.  Eventually the executioner ran out of ways to run the execution and had to call it off. There are no cuentos or corridos, sagas or stories in Mexico involving six siblings imbued with exceptional abilities.  In fact, just about the…

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The Skillet – Las Vegas, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

A man comes home after a long day.  His wife then hits him in the back of the head with a frying pan.  He clutches his head in pain asking her, “Honey why? Why did you do that?” She answers, “When I was doing your laundry I found a receipt in your pocket with a woman’s name on it.” He responds, “That’s why you hit me? Honey, Mary-Ann is a horse I bet on.  That’s the receipt for my bet.” She accepts that and apologizes and they make up.  Next week the same thing happens. He comes home and is struck in the back of his head with a frying pan. The husband asks, “AGAIN? You hit me in the…

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Tio’s Kitchen – Bernalillo, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

I may not have much respect for the national media or for politicians, but I sure do respect the elderly (unless they’re members of the media or politicians).  My parents engendered among their six children, respect for our elders.  None of us would ever consider addressing an elder by their first name.  We would never use the pronoun “tu” (you) when speaking with someone older than us.  We always use “usted,” also a Spanish term for “you,” but used in a formal manner for people we respect and always for our elders.  We were raised with the type of respect for seniors that is practiced in India, Thailand, Somalia, Indonesia and other nations who venerate their elderly.   Being raised…

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Zacatlán – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

As a naive and impressionable child with a vivid imagination, my most frightening weekly ordeal was walking home from Catechism, especially when teachings centered around the devil and his demons. For some reason we weren’t taught about a loving God. Instead it was drilled into us that if we’re not “good” we’d go to Hell.  Strangely such concepts as forgiveness and goodness were described rather abstractly while the devil (undoubtedly a progenitor of today’s elected officials) and sin were made real enough to traumatize us all.  The devil was everywhere waiting to ensnare us into sin and drag us (wailing and gnashing our teeth) into Hell. Walking home at twilight after another fire and brimstone lesson made me long for…