Why New Mexico

New Mexico
I went to New Mexico in search of food. I went to UNM in the 70s and have had a yearning, a nagging need to return. When the American Oriental Society announced that Albuquerque would be their meeting place this year we started planning. I started researching place to get great enchiladas with green and red chile. The best Posole. Stuffed sopapillas with carne adovada.
I poured through blogs and guide books. My favorite blog was Gil's thrilling (And Filling Blog) http://nmgastronome.com/blog/everything you need to make informed decisions about eating in Albuquerque with pictures. I confirmed my selections with discussions on the Chowhound site. In 5 days I couldn't possibly hit all the restaurants that I chose. We barely landed and dropped our bags at Hotel Albuquerque when we headed out N 4th street to Mary and Titos for an early dinner of the most amazing stuffed sopapillos you could imagine. The best places to get great food, I learned, were these little breakfast and lunch places. One day we went to Duran Central Pharmacy; I had enchiladas with rich, complex red and green chile. You expect that drug store smell when you come in the front door but instead you're hit with red chile. I'd eat there every day if I lived in Albuquerque. When I went to UNM I frequented University Drugs the ladies in the restaurant in the back made great burritos with green chile. Gone now. We ate at The Shed in Santa Fe it was just as good as it was 35 years ago and looked kind of the same, maybe a little more eclectic. I was like a homing pigeon heading across the plaza toward the turquoise covered sidewalk.
Of course I had to see UNM again. All those memories, and I need a Sweatshirt to fufill a weird recurring dream. Hodgkin Hall, where I had my first studio, is now all historic and restored. The campus had more trees than I remembered. I may have helped planted some during my summer workstudy job with the UNM landscape crew. Maxwell Museum had a memorable Chaco exhibit. I've been trying to make Chaco inspired mugs in my pottery class. Hand built, pinched then revised with coils. It's coming along - not like these though. These were my studio windows.
The Best Posole I had was at the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center served with a huge fry bread. My next challenge is to recreate some of these meals while they are fresh in my memory. I have a library of New Mexican cookbooks, my favorite being Huntly Dent's Foods of Santa Fe. I'm going to look through the pueblo Indian cookbooks for a great posole. I've been looking on the web for mail order sources. I'd like to find organic blue corn posole. So far I can't find any organic at all. I may end up going to the Santa Fe Cooking School and getting it nonorganic. I usually get my Chile from the Chile Shop in Santa fe and keep it in the freezer. We drove to Acoma with our friend Fred. Fred grew up in Santa Fe and while he now lives in Iowa he'd return in a heart beat and I can well understand why. The land is onw of the the most glorious in the world. He kept saying as we past mesas it doesn't get any better than this. I'm not a religious person but there is something that feels essential and sacred there.