Green chile, Canadian style.
I had a bunch of relatives visiting from Toronto last week, and it was interesting to hear the things they noticed on their first-ever trip to the Southwest. "There was a guy in the liquor store in a full-length black cape!" my uncle told me after making a run for wine one hot afternoon. They seemed to think I should have been more shocked than I was. "Did he have a light saber, too?" I joked. Next thing I know we're driving down
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St. Francis and my aunt says, "Look at that girl with the dreadlocks." She looked drugged out and pissed off, standing on the side of the road. "What does her sign say? 'Pregnant-will work for food.' Oh my God!"
I had to do some damage control fast. We headed for the Palace of the Governors for a quick shot of culture and they were soon absorbed in determining in how many tiny settlers you could fit in one rickety stagecoach.
Later, we had dinner at Maria's while they peppered me with questions and observations. "Men here all have ponytails," and "Wow! Wagon wheel chandeliers with neon!" and "What's adovada?" and "A $45 margarita?" But they were good eaters. I was amazed at the amount of chile they could put down, even if they had no idea what was underneath it. My cousin Will ordered Maria's combo plate and was halfway through his relleno before he asked me, "What the hell am I eating?" I think he had taken a mouthful of stem and seeds, because the panicked look on his face was hysterically funny. Once he had that figured out it was on to what he thought was a paper-covered grenade: a tamale. I'm sure the only tamale he'd ever eaten was a sugary red thing the size of a Contac capsule. "It tastes like potato," he said when he finally unwrapped the corn husk. Isn't that funny? "The good stuff's in the middle," I told him.
The next morning we tried to get a table at Santa Fe Baking Company, but the place was packed-at 10:30 am on a Monday. "Why aren't these people at work?" my aunt asked. I said, "They are," gesturing toward a cluster of glowing 17-inch PowerBooks in the corner, "just like I am." We said hi to my girlfriend Giovanna, her sister, brother, sister-in-law, nephews and niece, and decided to forage for breakfast somewhere else.
The relatives were constantly amazed at the way we always seemed to be running into people I knew. They assumed it was because of my star status, you know, being a columnist in the most widely read paper in Santa Fe and all. I didn't have the heart to tell them that this is such a small town you can't buy gas without running into your ex's former step-grandfather or the exterminator who used to service the office you worked in during the summer of '94. I was happy to let them think I backed out of brunch at Tom Ford's because they were in town.
Anyway, we were heading up to Taos that morning, so I suggested we stop at Tesuque Village Market. I had warned them that the place might be filled with media moguls or movie stars, so I looked like something of an idiot when the place was totally empty. "Must be time for Pilates class or something…" I muttered.
"What's Frito pie? Is that really pie? Does it really have Fritos in it?" My cousin Will was intrigued. "Is green chile stew any good?" Yes and yes. Will thought that the market's super-size Frito pie ($6.99) was the greatest thing since Mountain Dew Code Red, and my uncle seemed genuinely disappointed that the potato-heavy stew ($6.99) wasn't spicier. The treat of the meal for me was the pumpkin empanada ($2.49). Served warm, the empanada had ultra-flaky pastry wrapped around custardy pumpkin pie filling. I could have eaten 100 of them.
That night we had dinner at Joseph's Table in Taos. On my recommendation, we started with two orders of Joe's foie gras with sun-dried cherry chutney ($16). Cousin Claire demanded to know if it was meat or not-she only eats ground meat. I said, "If you're going to avoid meat, Claire, for God's sake, avoid ground meat." But it's chewing pieces of recognizable flesh that grosses her out, not fear of E. coli or lurking snouts and kneecaps. Somehow I got her to try a few pieces. She liked it. We had a blast.
Maria's New Mexican Kitchen
555 W. Cordova Road
983-7929
11 am-10 pm Monday-Friday; noon-10 pm Saturday; noon-10 pm Sunday
Tesuque Village Market
NM 599 at Bishop's Lodge Road in Tesuque
(five miles north of Santa Fe)
988-8848
7 am-9 pm every day
Joseph's Table
108-A South Taos Plaza
(in La Fonda Hotel)
505-751-4512
11:30 am-2:30 pm and 5:30 pm-10 pm Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 5:30 pm-10 pm Tuesday and Wednesday; 10:30 am-2:30 pm and 5:30 pm-10 pm Sunday
Tell me where to eat! I need your input. Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to food@sfreporter.com.
