When Break The Chain host Ryan Scott learned that a CIA trained chef was operating in the Duke City, he knew he’d have to investigate.  His sleuthing didn’t reveal any clandestine menus or covert cooking, but he did discover a chef with some pretty deft knife-wielding skills.  Throughout Ryan’s interrogation, the chef maintained no cloak of subterfuge or secrecy.  In fact, Chef Paco Aceves was rather forthcoming about his training and his not-so-secret mission here in the Duke City. 

Chef Aceves’s mission is to introduce Albuquerque to a range of international smoked foods including some of the most popular American BBQ specialties. His eponymous restaurant, Paco’s International Smoked Cuisine is not your typical BBQ restaurant in that it he utilizes smoking techniques to prepare a menu of rotating dishes from various countries.  Oh, and Chef Aceves was trained by the CIA, but not that CIA.  He’s a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, the other CIA.  The CIA  Chef Aceves attended is America’s most respected school for culinary arts training.

In the third YouTube channel episode of Break the Chain, Ryan joins Chef Aceves in the kitchen where the chef displays his formidable culinary skills in preparing a delicious pork loin.  Ryan also interviews several guests who rhapsodize eloquently about the food at Paco’s.  This entertaining three-part episode can be viewed on the Break The Chain Channel.  This episode should come with a warning that watching it might lead to involuntary salivation and it certainly will lead to a visit to Paco’s.

BACKGROUND: Over a five year period ending in 2010, there was a five percent increase in the number of chain restaurants across the United States. More than 15,000 chains were added to a restaurant landscape already blighted by chains. During that same period, there was a one-percent decline in the number of independent restaurants. Albuquerque ranks 31st per capita in the number of fast food and chain restaurants among cities with a population of at least 200,000. The Duke City has more than 300 fast-food and chain restaurants–56.7 per 100,000 residents. The chain with the largest presence in Albuquerque is Subway.

If your loyalties lie with local restaurants–those owned and operated by our friends and neighbors, you’ll love “Break the Chain,” an enlightening and entertaining new media program hosted by Ryan Scott. Break The Chain’s celebrates locally owned and operated restaurants here in New Mexico.  Ryan’s guests are among New Mexico’s most noted chefs and culinary experts, all of whom will give you some great ideas on where you can go to break the chain.

Obviously Break The Chain isn’t about breaking or bankrupting heavily bankrolled chain restaurants. It’s about breaking the chain “habit,” the inclination many have to visit the ubiquitous and convenient chains. Break The Chain is a celebration of local mom-and-pop restaurants, aiming to show the many outstanding alternatives to the familiar chains. It’s an interactive show in which you can participate and become a part of the experience. Most of all, it’s a fun and lively show you will love.

Widely recognized as one of the most foremost authorities on the New Mexico dining scene, Andrea Feucht is very passionate when it comes to the Land of Enchantment’s food. Andrea shares her passion with everyone in her new book, The Food Lovers Guide to Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Taos, a terrific tome all foodies should own.  Better still, buy at least two copies of–one copy in your vehicle and one in your kitchen. That way you consult the guide to help you decide where your next meal should come from as well as consulting it for recipes Andrea charmed some of New Mexico’s best culinary minds into sharing. 

I recently had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing Andrea about her new book.  As with any conversation with the tenacious author, it was an informative, thought-provoking and revealing interview I hope all of you will enjoy.

Q: Many congratulations on The Food Lovers Guide to Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos. It’s an amazingly comprehensive guide, but it doesn’t read like a lot of guides which are so formulaic in their writing. How did you manage to balance providing information with making it fun and interesting for readers?

A: Interestingly, it was the structure that let me cut loose once I started writing. I had a formula to follow based on the other books in the “Food Lovers’ Guide” series: regional chapters with sub-categories like “foodie faves” and “landmarks” and “shopping”. I added the category “All Chile, All the Time” to capture local favorites. Each of the 250+ entries gets about 200 words – incredibly hard to keep my stories that brief. If you read the New Yorker, their “Tables for Two” reviews are in the 200-300 word count length and incredibly dense with information. I *love* those reviews and draw constant inspiration from their brevity.

Q: Please describe your process for deciding which restaurants you were going to feature. With hundreds of options available to you, it must have been quite a challenge.

A: I was able to conjure up at least 2/3 of the restaurants off the top of my head based on personal experience – particularly in Albuquerque where I live and eat. The rest were found by lots of research – asking foodie friends, reading dozens of blogs and magazines for tidbits and gossip, and visiting the promising new spots.

Q: Which number is more significant—the number of miles you put on your car visiting so many restaurants or the calories you consumed eating so many wonderful dishes?

A: Good question! I’d say the miles, actually. I was able to keep the calories shockingly reasonable by sharing, ordering sparingly, or taking a few bites and discarding the rest. The food I threw out was kind of regrettable, but necessary when visiting 2 dozen spots over a weekend! I also used the Railrunner a bit for my Santa Fe visits, which let me write on the ride up and back rather than focus on driving.

Q: What were the biggest surprises you uncovered during your travels throughout the Rio Grande corridor?

A: It *shouldn’t* come as a surprise, but the willingness of chefs and owners to talk about their “babies” – once you ask a few questions about the founding of their restaurant most of them will talk your ear off. I had wonderful conversations with folks like Roberto Cordova of Casa Chimayo who have been carrying their family legacy for generations, trying to keep their business afloat through these hard years. He is so proud of his grandmother’s red chile posole recipe he shared a big bowl with me; the restaurant’s front area even has old photos of her rolling tortillas in her 80s.

Q: One of the many things I appreciated about The Food Lovers Guide is how you were able to show that the cuisine of the Land of Enchantment is so much more than red and green chile. Other than the use of chile, even in desserts, what makes New Mexico’s cuisine so unique?

A: In a way New Mexico can be a little honey-badger-like: our restaurants are proud to serve this food with blue corn and posole and sopaipillas and we don’t care what people think. Is the chile too hot? Awww, too bad; maybe you should try Texas instead! We differ from neighboring states in that we don’t try to invent new things or be like another cuisine – we just *are*.

Q: You’ve long been a proponent of farm-to-table and locavore dining and it came across very well in your book. Many of the restaurants you featured in your book embrace those concepts as well. With New Mexico being such an agrarian state, how do you foresee the future of farm-to-table and locavore dining?

A: It will only get better, not just in New Mexico but in the whole country. There are young farmers who have started up after not finding a “regular” job they could love: in Albuquerque we have Monte Skaarsgard as one of the first big celebrities, but it is all over the state. An acquaintance I know from trail running gave up all of that and went back to his family’s farm near Silver City and took over – he’s packed on 30 pounds of muscle on his skinny runner frame and looks like someone who is in LOVE with his life. That is key.

The more consumers get to know where their food comes from, the better things will get at all levels. YES you should know your farmer. YES you should try your own little garden – even herbs to start out, on your windowsill. YES you should buy local meat and eggs! YES you should ask your grocery store to carry these things, and YES you should demand it from your restaurants. Just imagine the impact it would have on struggling local farmers to have every Weck’s and Olive Garden and Subway getting their produce and meat locally!

Q: It was also refreshing to read a guide that doesn’t include any chain restaurants (other than “local” chains such as Il Vicino). Will there ever come a day in which mom-and-pop dining establishments are preferred by the masses to the chains?

A: One can hope. In the meantime, refer to above – ASK every single restaurant you ever patronize if they use local ingredients and if not, when they will. Be that squeaky wheel.

Q: How were you able to coax the wonderful recipes featured on your book from some of New Mexico’s very best chefs?

A: I paid them in French truffles. Just kidding. It was easier than I expected to get each of the chefs to AGREE to contribute something. Usually you just lead in with, “I really adore your food and would be so honored if you could share a recipe with me for my book.” Speaking to the ego works quite often, of course.

The difficulty sometimes came when making sure I actually got my recipe – being there in person helps quite a bit, as chefs are really, really busy. I did send quite a few emails asking if they could please send that recipe on over as soon as possible, but in the end it was all just peachy. I hope they are satisfied with how their creations come through in my words.

Q: Food trucks, which you also recognized in your book, used to be stereotyped as “roach coaches,” but in recent years, a new breed of adventurous chefs are taking to a mobile mode of showcasing gourmet-quality dishes. How do you see the future of the food truck movement?

A: I hope it continues to blossom here in New Mexico. In reality, many of the food trucks nationwide were started out of frustration: inability to find a good space, lack of start-up funds, an unproven concept (kimchee quesadillas?). Permitting and actually opening a restaurant is so much money most folks would be shocked – hopefully they’d also not blanch so much at menu prices as a result.

Ironically, permitting is the downfall of many trucks – you can’t find a place to park or your kitchen needs some upkeep to pass the rigorous testing. I hope that statewide and nationwide that regulations do not stymie future growth (outright outlawing of food trucks has been done in some cities already, with support often coming from established restaurant organizations). In the meantime, go visit our local trucks and enjoy their creativity and value – you won’t regret it.

Q: For years, Santa Fe’s dining scene has seemingly garnered all the attention in New Mexico, but this past year Albuquerque was recognized for its culinary excellence by both Fodor’s and Zagat. To what do you attribute that recognition? Why has the Duke City always been Miss Congeniality to Santa Fe’s Miss America?

A: I’m not sure if Fodor’s and Zagat are waking up to how big Albuquerque is, but the recognition is certainly welcome. Truth be told, there is still more money in Santa Fe to be spent – it is a destination for vacations and a refuge for wealthy retirees and that means the purse strings will be loosened when eating out compared to your everyday eats like here in Albuquerque. There are places in Santa Fe that do still blow Albuquerque’s competition out of the water – it’s true. But in Albuquerque we are doing alright. Jennifer James will be a torchbearer for some time, but don’t discount innovation like Farina, Farm & Table, Torino’s, or even Bailey’s on the Beach.

Q: How on earth did you write this in 10 weeks while holding down a full time job?

A: I still am not entirely sure, but the last four weeks averaged three hours of sleep per night and the final week brought on a full-onslaught chest cold that left me with laryngitis for ten days. It was surreal, stressful and amazingly rewarding. AND I met my deadline. Whew.

Where can readers find a copy of the Food Lovers’ Guide?

I would hope everyone would buy the book locally, but if they prefer online shopping, you can find my book at http://amzn.to/foodloversnm or http://foodloversnm.com/. They can also contact me to ask questions about ANYTHING food related: a@foodloversnm.com and can find me on Facebook at http://fb.me.foodloversnm. 

On Saturday, January 19th, I’ll be at Bookworks  for a signing and would love to meet New Mexico food lovers.  More on the event can be found here. 

Over the years Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog has become a community in which readers freely share their opinions. I invite all my dear readers to share your favorites by replying to this email…and if, like me, you love “best of” lists, I invite you to check out Cheryl Jamison’s The Ten Best Things I Ate In New Mexico This Year. Cheryl, the elegant and scintillating James Beard Award Winning Author, is the New Mexican I trust most for culinary recommendations so it’s a sure bet I’m going to try as many as possible of the dishes she enjoyed during 2012.

While my travels throughout the Central California Coast, Chicago and Kansas City in 2012 introduced me to some transformative dishes, be it ever so humble, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the food served throughout New Mexico. The dishes listed below–Gil’s Best of the Best for 2012–are my baker’s dozen plus two list of the best foods I had in New Mexico. They still linger on my taste buds and remain imprinted on my fondest memories. My favorites are listed in chronological order.

• Ironically, some of the most sumptuous seafood in landlocked New Mexico, is served in a three-legged cooking and serving vessel made from pure volcanic basalt. It’s the Molcajete Sinaloense from Albuquerque’s El Zarandeado. The deep-pucked cauldron includes three types of shrimp along with two butterflied fish filets and ringlets of octopus served in a mildly piquant green salsa served almost bubbling.

• Jambo Cafe is so exciting, enticing and exotic that any number of dishes on its menu could rank among the best of the best for any year. The Coconut Peanut Chicken Kebabs with Curry Coleslaw is such a dish. It’s an appetizer with a grown-up peanut curry flavor. It’s a melding of textures, colors and tastes in such harmonious relationship to each other that the recipe could have been written by Mozart.

• Neither sweet nor made of bread, sweetbreads are the ultimate organ meat, highly coveted by skilled chefs and daring connoisseurs alike for their mild yet exotic flavor and velvety texture. Chef Kevin Bladergroen at Blades’ Bistro in Placitas prepares the most rich and delicious veal sweetbreads I have ever had. It’s worth enduring a bout or two with gout for this offal deliciousness.

• In Africa there is nothing more festive than sharing foods. Villagers near and far are called to such festivities by “talking drums.” It’s only appropriate that the Duke City’s first and only African restaurant be named Talking Drums for the method of communication which calls people to eat. One of the dishes which calls loudest is jerk chicken, an assertively piquant poultry dish that, as Emile Lagasse might say, “pops.”

• From Chef Jean-Pierre Gozard’s eponymous Cafe Jean-Pierre in Albuquerque come some of the very best oysters these lips have ever tasted–pearlescent beauties with pronounced flavors of savory-sweet brininess. Having lived outside of New Orleans for almost eight years and having consumed boatloads of oysters should give me a modicum of credibility.

• Cynics and critics alike decry pork belly as “so yesterday.” It’s fortunate, therefore, that Albuquerque tends to be a bit behind the times and trends because in 2012, the Duke City fell in love and lust with the pork belly with butterscotch miso sauce at the Farm & Table restaurant. It’s bacon in its purest and most delicious form, three petite pieces of porcine perfection provide a textural and flavor experience few foods can hope to match.
  

• If you believe Albuquerque’s Ming Dynasty is solely a dim sum restaurant and haven’t ordered from the day-to-day menu in a while, you owe yourself a visit. Tell Ming you want the shredded duck entree. It’s laden with crisp, fresh vegetables and rich, succulent duck doused in a beauteous brown sauce that has discernible notes of piquancy. It’s one of my very favorite duck dishes in New Mexico or anywhere.

• If you think Jennifer James 101 is an unlikely choice as my top 2012 choice for Mexican-New Mexican inspired cuisine, you haven’t indulged in her fresh corn smut tamale served with a chipotle cream and a roasted corn salsa. Corn smut is, of course, the gnarly, slimy, sometimes gooey, ink-black corn fungus long savored in Mexico. It’s a rare delicacy in New Mexico, but it’s catching on. This tamale is one of the reasons why.
  

• In its December, 2012 edition Bon Appetit Magazine named the Cemita sandwich one of the top 25 food trends for 2013. There’s only one place in Albuquerque where you can get the Cemita–Chile Rio Mexican Grill. Better yet, Chile Rio offers two variations on the sandwich often called Mexico’s Big Mac or Mexico’s Dagwood Sandwich. Available with Yucatan Chicken or Slow-Roasted Pork Carnitas, I just call it one of my favorites.

• In August, 2008, during a filming of his No Reservations show, the Travel Channel’s indefatigable host Anthony Bourdain proclaimed the enchiladas at the Pepper Pot in Hatch “the best red enchiladas of his life.” It was the green chile enchiladas which ensnared my affections. Now who are you going to trust–me or the best-selling author, culinary adventurer and self-proclaimed hedonist.

• One of my very favorite culinary finds for 2012 is Rey’s Place for whom the terms “hole-in-the-wall” and “mom and pop” truly apply. So do the terms “made-from-scratch” and any synonym for delicious you can think of. Grandma Gloria’s Tacos are among the many Rey’s specialties which captured my heart and expanded my belt line during the year. When Rey’s is no longer a well-kept secret and becomes so crowded you can’t find a seat, you’ll regret you didn’t visit earlier or more often.

• It wouldn’t be an authentic favorites list for me if it didn’t include at least one Vietnamese soup (which dominate my Favorite Soups list). In 2012, the best soup of any genre I slurped to my heart’s content may well be the Pho Sate Kim Long from Kim Long Asian Cuisine. Think bold flavors, soul-warming comfort and uncommon deliciousness. It’s served in a swimming pool-sized bowl. A swimming pool of this pho might not be enough.

• As a snot-nosed kid, I wasn’t as culinarily adventurous as I am now and would turn up my nose at such delicacies as chicken liver. It’s too bad I wasn’t exposed sooner to the sauteed chicken livers “Agre Dolce” with pine nuts, raisins, caramelized onions, vinegar and mashed potatoes from Santa Fe’s Il Piatto. You haven’t lived until you’ve had liver this good.
  

• Few new restaurants arrived with the fanfare and reputation of Paddy Rawal’s OM Fine Indian Dining which launched in November in the Duke City. If anything, this restaurant exceeded expectations. Even its buffet has earned accolades–not for portion opportunities, but for its high quality. Forgo the buffet and try the Seafood Korma (Scallops, Shrimp, Mahi Mahi, Cashew Cream Sauce). It’s the catch of the day–any day in 2012.

• Quick! What’s New Mexico’s best sandwich? If your answer is “the green chile cheeseburger,” you’re like many New Mexicans who haven’t been sufficiently impressed by any sandwich. You’ll be more than impressed if you visit Mucho Gourmet Sandwich Shop in Santa Fe and order the Southwest Grilled Cheese Sandwich. The Food Network believes it’s our state’s best sandwich. You probably will, too.

You’ll notice that some of my very favorite restaurants–Budai Gourmet Chinese, Mary & Tito’s, Torinos @ Home, Joe’s Pasta House,  and The Bobcat Bite aren’t represented on this list even though I did visit every one of them (some several times) in 2012. Those are my stand-bys and they serve some of my favorite dishes of any year. It would have been too easy to name my favorite dishes from these fabulous eateries.