Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1227 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 12,100 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
The Oxford Dictionary defines an adage as “a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth.” The adage “the apple does not fall far from the tree,” for example, means a child usually behaves in a …
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There are varying accounts as to the genesis of wine-making in the United States. While it is widely acknowledged that as early as the 1500s Spanish and French Huguenot settlers in Florida began making wine …
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For many of us barbecue is a noun as in “a social gathering at which barbecued food is eaten.” For others it’s a verb (to roast or smoke food over wood using smoke at low …
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Television would have you believe Mars and Venus have different ideas as to what constitutes the proper way to eat a burger. Representing Venus (women), as depicted in a Wendy’s commercial from the 1980s, is …
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In 2008, Natchez, Mississippi, was officially named the Biscuit Capital of the World, a process which took three years of research by Chef Regina Charboneau. Just our luck, the Natchez native and French-trained chef began serving …
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“Toasting makes me uncomfortable, but toast I love. Never start the day without a good piece of toast. In fact, let’s toast to toast.” ~George Costanza You might think that only a short, stocky, slow …
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“The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.” ~Edward De Bono The Land of Enchantment boasts of some 3,500 restaurants, more than 1,000 of which …
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In an article for New Mexico Magazine, scintillating four-time James Beard award-winning author Cheryl Alters Jamison proclaimed “Pity the folks who think breakfast is a bowl of cornflakes or some granola and yogurt—talk about starting …
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“Service is horrible” “The management has to train there employees.” “Worst service ever! I can’t stress on how bad the service was.” “Nice views. Lousy service and rude staff.” “Service sucks. Waited 20mins between beers.” …
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What is it about French words that make them sound haughty and pompous to some people and elegant and refined to others? Think I’m kidding? In Massachusetts, I knew a guy who for two years …
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In June, 2021, Eater.com published a list of “the 21 Essential Restaurants in Albuquerque.” Unlike so many “clickbait” articles from national publications purporting to tell New Mexicans which restaurants across the Land of Enchantment serve …
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Voracious readers*, avid aficionados of art and those aflame with a musical ardor know that great books, art and music are imbued with the power to transport them to another time and place. A recent …
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As a spindly teenager who hadn’t yet metamorphosed into my (then) scrawny 6’1″ stature, I had grand delusions of someday playing basketball for the University of New Mexico (UNM) Lobos. There could be no greater …
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As we wended our way along meandering Rio Grande Boulevard, I commented to my Kim, “I sure miss Ichabod and Katrina.” “Colleagues of yours at UNM?,” she asked. “No, not colleagues,” I replied pointing to …
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From 1988 through 2005, Rex’s Hamburgers stood practically alone in offering Duke City consumers an alternative to the homogeneous gobble-and-go offerings of deep-pocketed fast-food chains like McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s. Rex’s earned and retained …
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Some people just aren’t cut out for the military. The most incompatible among them usually wash out during basic military training, what is often referred to as “boot camp.” Sometimes it’s the rigor of strenuous …
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I’m not sure Matt Moody could sell milk to the lactose intolerant or ice to an eskimo, but it would be hard to bet against him. The genial owner of the Ironwood Kitchen on Albuquerque’s …
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My Air Force friend and colleague Al Garcia once shared one of those amusing anecdotes that will leave your head shaking in disbelief even as you’re practically rolling on the floor with laughter. According to …
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Thank you, Mighty Mike! Thank you for restoring our faith in barbecue just one day after my Kim declared “I don’t want to have barbecue for a long time.” Readers might find it hard to …
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Throughout its storied history, Amarillo’s culinary reputation has been based primarily on one kind of food: beef. That’s no surprise considering Amarillo-area ranches produce thirty-percent of the nation’s beef and ninety-percent of the beef in …
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Published in 1938, John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novels ever written. Replete with timeless themes of struggle, destitution, injustice, and the pursuit of a delusive “Promised …
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The Wikipedia article on Eastern New Mexico describes the region as “mostly characterized by flat featureless terrain,” even likening it to West Texas: “Like much of the Llano Estacado region, Eastern New Mexico is largely …
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London-based restaurant critic Jay Rayner makes barbecue sound a bit like a scientific process: “the long, virtuous interplay of fire, smoke and time on cow and pig muscle fibre; who sees only joyous caramelisation and …
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My friend Schuyler used to joke that every meal we enjoyed together was “upscale” because “up” was the direction his scale climbed when we finished our marathon meals. We were quite the trenchermen in our …
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It’s not all parents who can give birth to two children in a six week period, but that’s precisely what Harrison and Violet did. In early October, 2019, they welcomed into the world a beautiful …
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There’s an old Lebanese proverb that says, “some men build a wine cellar after only finding one grape.” That proverb aptly describes the many rags to riches success stories among Lebanese immigrants to the Land …
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You might think that the food truck industry is an ultra-competitive dog-eat-dog business in which purveyors aren’t very gracious when discussing fellow food truck operators. Considering how they often jockey for a limited number of …
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Urban Dictionary, that oft hilarious, veritable cornucopia of slang, jargon and streetwise lingo, defines “lush” as “someone who drinks a lot.” (Actually, there are several pages of similar definitions for “lush” in the “peoples’ dictionary,” …
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A case could be made that “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” the name of a 1977 hit by Santa Esmeralda, could well be a lament about New Mexican cuisine (in addition to being the background …
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About halfway between Truth or Consequences and Hatch on I-25, you may have espied a billboard audaciously proclaiming “world’s finest green chile cheeseburger.” That billboard has always piqued my curiosity and prompted such questions as …
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“Are you going to explain how to pronounce “bosque?,” my Kim asked when she espied me working on this review. Though her Spanish vocabulary is rather limited, she pronounces the five or six hundred Spanish …
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Hold the pickles Hold the lettuce Special orders don’t upset us All we ask is that you let us serve it your way In 1974, Burger King introduced its most successful and long-standing advertising campaign, …
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Cowgirl” is an attitude really. A pioneer spirit, a special American brand of courage. The cowgirl faces life head-on, lives by her own lights, and makes no excuses. Cowgirls take stands; they speak up. They …
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In its eighth season, the brilliant sitcom Seinfeld helped introduce casual comic book fans to the concept of Bizarro world, a setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite of expectations. In other words, a Bizarro …
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“I think we love bacon because it has all the qualities of an amazing sensory experience. When we cook it, the sizzling sound is so appetizing, the aroma is maddening, the crunch of the texture …
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6 October 2020: From the Abq Grill n Que Facebook page – These unique times have forced us to make the very difficult decision to shut down our operations for the foreseeable future. We did …
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