Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1215 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 11,900 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
Chef-owner Mario D’Elia knew what he’d be in for when he named his new restaurant Poppy’s Pizzeria & Italian Eatery. Legions of Seinfeld fans would undoubtedly joke “Poppy’s a little sloppy,” a reference to Poppie, …
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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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My brother in blogging Ryan Cook describes his first day in Vietnam: “So, my first stop in Vietnam was the capital, Hanoi. My honest first impressions… what the hell have I let myself in for. …
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Perhaps because I was away from the Land of Enchantment for much of my Air Force career, one of my favorite bloggers has long been Lisa Fain, the James Beard award-winning “Homesick Texan.” Like …
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While ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy) may sound like what grade school girls called me many years ago, in Japanese the term ikigai is a Japanese concept combining the terms “iki,” meaning “alive” or “life,” and “gai,” …
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It’s not easy being a gastronome about town when you make less than a thousand dollars a month and have a car payment, rent and a social life. Stationed at Kirtland in the early 1980s, …
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It’s so easy to be judgmental, to take things at face value…to assume. As my friend Bruce “Sr. Plata” Silver and I approached Mama Zahira Foodies’ order window, we espied the self-deprecating term “The Wacky …
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In his 30s, curmudgeonly London food critic Jay Rayner who’s been called the “enfant terrible (literally “terrifying child) of the gastronomic scene,” came to the realization that he hated hangovers more than he hated being …
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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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George: “I came this close last night, and then I just sort of chickened out.” Jerry: “Well, that’s a big move, Georgie boy. Are you confident in the “I love you” return?” George: “Fifty-fifty.” Jerry: …
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Unlike New York City, Albuquerque might not ever truly be mistaken for “a cultural melting pot.” Though numerous ethnicities are scattered throughout the city’s 189.5 square miles, some of their culinary cultures are vastly underrepresented …
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As children growing up in landlocked and agrarian Peñasco, my siblings and I led a very sheltered life. Our extremely provincial experience with “seafood” was limited to Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks which we dipped in …
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Toga! Toga! Toga! Ever since the misfit Delta Tau Chi fraternity threw the most debaucherous toga party ever in the 1978 “teensploitation” comedy Animal House, the toga party has been ingrained in the college party …
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Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, wasn’t kidding when he quipped “The Taco Bell taco is dead. Long live the taco.” Boomers like me may not have grown up heading …
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“The best ingredient I discovered in America was ‘freedom.’ The freedom to experiment in the kitchen and the freedom to be open to those experiments in the dining room.” ~Massimo Bottura, Osteria Francescana Chef and …
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“To break bread together,” a phrase as old as the Bible, captures the power of a meal to forge relationships, bury anger, provoke laughter.” ~The Joy of Food From National Geographic Sharing a meal creates …
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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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Admit it–every time you dine at a Chinese restaurant, you peruse the Chinese Zodiac paper placemats at your table describing the characteristics of people based on their birth year. Every new year of the lunar …
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“The restaurant business, as I well know, ain’t no picnic. And in Mexico City, it’s particularly rough.” ~Anthony Bourdain With an urban area population of almost 22-million over a broad expanse of 573 square miles, …
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Having settled comfortably into middle age (perpetually 39-years old), my favorite participatory sports of basketball and tennis have been replaced by more sedentary, safe and slothful pursuits. Instead of getting my shot rejected (almost as …
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In the 1970s and 1980s, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups commercials consisted of a series of vignettes. Each vignette depicted the collision of two daydreamers–one eating peanut butter and the other eating chocolate. The peanut butter …
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“I hate it. I think it’s an abomination. There are so many awesome things here, I don’t know why that should be featured. It’s leading with your weakness. So much other great stuff.” ~Anthony Bourdain …
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Restaurant Insider, which touts itself as “your source for restaurant news, trends, information, tools and conversation” has observed that one of the catalysts most instrumental in driving a changing culinary landscape are Generation Z (anyone …
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Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern has nothing on my friend Ralph Guariglio. Zimmern who claims to love such “exotic cuisine” as fermented walrus anus probably wouldn’t touch some of the…er, interesting foods Ralph enjoyed during …
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In 1972, English author Diana Kennedy, the doyenne of Mexican cuisine, penned The Cuisines of Mexico, a Mexican cookbook in which she described Texas’s Mexican food as “inauthentic,” coining the term “Tex-Mex.” Kennedy essentially drew …
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Observer: You’ve said that you can do anything with a taco, except put ketchup on it? Danny Trejo: That’s it! [Laughs]. Observer: Do people try to do that? Danny Trejo: Yeah, some people think that …
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Never mind your tired, your poor or even your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Carlos Zazveta, the effusive proprietor of Sharky’s Fish & Seafood told us to bring our dogs, our cows and our …
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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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“I am tenacious. And I love to eat. I go into the field and see some delectable things they’re cooking, wild plants perhaps, and think, ‘Oh my God, I have to write about this.’ I …
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“Fly once more like you did before, Sing a new song chicken tikka!” ~Chiquitita Misheard Lyrics You might think by virtue of my name and then gangling gait, school mates at St. Anthony’s in Penasco …
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“To witness the birth of a noodle is a glorious thing. I have listened, spellbound, as an 85-year-old noodle chef in Beijing told me why the act of making noodles helped him make sense of …
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Archaeologists believe there’s a scientific explanation for contemporary humankind’s predilection for seaside vacations and trips to the beach. Evidence–stone tools used to cut through animal flesh–seems to support the theory that the first humans migrated …
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if you believe the idea for delivery food started with Domino’s Pizza and its promise of 30-minute delivery or free, you’d be sadly mistaken. Nor did take-out originate with Chinese restaurants in California and their …
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Darn that Google! Even though I used very specific Boolean operands to target my search for “Changos” in “Albuquerque,” Google returned results for Changos in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. It wasn’t until studying the photos for …
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