Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1,332 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 13,450 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
“Traveling with the rodeo It’s the only life I’ll ever know I started in New Mexico Must have been a thousand years ago.” ~Lyrics to “Ride ‘Em Cowboy” by Paul Davis Although my friends and I were all fairly accomplished horse riders in the svelte and carefree days of our youth, Peñasco didn’t have a high school rodeo team so…
Career paths do not always unfold as stereotypes might dictate. Heavily recruited out of Mission, Texas, a high school football hotbed, Frans Dinklemann, a 6’6″ 241-pound defensive end, signed with the University of New Mexico where his Lobo teammates included perennial National Football League (NFL) All-Pro Brian Urlacher. By his senior year, Frans had grown to 6’7″ and 270 pounds…
Every few years, the eyes of the world fixate on a tiny chimney perched on the roof of the Sistine Chapel as millions await the telltale plumes of white smoke which signify that a new pope has been elected. Since November, 2012, savvy Duke City area barbecue aficionados have been following plumes of smoke emanating from a mobile eighteen-foot grilling…
No culinary tour of South Carolina’s Lowcountry would be complete without sampling Gullah cuisine at least once. In the Lowcountry, Gullah represents several things: people, culture and language. As a people, the Gullah represent a distinctive group of African Americans living along the island chains and coastal plains which parallel the South Carolina and Georgia coast. The Gullah people are…
To some extent, people watch Anthony Bourdain for the same reasons they tune in to infamous shock-jock Howard Stern–to see what he’ll say next. Though Bourdain, the best-selling author, world traveler, renown chef and “poet of the common man” is hardly the potty-mouthed bane of the Federal Communications Commission that Stern is, his incisive comments are oft peppered with pejoratives…
“Let us break bread and celebrate our diversity.” ~Desmond Tutu Peruvian cuisine…been there, done that! Moroccan meals…that’s so yesterday. Persian food…it’s had its day. Pan Asian dining…erstwhile eating. Never mind Italian regional cuisine and Spanish tapas. Once fresh and nouveau, they’re now practically prehistoric. Who would have thought ten years ago that the Duke City would become so cosmopolitan, so…
Of all the adjectives that can be used to describe something or someone, lumpy is certainly not one of the most complimentary. Think of all the Archie Bunker-like tantrums thrown during holiday meals when lumpy mashed potatoes are served or the breakfast battles that ensue when the oatmeal is lumpy. In fits of pique, seven-time Academy Award nominated actor Richard…
Though it ended in 1975, the Vietnam war was still very fresh in the minds of Americans when I enlisted in the Air Force two years later. Many of my senior colleagues had served in Vietnam and regaled me with tales of their adventures. It wasn’t man’s inhumanity to man they took away from the experience, but the goodness of…
Early in 2013, the National Restaurant Association took the pulse of more than 1,800 professional chefs and nearly 200 professional bartenders with its annual “What’s Hot” culinary survey designed to predict restaurant menu trends for the coming year. Considered the definitive forecast of culinary inclinations, the survey’s “Ethnic Cuisines and Flavors” category was topped by Peruvian cuisine which is not…
“Once a year during a certain holiday in November, meat-eaters use the hollowed-out rectum of a dead bird as a pressure cooker for stuffing. And people think vegans are weird because we eat tofu?” ~Gary Yourofsky In the spirit of the much debated question of “nature or nurture,” my inaugural visit to The Mint Tulip Vegan Restaurant prompted my own…
It wasn’t New Mexico’s Chamber of Commerce winter weather that enticed Chef Pramad “Paddy” Rawal to remain in the Land of Enchantment. In fact, when he first landed at Albuquerque’s International Sunport, he wondered if he had gotten on the correct flight. Albuquerque was as frigid as his home in Michigan which he had left just hours prior. Attired in…
