Category: Pizza

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Turtle Mountain Brewing Company – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

The Tewa name “Oku Pin” which translates in English to “Turtle Mountain” has three meanings of significance to the people of Okay Owingeh, one of New Mexico’s great Tewa speaking Northern New Mexico Pueblos. “Oku Pin” was the the Indian name given to Dr. Alfonso Ortiz who obtained worldwide prominence as an anthropologist and ethnologist until his death in 1998. Ortiz was born and raised in San Juan Pueblo which in 2006 officially changed its name to Okay Owingeh. “Oku Pin” is also the Tewa name for Sandia Peak, the 10,678-feet high mountain which provides a spectacular backdrop for Albuquerque, Bernalillo and Rio Rancho. When Nico Ortiz, son of the famous anthropologist launched his inaugural restaurant and microbrewery in 1997,…

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Piccolino Italian Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

When I asked Gaby (our server Gabriela) what the Italian name “Piccolino” translates to, she didn’t have a clue.  She asked Olga Tarango-Jimenez, the restaurant’s co-owner who also seemed at a loss, but shared the restaurant’s very interesting history.  When my Kim Googled “Piccolino, she found it translates to “little one” and has such slang alternatives as “teeny weeny.”  Talk about a fitting name.  I joked with Gaby that if she ever called her diminutive in stature boss “teeny weeny” she’d probably find out her boss has a giant temper. Just how small is Piccolino?  Before its transmogrification into one of Santa Fe’s most popular Italian restaurants, its Liliputian digs housed a Church’s chicken and before that a gas station.…

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Gold Street Pizza – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Get Smart, a comedy television series which aired from 1965 to 1970 showcased the exploits of Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, a secret agent for CONTROL, a secret government counter-espionage organization. CONTROL’s nemesis was KAOS an international organization of evil bent on world domination.  The head of the Asian arm of KAOS was a man called “The Claw,” who had a large mechanical claw in place of a left hand.  The claw was magnetic, allowing him to pull phones, guns, and other metal objects toward him. Stereotypically, he couldn’t pronounce the letter L , which made Maxwell Smart think his name was “The Craw” and not the “The Claw.”  Every time Max makes this mistake, The Claw corrects him saying,…

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Thicc Pizza Co. – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

As you’ve read on the tagline for Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog, your humble blogger fancies himself somewhat of a sesquipedalian (a person who tends to use big words).  My logophilia (the love of vocabulary) is a lifelong affliction, both in English and in Spanish.  Despite my “affair” with words, one word-related term which just doesn’t describe me is neologist (someone who uses new words). This is especially true about slang terms in fashion among the pop-culture-oriented youth.  When it comes to such terms, I’m not far removed from groovy, bread and copacetic.  It’s certainly not that I’m not interested in such words.  It’s just that I don’t seem to know anyone young and cool enough to use such terms…

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Dr. Field Goods Kitchen – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

At first contemplation, Dr. Field Goods sounds like a strange name for a restaurant. To the lexicologist in me, it brought to mind the Hippocrates missive “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” To the white-coat-syndrome suffering, borderline iatrophobe in me, the name sent shivers down my spine. To the gastronome in me who finally realized the emphasis is on “field goods” and not on “Doctor,” the name elicited a curiosity that wouldn’t be sated, especially after an effusive recommendation from the Lobo Lair (good luck finding the specific post). As you’ve probably surmised, Dr. Field Goods is all about using fresh, local ingredients (“field goods”), a farm-to-table approach which delights the locavores among us who prefer…

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Firenze Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Name a pizza joint “Florence Pizzeria” and public reaction would likely be dubious:  “Who the heck is Florence?”  “Can someone named Florence possibly have a clue how to make pizza?”  Now translate “Florence” to Italian and all of a sudden, “Firenze Pizzeria” has instant credibility.  Never mind that most of the pizza in Florence (er, Firenze), Italy is of the Neapolitan variety.  The name Firenze is a perfect fit for a pizzeria.  Even the name inspires visions of a fire-breathing Italian oven preparing a waifishly thin pizza in just about a minute. Steven Meyer, owner-operator of Albuquerque’s Firenze Pizzeria knows a thing or two about fire-breathing ovens and waifishly thin pizzas.  In 2011, he pioneered portable pizza in the Duke…

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Scarpas Brick Oven Pizza – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

As an essayist of the New Mexico culinary condition, it’s easy to be lured in by new restaurants, those bright and shiny beacons of promise.  Sadly, critics (and those of us who play them in movies and television) gravitate toward new restaurants with the expectation of newness, something heretofore different and amazing.  We often do this at the expense of tried-and-true, established and proven restaurants which haven’t ever let us down.  For every new restaurant I visit, there are hundreds of old favorites to which I don’t return often enough.  One such personal favorite is Scarpas, a long-time fixture on Academy.  Prior to our visit in January, 2023, our previous visit was in December, 2006.  That’s far too long! Academy…

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Tomato Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto, Let’s call the whole thing off – Ira & George Gershwin Prior to the introduction of tomatoes in 1548, the Italian diet was largely similar to the diet throughout the rest of the Mediterranean. Such staples as bread, pasta, olives, and beans were commonplace, as was a variety of different types of polenta. The Italian diet of the time varied depending on region: fish featured heavily near the coast while inland regions would rely more on pork and wild game. Garlic, onion, pepper and onion oil was used to add flavor.  Olive oil also held a central role in the region’s cuisine.…

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Guido’s Chicago Meat & Deli

Gil Garduno

For years now, my Kim and I have largely eschewed American television, especially its sophomoric, lowbrow and “meant for voyeurs” reality shows.  We’ve been increasingly gravitating to an almost exclusive viewership of British television which we’ve found to be meant for grown-ups rather than children.  British television programs offer a sophistication direly absent in American programming.  British programs tend to be more substantive, refined and of much higher quality than their American counterparts.  That assessment applies to mysteries, comedies, dramas and even commercials. The final nail in the coffin for American television were two absolutely unwatchable reality shows:  The Kardashians and Jersey Shore.  Both showcase obnoxious, self-aggrandizing and vacuous characters with no redeeming characteristics.  The Jersey Show, for example, made…

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Cibo – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil Garduno

Inasmuch as they’re both Romance languages, there are a lot of similarities between Spanish and Italian.  Because Spanish was my first language, if spoken slowly enough I can probably understand thirty-percent of what is spoken in Italian.  Alas, not all Spanish and Italian terms are lexical cognates.  That is, they don’t have the same etymology or derivation.  For example, the Italian term “mangia” means “eat up” (naturally, it’s one of my favorite Italian words) while perhaps its closest Spanish equivalent is “come.”  Another Italian culinary term every self-respecting gastronome recognizes is “cibo” which translates in English to “food.” In Italy, life revolves around the preparation and enjoyment of good food (cibo buono).   Hmm, maybe I should have been born…

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Bottega Pizzeria Ristorante – Glendale, Arizona

Gil Garduno

In a Phoenix.org feature published in November, 2022, David Tynda declared that Phoenix is a top city for pizza. “I say to people that I believe Phoenix is the pizza capital of the U.S. and I wait for them to slap me across the face,” said Tyda, the co-manager of Phoenix Festivals.  The Matador Network agreed: “Phoenix is a slice of pizza heaven. Yes, that Phoenix, the one where it’s nearly hot enough in the summer to cook said pizza on the sidewalk. While Chicago and New York were dueling it out for pizza supremacy, Phoenix was quietly building an army of pizza joints that could dethrone Naples.” Not that very long ago, most of the nation’s crusty cognoscenti conceded…