New England Clam Chowder Archives - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog

Arizona Rating: N/R (Not Rated)Seafood Sushi United States

Bluewater Grill – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil GardunoJuly 16, 2026July 23, 202612:24 AM

Rodney Dangerfield, the legendary king of “no respect” comedy, had some hilarious and classic one-liners about seafood and fish. For example, he lamented that “Some seafood restaurants lack originality and have the same signs. These signs often say, ‘The fish you eat today slept last night in some bay.’ When ordering fish, the only concern is how it is prepared. Where the fish slept or who it slept with makes no difference. A fish might taste better if it was morally bad.” Long-suffering readers have endured ad-nauseum missives about me having grown up in land-locked New Mexico before advances in transportation and refrigeration made fresh seafood available to the masses. We didn’t even have Rodney Dangerfield’s “morally bad” fish. For me and my siblings, “seafood” was Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks and Gorton’s breaded shrimp. Sure, my dad and Grandpa Max introduced me and my brothers to Northern New Mexican rivers teeming with German brown trout, cutthroat trout and rainbow trout, but that hardly qualifies as “seafood.” Worse, the one of us who caught the least amount of fish had to clean everyone else’s fish. Almost invariably that was me. Obviously, the Duke City and landlocked New Mexico are at a disadvantage…

American Brewery-Pub Diners Drive-Ins and Dives Food Network Eats New Mexico New Mexico Rating: Excellent Santa Fe

Rowley Farmhouse Ales – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil GardunoNovember 28, 2022April 5, 202612:53 PM

Only in John Denver’s hit song “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” is life on the farm “kinda laid back.” In actuality, farm life can be downright arduous, requiring back-breaking work in climatic extremes for low wages. It was much worse in colonial days when life on a farm generally meant very few luxuries outside of a warm fire and a tankard (or ten) of house-brewed ale. Beer was brewed not only to refresh, sustain and comfort hard-working farmers, but because during sanitation-deprived colonial times, it was safer than water. Farm-brewed beer was created with what was on hand, whether it be wheat, hops, barley or rye supplemented with such ingredients as evergreen boughs, juniper berries, honey and fruit. Because beer was made with whatever ingredients were available, the lack of convention led to an emphasis of individuality over uniformity. Along with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, beer, it seems, was almost an inalienable right and in many cases, an integral part of a worker’s compensation package. Gentlemen farmers such as George Washington brewed beer not only for themselves, but for their farm workers whose employment contracts often stipulated a certain daily allotment of beer. Washington’s farm workers…