Category: green chile

Lighting a votive for, uh, peace?

Oh, this could be a serious and solemn post.

It’s not gonna be, however.

So you see…my rock star mom-in-law is a Brooklyn girl, and at the holidays, she has traditions in keeping with where she was raised.

In her words: “Not untypically for someone from Brooklyn in my day for most of my adult life, I’ve made Italian food for the holidays. Often the menu included a seafood dish like spaghetti and clams for Christmas or New Years Eve and usually a lasagna on Christmas Day.”

Italian food? Oh I’m ALL about that.

This holiday season it was her very generous idea to celebrate the holidays with the foods from my childhood in New Mexico.

That means tamales that we handmade together, a pan of Hatch green chile enchiladas and a big pot o’ beans.

To help set the atmosphere, my mom-in-law brought over some accoutrements including Mexican hot chocolate, a tortilla warmer, and an Our Lady of Guadalupe votive candle.

We lit Our Lady up and enjoyed dinner by her warm candlelight.

So the holidays passed by, as they will. The Good Man and I began to dismantle the holiday displays in our home and put things away.

Our Lady of the Fabulous Christmas Feast had been on the coffee table for a couple weeks, but after New Years she had disappeared. The Good Man had stowed her away somewhere. Fair enough, right?

But then…I was rather startled to, uh, find her.

Here:

I call her “Our Lady of Fartima.”

The Good Man never laughs when I do.

But I crack myself up every time. I think being able to make your ownself laugh is the key to a long life.

Side note to Ephraim: I realize yesterday I promised to try and keep it classy on the blog today. I failed miserably. I’ll try again on Monday, ok?

Makin’ new (and old) traditions

One of my favorite foods for Christmas has always been, bar none, tamales.

Oh sweet masa and meat and a bit of heat!

Delicious.

I never realized just how lucky I was over the years to have wonderful neighbors, friends and coworkers who gifted me with handmade tamales every year.

Yum!

All the way out here in California, I don’t have wonderful tamale making friends and I miss them.

So this year, my mom-in-law, a wonderful cook and a lady filled with holiday cheer, suggested we make up a batch of our own tamales.

Oh yeah, baby!

We have both pork and green chile with cheese.

Gonna be a New Mexico Christmas in my house! My kitchen smells fabulous!

And making them with my new family might just have to be a new tradition!

Feast your little eyes!

Wrapped up and ready to be steamed!

Apply the heat.

Steamy goodness!

Yeah, many of these little guys didn’t make it very long out of the steaming pot. Poor delicious tamales! Hope they make it to Christmas!

Christmas Redux

I think it’s time to re-run what has to be THE most popular post ever in the three years on this blog.

Going back to December 2007.

It’s all still true.

Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico

1) Annual shopping trip to Old Town. A mom and me tradition. Every year I’d get to pick out an ornament that was mine. I now have all those ornaments in a Thom McAnn shoebox that, yes, Sunday night I opened and hung them all on my tree. They are like a history of my life. I remember buying most of them and it gives me a good sense of continuity to have them on my tree.

2) Luminarias. I always made them at my house. My mom would drive me to an empty lot to dig up two buckets worth of dirt and I’d fold bags, place candles and light them. It was my job and I loved every second of it, every folded bag, every candle that caught the bag on fire. I miss them.

3) The Bugg House, which, sadly, is no more. My sister lived over on Prospect and we’d go for a Christmas Eve walk in the evening to take a look at the outstanding display of holiday spirit. When I would go to Winrock Mall to shop, I’d always swing by the Bugg house to take a look. I miss it.

4) Neighbors bringing a plate of fresh made tamales as your Christmas gift. When you get three generations of Hispanic women in a kitchen with some masa and some shredded pork, magic happens. Yum! I also miss that people would come to work with tamales in a cooler and sell them to coworkers. I was always good for a half dozen or more.

5) A ristra makes a good Christmas gift. I’ve given. I’ve received. I love ’em. They’d become a moldy mess here…and that makes me sad.

6) Biscochitos. My love for these is well documented.

7) Sixty-five degrees and warm on Christmas Day. I think one year there was actually snow on the ground for the 25th. But it was melted by the end of the day. Oh Fair New Mexico, how I love your weather.

8) Christmas Eve midnight Mass in Spanish with the overpowering scent of frankincense filling up the overly warm church. Pure torture for a small child, but oh how I’d belt out the carols… And when we came home we could pick one present and open it. Gah! The torture of picking just one!

9) New Mexico piñon, gappy, scrawny Christmas trees that cost $15 at the Flea Market and were cut from the top of a larger tree just that morning. Look, to my mind, it ain’t a tree unless you are using low hanging ornaments to fill the obvious gaps. These fluffy overly full trees just ain’t my bag. If you ain’t turning the ‘bad spot’ to the wall, you paid too much for your tree.

10) Green chile stew for Christmas Eve dinner and posole for New Year’s. My mouth waters. It’s weep worthy. I can taste the nice soft potatoes in the stew, the chicken broth flavored just right…ouch! And posole to bring you luck with red chile and hunks of pork. Yeah……

Which is not to say I don’t have happy holidays where I live now…but sometimes I feel melancholy. And that’s what the holidays are for, right?

Image via.

Yipes!

So I was reading my mom-in-law’s blog, Musing by Moonlight, and her touching post about the March of Dimes and the fight for preemie babies.

Since my own beautiful twin nephews were preemies, I chimed in the comments about how one of the best ways to help preemies is to donate platelets, also called apheresis.

So, it’s been a while since I have donated, and since I like to practice what I preach, I called to make an appointment at my local blood center.

They said “YES! Can you come in today!?!?!”

The holidays are a tough time for both blood and platelet needs.

Here is my public service message:

Please, please, donate blood or platelets if you are able!

Here’s my “I’m just a big candy ass” message:

Today?!?!?!? YIPE!

While I’m always glad to donate platelets, it never stops me from being very, very skeered!

However, whenever I give platelets, as they flow out of my veins, I always imagine that the person who receives my pretty little red blood cells will wake up, healthy and strong and craving the hell out of green chile chicken enchiladas.

My donation to mankind.

What is wrong with this picture!!!?!??!

Ok, I recognize this is a terribly blurry iPhone photo, but take a look at this.

What you may not be able to tell from that photo is the label on my avocado, purchased at my just down the street local supermarket, says “New Zealand Hass”.

What. The. Eff?

I live in CALIFORNIA for crissakes!

We make very fine Hass avocados RIGHT HERE. For the love of pete, people grow them in their backyards!

Why I gotta eat something grown halfway ’round the world?

I didn’t even think to look, I saw Hass avocados, and I grabbed two soft ones off the top. I naturally assumed that since these babies are so plentiful locally that California grown would be on the shelves.

But noooooo!

And I’ll tell you this…it’s a terrible avocado too. Stringy and bland.

I am ticked.

The only redeeming value for that grocery is that they also carry this:

It is to weep.

That may be the only item I procure from those folks from now on.

(Apologies to Avelino and Meredith, fellow ex-pats. I’m guessing DC grocers don’t sell the good stuff. I tip a loaded chip to you both!)