HG’s favorite New Mexico food is green chile menudo (tripe stew) from the El Parasol restaurant in Pojoaque (quick drive from HG/BSK’s home). Many levels of flavor: A certain barn-yard funk from the innards. Rich broth. Heat from the chiles. Soft and firm tripe textures. Crunch from chopped sweet onions. New Mexicans claim it is a cure for hangovers. HG can’t vouch for this since (despite some vigorous alcoholic intake) HG is never assaulted by hangovers. Cold and raw weather last night so HG brought home a pint container of El Parasol menudo and gave it a generous hit of onions and cilantro, Cost: $6.31. This is usually mixed with posole but HG likes his menudo unadulterated by starch. HG drank red Malbec with the cold weather defeating treat as BSK (no tripe fan) looked on. BSK was content with a healthy salad. Sopaipilla Factory, another local restaurant, serves a more refined (and pricier) menudo, where the slight tang of offal funkiness has been cleaned up. HG prefers El Parasol’s rugged version. Curiously, HG has never eaten tripe in Europe. Once took a bite of a tripe sandwich from a food truck in Rome. Feh!! Threw it away. In Paris, HG has never tasted the Calvados laced tripe at Chez Denise or the Tripe a la mode de Caen at Le Stella. At 89, HG is still optimistic about seeing Paris again.
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