HUNGRY GERALD

The motherly Mexican-American ladies behind the stoves at HG’s local hangout, El Parasol (on highway 285 in Pojoaque, north of Santa Fe), are cooking up the perfect antidote for chilly weather–arroz con pollo. Their version of the dish is a bowl of robust chicken soup enhanced with red chili. The bowl is crowded with chunks or tender, white meat chicken and plenty of toothsome rice. HG adds further punch to the dish with slices of fiery roast green chili and tops it all with chopped raw onion and Mexican oregano. Unlike most food at the restaurant, this dish isn’t accompanied by tortillas but by saltine crackers, apt companions.

HG/BSK’s home is set in a historic farming neighborhood bordering a Native American reservation. No garbage pickup. This means a trip to the dump every Sunday. Fortunately, the dump is nearby and is set in a beautiful area of high desert and rolling hills. Makes dumping garbage an aesthetic (almost) treat. HG times the chore as to enjoy a post-dump lunch at El Parasol, the plain spoken, friendly, soulful restaurant dispensing New Mexican treats at its highway location in Pojoaque. Sunday lunch at El Parasol is a treat. The room is jammed with happy Hispanic families, at least three generations at a table. Love for children and respect for elders reverberates. Lots of laughter as kids dig into big bowls of French fries drenched in green chile sauce and melted cheese. The older folk are knocking off immense burritos, enchiladas, tacos, quesadillas plus brimming bowls of menudo, posole and arroz con pollo. Diets? Health food? Cholesterol? As they say in HG’s native Noo Yawk: Fuhgeddaboutit!! There’s no alcohol at El Parasol. The strongest drink is iced tea. So the joy and merriment is solely fueled by family and food. HG worked off lunch with a long swim in HG/BSK’s sun drenched indoor lap pool. Then, off to Santa Fe to see Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” a very dark movie for a very dark time in the USA. Liked the movie but was annoyed at Allen’s portrayal of ordinary working people. As is inevitable in Allen movies,they come across as crude Neanderthals. A far cry from the working people, New Mexican and otherwise, that HG knows and admires.

Tostadas don’t get enough respect. In the world of down home, plain spoken Northern New Mexican food, tacos, burritos, enchiladas, tamales get all the attention. Tostadas are an afterthought (In Yiddish, a nuch shlepper. See how HG expands your language skills?). So, what is a tostada? This is the way they do it at El Parasol in Pojoaque: A corn tortilla is fried until crispy. It gets a layer of refried beans (refritos); then browned ground beef (fragrant with garlic and cumin); green chilis; a layer of guacamole. It is topped with chopped iceberg lettuce, raw onions and tomatoes. Final touch is fiery salsa (red or green). Lots of different flavors and textures. Crisp. Unctuous. Earthy. Fresh. Cold. Hot. The gamut is run. HG imagines that during this health conscious time, tofu will become an alternative to ground beef in the construction of tostadas. There are a number of Sikh ashrams in HG’s neighborhood and these turban wearing folks seem to favor funky Mexican flavors for their vegetarian dishes at El Parasol and Sopapilla Factory. So, Tofu fajitas, anyone?

HG, as fans of this blog may have noted, is a big fan of menudo, the very pungent and flavorful Mexican tripe stew. Among menudo’s many benefits is the fact that a bowl banishes a hangover. HG, a conservative imbiber (ahem!!), has not been able to vouch for this. In any case, HG’s menudo go-to place is the plain spoken eat in/take out El Parasol in Pojuaque. EP’s menudo, fragrant with the heady aroma of offal, contains plenty fiery green chilis and is accompanied by chopped raw onion,lemon slices, Mexican oregano and soda crackers. Discerning SJ, during a recent New Mexico visit, said he prefers the menudo at Sopaipilla Factory, a New Mexican eatery a few hundred yards from EP. So, HG had to test SJ’s judgment. Well, SJ is on to something. The Sopaipilla Factory menudo is a bit more refined than El Parasol’s funky version: the tripe itself is very tender and the smell of the red chili broth is cleaner and less earthy than El Parasol’s; lots of spice but not lip searing. You get the obligatory chopped onions-lemon-oregano. But, here’s the big difference. At Sopaipilla Factory you get their specialty: fresh, warm sopapillas (Mexican popovers). As many as you want (“a volonte” as the say in Paris bistros). Smeared with honey butter or drizzled with plain honey they enhance the menudo experience. Another Sopaipilla Factory advantage is the fact they have a liquor license, making it possible to accompany menudo with an icy beer or margarita. HG Still loves El Parasol’s hearty menudo but will vary it with Sopaipilla Factory’s suave version.

HG never encountered the Frito Pie until HG and BSK’s move to New Mexico. Now, it ranks alongside the vaunted Nathan’s Chow Mein Sandwich (available ONLY at Nathan’s Coney Island location) as HG’s favorite messy, silly, funky treat. Let’s clarify one point. The Frito Pie is not a pie. It is composed of a pile of Fritos (yes, those crispy, salty corn things in a bag) covered in beans, red chile, cheddar cheese and topped with shredded iceberg lettuce. Piquant salsa or hot sauce is added to taste. Originally, this was constructed in a very proletarian manner: A bag of Fritos was opened. The chile, beans, etc., were poured into the bag. The bag served as both bowl and a vehicle for transporting this lovely meal. You ate the sauce-drenched corn chips with a spoon. El Parasol (in Pojaque about 15 miles north of Santa Fe) makes the Frito pie a bit more elaborate, serving it in a proper bowl with green chile and chopped raw onions upon request. A crunchy, spicy pleasure. HG believes the original rough and ready Frito Pie is still being served at the Five and Dime Store located on The Plaza in downtown Santa Fe.

An Arctic blast has the West in its frigid clutch. Last night the temp at HG’s New Mexico home was 3 degrees. Tonight it will get up to 7. Br-r-r!! The cure is chicken in the pot. And, lots of it. Back in the days when New York was filled with Jewish delicatessens this was a staple dish. One half a boiled chicken was served in a pot with a boiled onion, boiled carrots and a choice of noodles or a matzo ball. (HG’s favorite Bronx deli was the Tower Deli on Kingsbridge Road which added to the carbs by adding a big ladle of kasha). This was a dish that was served steaming hot. The effect was akin to leaping into a sauna. La Poule A Pot in Paris (1st Arondissement) serves a nice and expensive chicken in the pot and enriches it with a chunk of foie gras. If you dine there, precede the dish with a chicken liver salad or escargots. Yum! In New Mexico, HG eats in the neighborhood. In this cold weather his choice is Arroz con Pollo Caldo at Pojauque’s El Parasol. Big bowl of powerful, red chili flavored chicken broth with loads of white meat, onion and carrot bits; and green chile to ramp up the heat. HG adds chopped raw onion and Mexican oregano. Dynamite chill chaser. The neighboring Pojauque Super Market has a deli counter much favored by Latino locals. A stout gent touted their Arroz con Pollo. Looked good. Bought a pint and will heat it for lunch. Can’t be bad.

There are some dishes that are only good at home. Potato latkes in a restaurant are terrible. Too greasy. Not crisp. And, if crisp, the interior is mushy — more like a knish than a proper latke. Balance is never achieved. HG has often sighed for the wonders achieved by HG’s Mom. Fortunately, SJ has inherited his late grandmother’s latke skills. His are flavorful delights and HG looks forward to ingesting a dozen or so during the upcoming holiday feast. Restaurant risotto doesn’t work. If it’s reheated it gets gummy. Cooking to order isn’t cost effective. The result is an inferior product, totally unlike the creamy, lush nuttiness that HG creates by constant stirring and laser-like attention. HG has had good omelettes (in Paris) but has only had a great omelette when BSK has wielded her magic skillet.

The opposite of better-at-home food is the lovely Mexican treat: the Chimichanga — or deep fried, crisp burrito. The Chimichanga is impossible to make at home as its preparation requires the wizardry of a professional kitchen and a light touch on the deep fryer. In unskilled hands, it becomes a greasy, tasteless mess. But, when a Chimichanga is good…oh yes! Well, HG is happy to report that he has found the perfect Chimichanga. El Parasol (the wonderful casual restaurant in Pojoaque, NM, often lauded by HG) provided the treat. A perfect filling of ground beef, green chiles and cheese and a crisp exterior that shattered into phyllo-like shards when pierced by a fork. The Chimichanga was served with a scoop of guacamole resting on a mound of shredded lettuce plus a few spoonfuls of sour cream. The dish was augmented by ramekins of green and red salsa. Yes, it is an infantile word but it expresses the taste: YUM!!

It all started with a little taco stand in Espanola, NM, started by two Atencio brothers in 1958. Sheltered by an umbrella provided by their father, Luis Atencio, the two peddled their mother’s home-cooked tacos and tamales to rapidly growing audience. Business flourished and, in time, that taco stand took over the family plumbing business and expanded into the full scale restaurant, El Paragua, and six casual dining EL Parasol eateries in New Mexico (franchised to various generations of the Atencio family. All provide great, down home Northern New Mexican food (as HG has often noted, HG is addicted to El Parasol’s green chile menudo and posole).

HG and BSK dined at El Paragua last night with visiting Mike Rock and Trish Layton. Chilly night and the restaurant with its dark wooden furniture, Hispanic artifacts, photos and newspaper clippings exuded warmth and the aromas of good cooking. The group was met by smiling Jose Atencio, the proprietor and host. First, some splendid frozen margaritas in big, salt rimmed glasses. Then, Jose presented bowls of hot broth filled with pork, garbanzos, bits of red chile and ripe avocado slices as a garnish. Chill was vanquished. Dinner was menudo, carne adovado, enchiladas, charro beans, guacamole, shrimp in garlic sauce. Plus warm sopapillas with honey and elderberry jelly. Flan for dessert. Generous Jose Atencio climaxed the meal with brandy snifters of a Mexican liqueur not imported to the United States (HG believes it is called “Membrillo”). Fabulous. Jose took us on a tour of the restaurant. Much history. A favorite restaurant of the actor Anthony Quinn. Dennis Hopper, when he lived in Taos, NM, would come to El Paragua to drink and play cards with Jose’s father, Luis Atencio. Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman and many others have dined there. That’s El Paragua — a nice blend of food and history warmed by the gracious service and happy ambience created by Jose Atencio.

HG and BSK live in an environment heavily influenced by Latinos. Their neighbors in the Pojoaque Valley (15 minutes north of Santa Fe) are — for the most part — Latino farmers, many of whom have been farming here for countless generations. Their banker is Latino. So is their insurance agent. And, their gardener, plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc., etc. The super market where HG shops for daily necessities is staffed entirely by Latinos. At least three times a week, HG lunches at El Parasol, the splendid restaurant presided over by the delightful Jose and Alicia Atencio. HG does not believe in sweeping generalizations, but it is obvious to anyone with eyes that Latinos are among the nation’s hardest working people. And, their work ethic has been profoundly beneficial to the United States. Without them, the United States could not function. The Republican Party has behaved disgracefully to Latinos, characterizing them as lazy, affirmative action moochers; and a prominent conservative intellectual had the audacity to compare Latino activists to radical, Middle Eastern Islamists.The election confirmed the dismal GOP record as regards the Latino vote. This was summed up best by a recent comment to The Economist Magazine: “Latinos should be Republicans. Most are socially conservative and decry abortion and gay marriage. They come to the United States to work and better their lives and the lives of their families. But, Republicans will not get their vote until Republicans stop being condescending at best and racist at worst. I am a Latino and I hate the current Republican Party.” The election results indicate that millions of Latinos share this opinion.

Very hungry midday so off to he HG standby in Pojoaque, El Parasol (there are six El Parasols–in Santa Fe, Espanola, Los Alamos–but the Pojoaque branch is the HG favorite). The Pojoaque branch is under the supervision of veteran restaurateur Jose Atencio (his family has run the renowned El Paragua in Espanola for generations). His wife, the lovely Alicia Atencio, is also frequently in attendance. Their personal touch insures that the welcome is warm, the service swift, the premises sparkling clean and the food consistently good with true down home Northern New Mexico flavor. Alicia was on duty today and HG inquired if it was too late for a breakfast burrito. Big smile from Alicia. “Of course not.” Soon a generously (to put it mildly!) sized breakfast burrito appeared. Perfectly scrambled eggs nestled inside a tortilla with loads of crispy bacon, green chiles, and roast potatoes. Smothered with mucho, mucho green chile — hot and spicy but not ridiculous. A green chile burrito for gourmands, not masochists.

When HG finished the last scrap of the burrito it was time for contemplation. How did this breakfast burrito rank with other winners in that category? HG had never tasted a breakfast burrito until HG and BSK’s move to Colorado some 27 years ago. Tenderfoot HG had his first BB at Pete’s Diner in Denver and was overwhelmed. Breakfast for the gods. New Mexico friends sneered. Wait until you taste a BB smothered in New Mexico green. Then you will know how a BB should taste. They were right. My first taste of a BB at Tune Up Cafe in Santa Fe knocked the Pete’s version out of the box. Enter the El Parasol BB. HG will end the suspense. This is the Numero Uno BB. Freshness, balance of ingredients, levels of flavor, perfection of the green chiles. Thank you, Jose. Thank you, Alicia. You rule.