Ah! Autumn in New Mexico!

Autumn weather has not yet arrived in my home town of El Paso, Texas, even though the calendar says it should have arrived weeks ago.  No worries!  A four-day trip to our neighboring state of New Mexico fulfilled my longing for colorful leaves, crisp air, and fragrant burning piñon wood.

My husband, Wayne, and I recently made a road trip to meet family members in the small town of Chama, New Mexico for a nostalgic ride on the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad.

Our first ride on this historic railroad was several years ago.  The experience was so unforgettable that we were inspired to write a novella about a fictional train robbery on the line. (Rails, Robbers and Wraiths, by Wayne and Linda Calk, available on amazon.com)

Chama is within striking distance of El Paso by car, about seven and a half hours as the crow flies. Not being the efficient travelers that crows are, we made the trip in about nine and a half hours, including a stopover for shopping at the REI store in Albuquerque.

Travelers in other parts of the world may consider a road trip of that length too long, but in the Southwest, it is not unusual. Traffic is usually light, and roads are good, that is, with the exception of the unpaved road we encountered between Cuba, New Mexico and Chama.  Our reward for bouncing around in the car for about 20 miles was the view of a large dam and long bridge, which led us to pavement again.

Arriving in Chama, we found our hotel, the Chama Station Inn, and settled in for an evening in front of the kiva fireplace.

The next morning we rode the train from Chama NM to Antonito,CO with a stopover in Osier for a home-style meal for lunch.

The scenery was engaging, with aspens displaying golden autumn finery. Good photo ops were plentiful, especially when the train rounded a curve.

Our next stop was Santa Fe, NM, where we stayed at a new hotel to us, the Hotel Chimayó, well located right off the central plaza. Breakfast the next morning was a splurge at La Plazuela, the dining room of the Hotel La Fonda on the Plaza.

Santa Fe offers a variety of activities for tourists.  In one day, we visited a folk art store, relaxed in the plaza, shopped at a Farmer's Market in the newly developed Railyard District, and even took in a movie in the new Velvet Crown theater.

That evening we were sitting at an outdoor cafe, sharing chips and salsa, when we heard the sound of drums coming from the plaza.  Three young performers were drumming and chanting for a small attentive crowd.  I felt transported to another time and culture.

Another day's drive and we were back in our home town with memories of train whistles, autumn colors, spicy food, and Native American drums.  How fortunate we are to live in the Southwest where a diversity of cultures and experiences can be found within a day's drive.

Can you tell I love New Mexico in autumn?

Volunteer plants need loving home

I love to walk around the garden and discover a new "volunteer" plant peeking up at me.  Just imagine!  A new plant that doesn't require driving to the nursery, purchasing, and deciding where to dig a hole.  A volunteer plant is a ready-made treasure.

In my gardener's imagination, volunteer plants want to live in my garden because they find welcoming conditions- soil, light, and water.  They decide for themselves where they want to grow up.  Several times in my life, I tried to outsmart Mother Nature by transplanting volunteers to a location I thought would please me more.  Few plants survived the move. Recently I developed a live-and-let live philosophy and just appreciate the new additions to the flower beds and yards, wherever that may be.

Here are some of the volunteer plants that we have adopted as our own.

Creosote Bush

A familiar desert plant that grows in abundance in the wild is the Creosote Bush or Greasewood. The aroma of wet greasewood plants perfumes the desert after our infrequent rains.  It is a clean aroma, similar to that of witch hazel.  We have tried unsuccessfully to transplant this bush from the wild into our desert landscape with no luck.  This year, however, Mother Nature decided it was the year of the greasewoods and provided us with at least twenty plants of various sizes, all free of charge.  I am anxious to see if the plants survive the sometimes adverse conditions of a high desert winter.

Desert Marigolds

These beautiful yellow flowers are the product of a volunteer plant whose seed jumped over a high garden wall where I had previously planted a purchased desert marigold.  I had been cautioned not to overwater this plant. Unfortunately, the volunteer plant decided to homestead in a bed that is on a watering system.  I think it likes its home anyway.

Desert Fan Palm

This Desert Fan Palm, a volunteer from several years ago, has admittedly gotten out of hand.  It decided to sprout in a very small flower bed around the perimeter of the swimming pool.  I love the tropical look it provides, but wow, is it getting huge!

Candelilla plants

My husband Wayne took this wonderful picture of a bed where small volunteer candelilla plants are growing.  From the angle he took the picture, the plants appear to be large, but they are in reality tiny. And will probably stay that way for a while.  Candelillas are notoriously slow growing.

Peach tree

My favorite volunteer plant may be the peach tree in front of our sun room. Since we have no peach trees on the property, the tree must have grown from a peach pit.  We often wander around the garden in the summertime, munching on fruit, so I can imagine a pit landing in the flowerbed. Last winter, the tree was tiny, and I covered it with a can for protection.  This year, the tree has come into its own. The only problem is its location right in front of a picture window.  Ah well, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Fire Bush

The volunteer Fire Bushes may be getting out of hand because I find new ones in the back yard frequently.  But they provide a splash of red color, so I nourish each one that I find.

Wild Lantana

One of the biggest surprises has been the growth of two very large Wild Lantana plants in our yards. Their mother plant has survived on her own for years in a neglected part of the property we call the "back forty."  Now she has spread her seed to produce two grown daughters who receive much more attention than their mama ever did.

Gardening encourages homespun philosophy.  I think what volunteer plants encourage us to do is let go of the notion that we can control the world and instead appreciate what the world has to offer, even if it is not perfect. 

I can't resist welcoming volunteer plants into our garden.

Chiles en Nogada - An Autumn Culinary Delight!

Pomegranate tree

The pomegranate tree in our courtyard has been a vigorous grower this season.  It has even deigned to provide us with a few pomegranate fruits.

Pomegranate fruits

Pomegranates are a gorgeous fruit, with the promise of luscious, juicy seeds inside.  If the truth be known, however, we usually don't even bother to harvest the fruits, so they split open and the birds have a feast.  After all, is there a delicate way to eat a pomegranate?

Recently I was reminded of the Mexican tradition of using pomegranate seeds in a dish called chiles en nogada, stuffed chiles in walnut sauce.

Chiles en nogada

Several traditional restaurants in my home town of El Paso, Texas, are now featuring chiles en nogada on their menus as a seasonal dish.  I will probably have my next plate of these delicacies at a restaurant.   The recipe to prepare them is not for the faint of heart.

The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy (2000) has an extensive write-up on chiles en nogada.  One story has it that the dish was concocted with ingredients the color of the Mexican flag, green chiles, white sauce, and red pomegranate seeds, to celebrate the signing of a treaty.  Another story describes the origin of the dish as a result of the yearly harvest of poblano chiles, fruits, and walnuts.

Like many traditional recipes, many variations of chiles en nogada can be found in cookbooks and on the Internet.  Diana Kennedy makes hers with pork, tomatoes, fruit, plantains, raisins, poblano chiles, and almonds.  Other cooks use ground meat and vary the other ingredients as well.  The basic procedure is to stuff the chiles, fry them in a batter, and serve covered with the nut sauce. The finished product is decorated with pomegranate seeds and parsley.  Chiles en nogada are generally served alone on a plate as a main course, perhaps accompanied by corn tortillas.

Just in case you get inspired to make this autumn culinary delight,  I am including a recipe from the Food Network.  And if you decide to prepare this dish at home, please invite me to dinner, but after all the work is done, please.

Recipe for Chiles en Nogada

Celebrating the 16th of September in High Style

A new restaurant/night club in El Paso, Texas

A new restaurant sign in my home town of El Paso, Texas always intrigues me. This sign, "Cuñado's," was especially interesting because of the combination of two languages, Spanish and English. Being a city on the US-Mexico border, El Paso welcomes both languages into its cultural mix, often with creative results. 

The Spanish word cuñado means "brother-in-law" in English.  So this is the brother-in-law's restaurant. But the apostrophe (') is not used in Spanish to show that someone possesses something. The phrase in standard Spanish would be " el restaurante del cuñado," the restaurant of the brother-in-law.  By adding the English construction of apostrophe s to the noun cuñado, we have a new phrase, created by combining features of two languages.  I thought it was quite clever.

But enough of the language lesson.  On to the tequila drinking!  This friendly waitress at Cuñado's was circulating, offering shots of tequila for $5. 

Tequila shot, anyone?

The occasion for celebration was the 16th of September, a holiday in Mexico commemorating the beginning of the war of independence from Spain.  As with other national holidays around the world, citizens of the country and others with ties or even a fondness for the country celebrate with costumes, traditional colors, food, drink, music, and dancing. Cuñado's Restaurant offered all of this on the eve of the 16th.

Mexican flag

The Mexican flag, red, white and green, with an eagle in the middle holding a serpent in its mouth
was on display.  Many restaurant patrons had also dressed in the traditional colors of the flag.

Colorful restaurant patrons

 Buffet food offerings added to the celebration of Mexican culture with dishes such as red and green enchiladas, carnitas, corn on the cob, squash with corn, ceviche, and posole.  But this is the dish that had us ooing and ahing.

Dish on left is chiles en nogada

Chiles en nogada (chiles in nut sauce) is a special, fancy dish traditionally offered beginning in September and going through the holiday season.  The dish echoes the colors of the Mexican flag with a base of a stuffed green chile poblano, the white of a nut sauce, and the red of pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top.  The recipe to make this scrumptious dish is not for the faint-hearted!

Music was of course part of the celebration.

Singer at Cuñado's 

The energetic singer reflected a melding of two cultures, belting out songs in both Spanish and English.  A few hardy patrons found space to dance to the music.

We left Cuñado's before the traditional cry at midnight of "¡Viva México!" (long live Mexico) to which the crowd responds, ¡Viva!   But we patted ourselves on the back for having celebrated the 16th of September in high style.

Note:  Thanks to my husband, Wayne Calk, for the photographs!  I couldn't write these blog posts without his contributions.

One Sunday Afternoon in the Park

A lazy Sunday loomed before us.  Too lazy if the truth be known.  Where could we go for entertainment in our home town of El Paso, Texas that we hadn't been to at least a dozen times 

before?

Maybe the answer could be found in investigating a new project in our city, the revitalization of Downtown El Paso.  The renovation of the central square of El Paso, San Jacinto Plaza, had taken what seemed like ages to complete (it was really only three years).  We wanted to see if we had received good value for our tax dollars.

San Jacinto Plaza

San Jacinto Plaza, located at the corner of Oregon and Mills Streets, has a proud history, dating from the first part of the 20th century.  It was a transportation hub, first for horse drawn carriages, then for trolleys, and later for city buses and taxicabs, which is when my memories of the park began.  I remember the park as being leafy and green, with benches around the perimeter.  A highlight was the alligator pond inhabited by live alligators.  Later, the plaza fell into disrepair, the alligators had to be moved because of vandalism, and the park atmosphere was anything but welcoming.

How delighted I was as a native El Pasoan to experience the new and improved San Jacinto Plaza, dedicated in April of this year.

"Los Lagartos" -The Alligators

A fiberglass alligator sculpture by Luis Jiménez retains the memory of the live alligators who lived in the pool until the 1970s.

Diners at the plaza cafe

A full-service cafe serves a variety of dishes, including this cup of corn with typical southwestern seasonings.

Another nod to local culture is a court for the game of pitching washers, which goes by the name of huachas in our border region. The game is similar to pitching horseshoes.

Huachas court

Ping-pong tables are also available in the park.  Equipment for playing both huachas and ping-pong is available at the plaza cafe. You may get a sudden inspiration to try out your game skills.

Splash pond

Children cooling off in the splash pond, monitored carefully by moms and dads on benches, reminded me how much fun it can be to be a child, and uninhibited.

I took a moment to soak up the atmosphere of our urban park.  The details on a historic building visible from the park reminded me of an earlier, more elegant era in El Paso.

Historical Building

And I especially enjoyed the flora of the park and made note of which plants I could use in our southwestern style yard.  I love the hardy native and adapted plants that survive and even flourish in the Desert Southwest.  This plant looked to me like a type of bush called "Yellow Bells"or "Esperanza (Hope)" in our region.

Flowering bush in plaza

My husband, Wayne, and I sat on a bench in the park for quite a long time, feeling the excitement and pride of living in a city with a downtown park that is not only an attractive place but an exciting place as well.  Will our out-of-town visitors for Thanksgiving enjoy the park as much as we did?  We have our fingers crossed.

A quintessential Southwestern icon?

It's almost done!  Seasons and Seasonings of the Southwest is the title of a book I have been compiling and preparing for publication.  The theme of the book is how everyday life in the Southwest can be enjoyed in each of the four seasons of the year. Included are short personal essays that have been languishing in a folder in my desk drawer, and also favorite recipes, borrowed from various sources, including friends and family members.

The text is complete.  What I am searching for are graphics to feature on the cover.  My husband Wayne and I had a discussion recently about what images would be the quintessential Southwestern  icons.  When you hear the term "Southwest," what picture comes to mind?

Would the image come from the food category?

Chiles

Corn

To say that chiles are used in most Southwestern recipes is not overstating their importance. What would enchiladas, chilaquiles, huevos rancheros, tamales and pico de gallo be without red or green chiles of varying degrees of potency?  And corn is essential to the corn tortilla, used as a basis for many Southwestern dishes, as well as being a great scooper at meal times.

Or would the best representation of Southwestern life come from the animal kingdom?  The Southwest still has large open spaces that provide a habitat for the hardy creatures of the desert.

Iguana

Roadrunner

Coyotes

Or how about images of the Old West?  Cowboys, ranchers,  railroaders, and dance hall girls all played significant roles in creating modern Southwestern culture.

Fancy boots

Wagon and oxen

Native American cultures provide artistic images to the cultural mélange that is the Southwest.
Kokopelli is venerated by some Native American tribes as the fertility deity who presides over childbirth, agriculture, and music.  He is also know as the trickster god.

Kokopelli,

Architectural styles in the Southwest are unique, with the most recognizable being Territorial, Spanish-Colonial, and Pueblo.

Pueblo style architecture

What image would you like to see on the cover of a book about the Southwest? What would encourage you to open the book and read further?  I'm really looking for some opinions and ideas here!

Viva El Paso! Through a Tourist's Eyes

Proud native of the border city of El Paso, Texas that I am, I enjoy just about everything my locale has to offer.  Our food choices may not live up to the gourmet quality of Los Angeles, and our fashions may be just a bit behind the times compared to Dallas. But I must brag about a summer musical extravaganza that is unique to El Paso -Viva El Paso!

Viva El Paso! sign on mountain

Viva El Paso! is outdoor entertainment for the summer months held in McKelligan Canyon Amphitheatre.  Fifty local performers depict the story of the El Paso area in drama, song and dance. And it is a long, varied story to tell, encompassing four centuries of history and four different cultures that made that history (Native American, Spanish Conquistadores, Mexican, and Western). Viva El Paso! is in its 34th year of production.  Changes have occurred over the years, but the core message of the extravaganza is the same.  Present day El Paso is the result of evolution over the centuries with rich contributions from significant cultural groups.

While attending Viva El Paso! recently, I began to wonder what an out-of-towner would think of the production.  What impressions of El Paso would stay with a tourist?

The first lasting impression would perhaps be the stark mountains that form the backdrop of the amphitheatre located in a canyon.

Left view of stage  with mountain behind

Right view of  stage with mountain behind

I look forward to sitting in the audience as the sun sets, providing a welcome cooling relief from our 100 degree daytime temperature.

Mountain at dusk

Then I think a tourist would remember the dancers swirling on stage with colorful costumes.

Dancers in traditional Mexican costumes

The music would be memorable as well, provided by a mariachi band.

Mariachi band

The Old West would be recalled through costumes and dance moves.

And the arrival of the railroad in 1880 would be a piece of local El Paso history not to be forgotten.

The arrival of the railroad

I hope that a tourist who attends Viva El Paso! will leave our city with an interest in the complexity of historical events and peoples that have given our city its special character.  And I hope that tourist will plan to return to El Paso soon to learn more about our lifestyle on the US-Mexican border.