Chicken and Heart

I quite enjoy challenging myself in the kitchen. I had yet to really open up the wings on my new kitchen in Albuquerque, but when I found out a certain loving man friend from Tucson was coming to visit me, I thought, I gotta get this kitchen flying!! I feel very fortunate to have been blessed with good friends. Lue is one of them. He is one of the few real men I have ever met in this world. So, I thought I would make a home cooked meal for the evening of his arrival. What would he like?...well, he loves bacon....and bacon...and more bacon....

I watch the Food Network as much as my busy academic life allows. I caught Tyler Florence's show about roasting a chicken with bacon on top and crimini mushrooms.

I have never stuffed a chicken before...it was not too pleasant. I felt like I was violating the poor thing. I used lemons, red onions, garlic, thyme, and olive oil for the stuffing. Then covered it with slices of bacon.

The recipe called for 3-pounds of crimini mushrooms. I took everything the grocery store had!!

I couldn't just have the chicken with nothing to dress up the plate, so I thought about healthy sides. I made roasted cherry tomatoes, crunchy rosemary potatoes, and green beans with bacon.

I am pretty sure the dinner was a success. I even learned the importance of basting. We cleaned our plates and had leftovers to last all weekend.


I get a lot of pleasure out of cooking, especially when I get to cook for people who hold special places in my heart.

xo-K

A month later...

I realized it's been a month since my last post! So much has happened that I decided I would share the photos from this last hectic month!

I have been in Albuquerque for over 2 months and I am trying to see as much as I can. As a new Lobo, I had to take part in the Homecoming festivities. This included burning University of New Mexico's rival mascot, the NMSU Aggie.

The thing went up in flames real fast.

I had to take a picture of Louie the Lobo, UNM's mascot, he was too goofy looking not to.


UNM's President has a partnership with Mexico's former President Vicente Fox. The former President founded El Centro Fox, a presidential library and museum. He came to UNM to give a lecture about immigration. Let's just say that this man was and is not thinking that immigration is a problem. I was able to watch his presentation and I wasn't too impressed. He is a capitalist and all that the word implies.


I am enrolled in a Critical Regionalism class that focuses on discussions of the Southwest. My professor took us out the Salinas Mission National Monument just outside of Albuquerque. We visited the Abó and Quarai Ruins. These are the remnants of the churches and missions that were built in the 1600's when Spanish Franciscan Friars came through the area.

Here is Abó.

This is Quarai.




Everyday I fall in love with Albuquerque more and more. The air smells like roasted chiles from the stand a short walk away from my house. The sky is always gorgeous looking.

Green Chile Harvesting

It was the beginning of a pretty calm and quiet Friday night, when I received a phone call from my friend, Elisa. I answered the phone and she said, "I am on my way to pick you up, we're going to a chili cook-off." She was at my house faster than I could slip my feet into my flip flops. As we rode to the location, I had so many questions. Who is cooking? What kind of chili? Are we going to a farm? Do we get to help judge? She just smiled, turned up the stereo and drove.

In Albuquerque, local community organization, SWOP (SouthWest Organizing Project), had a chili cook-off to celebrate the beginning of the chile harvesting season.

We were able to taste all sorts of vegetarian and meat chilis. I even tried chili with buffalo meat! It was pretty good.

What I thought would be a boring night at home, turned out to be a fun Friday night!

xoxo-K

Shouldn't we rest on Labor Day?

My bestest friend, Fernanda, came to Albuquerque this weekend in order to get a taste for my new life here. Usually, she and I travel to Las Vegas, England, San Diego...places with real tourist attraction. This weekend, though, we donned our tourist-gone-local hats and went exploring through the city.

We started with breakfast at Cupcakeology. We couldn't decide which to try, so we split four flavors: german chocolate; red velvet; s'mores; coconut creme.

We decided to attend Kalpulli Izkalli's community event to check out the Curandera/o (natural healers) booths. Los Niños del Sol(Children of the Sun) were dancing folklorico and it was super adorable.

I decided that a trip to the Botanical Gardens and Aquarium would be great for us to walk around and relax. Besides, the first time I went to the Albuquerque Botanical Park, I went alone. I thought it would be fun to show my friend around this great place!

The jellyfish were this strange combination of beauty and creepy.

We were entranced by the butterfly garden.


Later on during the weekend, we took a train ride 20 minutes north of Albuquerque in order to enjoy the New Mexico Wine Festival.

we got to taste some great wines. There was a red chile based wine and a chocolate based wine called Black Beauty. After a few tastes of wine and a couple glasses, I was feeling relaxed enough to get some henna.
The rest of the afternoon was somewhat hazy, but we sure did have a lot of fun.

Cheers!

xo-K