Showing posts with label Route 66. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Route 66. Show all posts

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Winds of Wildfire - Ronald P. Chavez, Author














Red Chile Sauce
(By Chef Ronald P. Chavez)

Ingredients:

½ cup red chile-fine
¼ cup red chile-coarse
1/2 cup flour
½ cup cooking oil
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons salt
½  pound  pork
1 large diced onion
6 cups broth

Combine pork, onion into two 2 gal. pot filled ¾ with water.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Boil until pork is tender, usually 30 minutes.

Combine both fine and coarse chile, flour, salt and garlic.  Stir dry until well blended.  Remove pork and set aside to cool.  Pour 2 cups broth after it’s done into combined dry mix. Take care to stir broth as you dip from large pot to assure good flavor. Stir chile mix until well blended into a smooth uncooked sauce.

Remove bones if any from cooked pork.  Dice boneless pork into ½ inch squares.  Set aside.Now comes the moment of truth.  Your sensibilities come into play here.  Pour ½ cup cooking oil into 2 gal. pot.  Heat until it feels hot to the hand above the pot.  Do not allow to burn or smoke.  Once oil is hot, turn off heat.  This is a must.  You do not want to burn the chile.

Now you need all the angels you can muster.  Pour uncooked  chile mix into hot oil. Stir quickly and constantly.  Don’t worry about pouring all the chile mix.  At this point the stirring is paramount.  The remaining mix can be added after oil completely absorbs the chile mix.

Next: turn heat back on medium hot. Stir constantly, until a roasted chile aroma tantalizes your sense of smell.  Add pork and mix it into chile sauce.

Pour 2 cups of broth into the roasted chile mix.  Stir!  Stir!  Stir! Until sauce is creamy in texture.  Bring to a boil.  Stir!  Stir!  Stir!  Now simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often with last cup of broth added for desired thickness a little at a time as chile sauce simmers and thickens.

Done! Kept covered in the frig, it’ll keep for weeks.  Pour over eggs, enchiladas, potatoes, meats, beans.  Stretch your imagination and satisfy your appetite and warm your heart.  Have a chileee day!

Options:  substitute chicken, beef, fish, any kind of meat will do.  Or you can eliminate all meat for veggie sauce.  Your call.
To order New Mexico chile contact Chef Chavez at taosoiet@yahoo.com

 
Winds of Wildfire – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat and Think With Your Taste Buds – Desserts.
 
‘Taos Pueblo is home to the Tiwa trib.  The first Spaniards named it pueblo, town, because they lived in a multi storied adobe complex.  The Pueblo has stood for over a thousand years on its original lands, even though it’s called a reservation or rez for short.  These ancient people have never known a forced march to a government imposed location which is the common stipulation for the word “reservation.”  Their long history has been preserved mostly by a secret oral tradition.  The tribe enjoys an autonomous form of government as well as full citizenship in the United States.  They rule themselves through elected tribal officials.  Their lands extend to Blue Lake, nestled in the pristine valley high up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and in various sized patches in and around Taos.  No outsiders are allowed to enter the Blue Lake lands without special permission for they are held to be sacred.  The pueblo compound is open to the public for a fee.  At the approaches to the Pueblo stands a casino, where they have not lost the art of scalping.’
 
Billy Stonewofl works as a guide  for tourists that visit the pueblo.  Like most of us he’s possessed with his own personal demons.  Billy’s demons consist of drugs and alcohol and have taken him to the brink of suicide.  Through the grace of his god, this wasn’t to happen.  To live with or hopefully destroy Billy’s demons he has decided to revert back to the ways of his people.  He will go to the mountains, find a cave to call home and live off the land.  What Billy didn’t expect was to find one more demon to add to his collection.  This demon came in the form of gold.  Will this add to Billy’s depressing life or will it be the answer to his prayers?  I think the answer will surprise you.
 
Donato Atencio is Spanish American.  His demon came in the shape of losing his wife.  Her death brought him to the edge of suicide.  Even though he came close to his final destruction, he stopped and decided to take one day at a time.  In doing so he became a volunteer caretake for the 18,000 acres of land surrounding Taos.  He made a stipend of $10.00 a day, living quarters and all the fresh air he could breathe.  He owned nothing and owed no one.  But he still carried his demon with him wherever he went in his lonely world.  Would his living one day at a time finally run out and allow him to end it all?
 
Amee Brooks brought her demons all the way from Boston when she bought her small farm outside the village of Questa.  The man she had loved with all her heart had deceived her.  He had turned her away from the desire to love again and turned her into a recluse.  To add to her demon was a neighbor who cut off her weekly water supply that was the lifeline for her small garden.  Fighting him would be impossible.  He was a native and she was a white outsider.  Would her demons talk her into giving up and moving back to Boston?
 
Billy, Donato and Amee have nothing in common yet they have everything in common.  The three have to deal with their losses and move on with life but aren’t quite sure how.  Will they be able to help each other?
 
Winds of Wildfire became a book of thought for me.  It made me think about things in my own life and how I have handled them and how I might have handled them differently, making me wonder if I made the right decisions when faced with my own demons.
 

 
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