Meet Judy and Gary

Gary and Judy

We moved to Las Cruces, NM in the Summer of 2000. A year earlier we had already decided to leave the hectic pace of life in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area in favor of the open spaces and blue skies of New Mexico. Judy had worked as a teacher, and had later spent years in the corporate world. I had worked as an engineer and later as a self-employed videographer. Southern New Mexico was already almost like home to us. Over the past 20 years or so we had been here many times, on our way to and from backpacking trips in the Gila Wilderness. During those visits we had also acquired a taste for New Mexico chile...more about that later.
In 1999 we started the process  of preparing seriously to relocate, with numerous house-hunting trips, and basically getting to know our future home. Along the way we became more familiar with Southern New Mexico, taking in everything we could about the almost cult-following surrounding New Mexico chile. One of our trips took us to the Hatch Chile Festival, and by that time we were hooked!

Back home in the city, we started work on a project that we would not actually complete until after we had relocated to New Mexico...our "Tale of Two Chiles" cookbook and video. Judy, having been a Home Economics and cooking teacher in her first career, wanted to write a cookbook, and what better subject than New Mexico Chile! I contributed my knowledge as a videographer and began work on a how-to video to accompany the cookbook.

Over the years we've  mailed off hundreds of our little cookbook and video, to almost every state in the U.S. and several foreign countries. In our own little way we feel that we helped "spread the word" about New Mexico red and green chile cooking.
Nowadays, in the age of the internet, recipes for almost any dish are available almost instantly. The demand for printed cookbooks has decreased greatly. But, still, a couple of times a week we lay our cookbook out on the counter and make a favorite New Mexico chile recipe!