Meet Judy and Gary
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!