Satisfying a Sickness

In the early 90's my former husband, Jeff, and I had the amazing opportunity to travel to the southern part of New Mexico on a business trip of his.  I had been to Arizona many times as a child, and loved the desert heat, the huge cacti and funny little road runners that would dart past just as you came around a corner with a huge ice cream cone dripping down your hand, arm, chin and shirtfront, as the sun was setting on another 100+ degree day in which you had spent 12 of the preceding 14 hours in the swimming pool perfecting your underwater distance, your swan dive and your cannon-ball.

But I had never been to New Mexico.  The first time I went I fell in love - just as I had with Arizona as an eight year old girl.  It was mid-September and the chile harvest was in full swing.  Everywhere we went the smell of roasting Hatch chiles filled the air.  The local guys who worked with my husband would end each day at a run-down bar on the outskirts of Las Cruces called Chope's.  Jeff had already discovered this little oasis on a previous trip and we made a beeline for it:  Dark and dilapidated, with cases of beer stacked in one corner because there wasn't anywhere else to store it, a trough serving the role of urinal in the men's restroom, it was packed with a loud, merry bunch of blue collar folks, college students and field workers crammed  into every booth, chair and bar stool available. We made our way to the bar and ordered margaritas and a dozen chiles rellenos - made from the chiles growing in the field behind the bar - hold the red sauce.  When they arrived - hot, smoky, sweet and spicy, cheese flowing smoothly from them with the first cut - my culinary life as I knew it was transformed.

That day we quickly determined when Chope's was open over the course of our trip and pledged to eat there every possible day (sadly, they were closed on Sunday - I have no idea what or where we ate that day).  Our addiction underway, Jeff asked around about the possibility of taking some roasted chiles home with us and learned from someone that we should seek out a man known as "El Gato" - he would have the best chiles at the best price and would sell us a 40 pound bag of roasted nirvana for $20. We would need ziploc baggies, gloves to protect our hands from the capsaicin leaking through the softened chile walls, a cooler in which to store them, surrounded by the dry ice that we would also need to locate, in order to get them home without spoiling.  The day we were leaving we followed the incomplete directions we'd received and found El Gato, then the other items we needed, and headed back to our B&B with a garbage bag full of fresh roasted Big Jims and got to work on the little balcony outside our room.

Back in the Bay Area we tried to replicate the rellenos we'd had at Chope's.  But the batter was too thick and gloppy, or the cheese didn't taste or melt the way it should.  We got close a couple of times, but just couldn't get them right.  Soon, the chiles themselves were gone and it was clear that we would need to return. We were hooked, addicted to the unique taste of roasted New Mexico chiles.  Over the course of two more trips to New Mexico, the quest for chiles rellenos became an obsession for us.  We spent one vacation in Santa Fe and Taos, trying every "acclaimed" chile relleno in those towns - and found them all lacking.  We returned to Las Cruces a few years later, determined to figure out how Chope's did it.  Until that time we had only ever eaten in the bar - shirking the kid-friendly restaurant also owned by the same family on the adjacent lot, for the rowdy mariachi party in the cantina next door.          

But on that trip we decided to try the restaurant and Jeff used his near fluent Spanish to talk our way into the kitchen, where we had the opportunity to watch as the Grandmother of the family sat hunched over a small wooden table, filling those glorious chiles with....  American Cheese.  We were stunned; we'd tried cheddar, monterey jack, and several other cheeses alone and in combination, never imagining that the lowly sliced cheese product was the oozing goodness we'd been searching for.  And the batter?  Little more than whipped egg whites, folded with a little yolk and a splash of beer, into which the stuffed chiles, dredged lightly first in seasoned flour, were dipped until well coated and then gently dropped into a bath of boiling oil.

Having long ago lost our directions for locating El Gato, we nearly ran to find the closest chile stall - 60 pounds this time, please - dropped them in the trunk of our rental car and and then promptly drove into the desert to see the famous drifting White Sands National Monument.  When we returned to the car, the smell of those roasted chiles permeated the air and our return drive to town was agony of the most enticing kind - the smell all round us but the chiles just out of reach.  When we got home with them, we immediately set to work recreating what we'd seen in that small, rustic, wonderful kitchen.  Success!  It was a sweet moment when we tried our first relleno that tasted like those we'd been seeking for years, and we were transported.

For years getting my hands on these chiles was an expensive proposition - and not entirely satisfying even when I could get them because they'd been roasted where I couldn't hand-pick the biggest, best Big Jims to render the perfect relleno, couldn't smell them releasing their intoxicating sweet-smoky aroma, and they'd been frozen for, really, who knows how long.  Imagine my joy upon finding fresh NM chiles at Berkeley Bowl a couple of years ago, JUST after Jeff had received probably the best gift a (chile addicted) man could ever receive from his wife Tracy - a personal, gas powered roaster.  I bought a box of them and headed over to their house.  Suddenly, it seems they're going to be everywhere!

Recently Jeff found the 30-pound burlap bag featured at the top of this post at Lucky's, for the whopping price of $.97/pound!  He invited me to come over and roast some chiles and the resulting photos here represent my reaffirmation and re-dedication of love.  And despite what promises to be a new ability to source these jewels of the chile world, Jeff and I also made a pact - before we die, we will return to Chope's to taste the rellenos that started our madness.  I can't wait.