Good Eating in the Land of “Breaking Bad”
Posted on August 1, 2014 by bob in Travel
The Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway takes people on a 2.7 mile ride into the mountains surrounding Albuquerque.
by Andrea Gross; photos by Irv Green (unless otherwise noted)
I’m standing on the observation deck atop Sandia Mountain, surrounded by sky the color of turquoise, paying homage to the Native American culture of Albuquerque, some 5,000 feet below. But today, since the city has achieved fame as the location of the award-winning TV series Breaking Bad, another metaphor comes to mind. My husband and I are surrounded by sky the color of crystal meth.
Bags of blue candy that look like the crystal meth cooked up by Walter White and his accomplices in Breaking Bad.
In fact, “Blue Sky” is the street name for the methamphetamine cooked up by America’s most famous fictional drug lord, Walter White. The story follows White, a high school chemistry teacher, as he turns to meth-making in order to pay for his cancer treatments and provide for his family if the treatment fails.
The shops in Albuquerque’s Old Town still feature items related to the town’s Indian heritage, but now they also sell items related to the TV series, Breaking Bad. (Photo by The Candy Lady)
While numerous companies give tours of Breaking Bad film sites, we choose to explore on our own. Our first stop: Albuquerque’s Old Town where, amongst galleries filled with Indian art, we find The Candy Lady, the small shop that produced the meth look-alike used during the initial years of the show. Later proprietor Debbie Ball began selling “Breaking Bad Candy,” a confection that looks like drug crystals but incongruously tastes like cotton candy. (Ball carefully explains that her candy is not promoting drugs, but rather a show that shows how destructive drugs can be.) We plunk down a dollar for a mini-bag of fake meth.
In search of something more substantive, we go to the nearby Dog House, a greasy-spoon place frequented on screen by White’s sidekick, Jessie Pinkman. We pass on the Frito pie, nibble on a mustard dog and move on to Garduño’s, the site of a tense meeting between four of the main characters, who are so intent on their discussion that they leave the taquería’s famous guacamole untouched. How unfortunate for them. The dip is prepared table side, exactly to our liking. So far, it’s our drug of choice.
But we’re not as interested in Walter White’s dining habits as we are in those of Bryan Cranston, the actor who plays White. We head to El Pinto’s, which is not only a Cranston favorite but a favorite of politicians from the Clintons and Obamas to George W. Bush. Bush liked it so much he asked the manager to prepare a meal in the White House for a Cinco de Mayo festival.
Diners enjoy the food and music at El Pintos.
Since the manager isn’t likely to come to our house to prepare a Southwestern meal, we decide to learn to cook our own. So on Day 4 of our New Mexico sojourn I find myself in Jane Butel’s kitchen, using a pair of tongs to lower a rectangle of soft dough into a deep pot of hot oil. Within seconds, the dough puffs up, a light golden ball of fried flour, a true sopapilla, ready to drizzle with honey and pop in my mouth. I feel like a magician.
Butel is the acknowledged guru of Southwestern cooking, having starred in a weekly TV cooking show, served as a consultant for companies such as Del Taco and El Torrito, and written 22 cookbooks on Southwestern cooking. If that weren’t enough, she also helped Julia Child start her first cooking school in Paris. Now she holds weekend courses in her home, which is in Corrales, a few miles north of Albuquerque.
Jane Butel teaches weekend classes in Southwestern cooking from her home north of Albuquerque.
In short order we learn the following tidbits:
— Mild chiles have broad shoulders and blunt tips, while hot ones have pointed tips. “The sharper the point, the spicier the taste,” says Butel.
— If your mouth burns from too-hot chili, numb the pain with sugar, acid or fat. Wise diners have learned to pair hot food with margaritas, which contain lime juice (acidic) or with cheese and sour cream, which contain fat.
— Capsaicin, the substance that gives peppers their bite, has been shown to relieve headaches and arthritis, fight cancer and sinus infection, and burn calories.
Butel divides us into three groups and has us don new red aprons. As we drink and munch our way through the weekend, I become competent, if not exactly proficient, at making perfect margaritas, to-die-for guacamole, and nachos with three kinds of salsa. On our final day we work together to prepare a main course that is as full of Southwestern color as it is of Southwestern flavor: red chile, blue corn and jalapeño skillet bread, and chicken fajitas with tri-color pepper sautéed with pico de gallo. For dessert, we feast on our miraculous sopapillas.
We’re eating good in the land of Breaking Bad. With my newly acquired culinary skills, we’ll also eat good when we get back home.
www.newmexico.org
www.janebutelcooking.com
