Santa Fe

I went to Santa Fe, NM for a continuing education conference. As a Registered Dietitian I have to have 75 hours of continuing education credits every 5 years. This conference was about Flavor and how the flavor of foods affect how we eat. We had many discussions on eating local produce and meat and how eating local can be the most flavorful food. It was an awesome workshop in an awesome locale. Part of the conference was held at the Santa Fe School of Cooking with chef Rocky Durham and part of it was held at an estate just a few miles north of the town of Santa Fe. I was so excited that my good friend, Carissa, was able to come hang out with me for a few days while I was there. We had fun eating and hanging out - mostly eating! It was great. Tuesday was my birthday so that night we went out to celebrate. We went to one of my now Favorite places to eat, Tomasitas. The chili relleno's are absolutely delectable. I can't wait to go back to NM if nothing else than to eat the chili's and eat at Tomasitas.

Our first day was at the cooking school. During the morning session we did several flavor labs and tested different flavors on different parts of our tongues and then mapped and discussed the results. Very interesting how different people taste different flavors in different areas.

Here we are making tomatillo salsa. We roasted the tomatillos, onions, & garlic over open flame on this little grill. If I had a gas stove I would definitely have one of these grills.
Adding lots of cilantro - We all loved cilantro in our group!
The finished product. We decided to leave ours more chunky and dicey. It was delicious!
Tambke Estate
Views from the decks around the home where

I stayed & where part of the conference was held.

Breathtaking....

Deborah Madison, a chef and food writer, did some food writing sessions with us but then one evening we had the privilege of cooking with her. We made Frito pie of all things but with some truly local, fresh ingredients and it was sooooooooooo good. This is a picture of the fresh red sauce we made from some dried red chili pods. I love the vibrant color.
Here is the finished meat chili and our vegetarian version.
Deborah Madison & Amanda Archibald (director of the conference)

The Santa Fe Farmer's Market.

One day we went to the farmers market and picked out different foods that we were interested in learning more about or how to prepare and chef Rocky Durham then purchased the items and brought them back to the cooking school and prepared this fabulous spread of food for our lunch.

This is a green bean, tomato, & beat salad. Yuck! - Beats!! I do not like beats but thought I should be polite and try them. These are not the traditional beats from a can or even the ones you can find in the produce section, these beats were very petite & sweet. Wow! I loved the beats.
This is fresh chicken that we picked up at the farmers market from a local chicken farmer. In the center is a different array of cooked greens - another food I thought I would hate but was absolutely delicious.

I had a great time in Santa Fe. It was so relaxing and refreshing!