Albuquerque

 Albuquerque

June 18, 2022 by Stevie G

ABQ was just a ten day say, in between a month long stay, a few one day stopovers, and a four day stay. It had been a busy few weeks on the road, absorbing incredible natural beauty in the southwest, driving, packing, unpacking.

We had a nice place in a nice location in ABQ, and I figured it’d be a nice palette cleanser before we get back to more “traditional” month long stays.

Ten days was definitely not enough in New Mexico, and I am definitely going back to explore the rest of the state. Ten days though is a nice amount of time to spend in a place – you get two weekends, but it is still a short enough time to be motivated to do “things”, and not get lulled into the day to day work life as you do when you have a whole month (so you think, hey I got time, I’ll take it slow).

ABQ is crusty (in a good way), quiet (in a good and bad way), and spacious (again, in a good and bad way). It’s one of those places I don’t quite understand – kind of like Nevada generally, there is good/bad and beautiful/ugly all mixed together in a fascinating panoply. Hatch Chiles everywhere – green or red or Christmas (both).

Had a game changing breakfast burrito – sidebar, I’m generally against potatoes in a breakfast burrito. For me, potatoes in a breakfast burrito is like pineapple on pizza to some (I think Hawaiian pizza is awesome, but I can appreciate people thinking it is an abomination). That is how I feel about potatoes in a breakfast burrito. Eggs, cheese, sausage (or bacon), and some salsa – that is enough. Too often you get some potatoes in it, they’ll be under or overcooked, and just makes you too full. The tortilla is your starch man – why put potatoes in it too! Still – I get that people like it, just not for me. But then I had a burrito in ABQ that in addition to the green chiles had hash browns in it. I’m sure this isn’t groundbreaking from a burrito perspective, but it opened my mind to the potato in a burrito thing. It was like Kuato himself came out of the burrito and spoke to me.

On the topic of food, here’s a story about eating a chicken sandwich that was way too hot. In downtown ABQ there is a new food hall type of thing. In it was a place serving fried chicken sandwiches. They asked me how hot I wanted it – so I asked what the levels were. The guy went into a description, from not hot to very hot, so I chose what I thought was the middle of that spectrum. It wasn’t until after I ate the sandwich that a painting on the wall read “hot means hot!”. Now, I enjoy hot food more so than the average person, certainly. I’m not bragging here, just saying I like it. This sandwich though was so hot, that it would be totally inedible to the vast majority of people. I enjoyed it, but let me tell you I paid the price. My stomach was digesting it for the next 24 hours, easily. At some point I’d like to try authentic Nashville “hot” chicken to see what an appropriate baseline is. The fact that this was not the hottest available is what was interesting. Anything hotter – no way it can be worth it.