Southwest Flavor: Adela Amador's Tales from the Kitchen

This charming spiral-bound cookbook takes its name from Adela Amador's much-loved food column in New Mexico Magazine, "Southwest Flavor." Organized seasonally, it pairs recipes and "slice of life" stories like "It's raining snakes and toads," with a recipe for margarita pie and Adela's anecdote about a summer cloudburst and hundreds of tiny frogs. Then there was the time Adela and her mother were roasting chile and the stove blew up! Adela describes how the reader can roast chile (with no risk to life or limb), and includes both savory and sweet chile recipes. Her childhood recollections take us back to her days growing up in northern New Mexico, with memories of the magical Christmas lights of Madrid, New Mexico (and the tamales that accompanied that holiday), and of being serenaded as a young girl on New Year's Eve, with a recipe for the posole that her family prepared.

Dozens of traditional recipes enhance Adela's "tales," edited by New Mexico Magazine editors Emily Drabanski and Walter K. Lopez. The volume includes a glossary of Spanish food names and terms, and an index.