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Santa Fean Magazine / December-January 2009 / Celebrating Culinary Crossroads

Celebrating Culinary Crossroads

Five chefs share family traditions and recipes

“Oh there’s no place like home for the holidays,” the popular song goes, and whether that long-remembered “home” is in Louisiana, Britain, or even China, the holiday culinary traditions from these corners of the world and more can find creative convergence at the crossroads of the City Different. In honor of holidays past, and of the flavorful potential of pairing traditional foods with those that have been given innovative twists, five Santa Fe chefs share family memories and great recipes to use for years to come.

Caterer Marja Martin recalls Christmas at Grandma Martin’s house in Shreveport, Louisiana, while Inn of the Anasazi’s executive chef, Oliver Ridgeway, talks about growing up above a pub in West Sussex, Britain. Just as Mu Du Noodles owner Mu Jing Lau describes Chinese New Year festivities spent in a little village in rural Canton, China, chef Jacob Hilbert of the new bistro A La Mesa reminisces about Hanukkah at Grandma Goldberg’s in Charlotte, South Carolina. And native son Al Lucero, proprietor of Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen, conjures the bygone days of hometown Santa Fe.

More than any other time of the year, the period between Thanksgiving and the ushering in of the new year proves to be its true party-throwing season. Regardless of your religious persuasion, it is during this festive time that friends and family gather to celebrate a host of occasions. Besides now residing in Santa Fe and serving up some of the tastiest victuals this side of the Rio Grande, these five all have another thing in common: vivid recollections of holidays past, plans for the present season, and wishes for the years to come.

This season, celebrate your family traditions in your own inimitable way or incorporate a few new customs from the some of the diverse cultures that make up our Santa Fe culinary heritage. Here’s wishing Santa Feans far and near a very merry whatever-you-celebrate, and a Happy New Year!

Oliver Ridgeway, Executive Chef, Inn of the Anasazi

This is the first Christmas ever in Santa Fe for Inn of the Anasazi executive chef Oliver Ridgeway. Born in Horsham, England, over a pub that his dad managed (complete with a Labrador retriever named Lager), Ridgeway remembers that it was the excitement and hustle-and-bustle of the pub atmosphere that lured him to pursue a career in hospitality. “Dad’s pub business led to [him opening] a pizza company where I started my apprenticeship as a lad, which eventually inspired me to go to hotel and catering college,” he says.

The Ridgeway family Christmas menu included all the usual suspects, but for a while father Ridgeway was a vegetarian, and Oliver remembers a delicious mushroom-chestnut bake with cranberries that was served as an additional main course (recipe page 58). There were English Christmas “crackers”—those brightly colored cardboard tubes, twisted at the ends, that pop when pulled apart—and great pub food, including the sausage-covered Scotch egg, a rustic dish that remains one of Ridgeway’s favorites.

Ridgeway’s career in kitchens has since given him opportunities to spend the holidays in such far-flung locales as the sizzling beaches of Australia and Antigua. After graduation, Ridgeway headed to the high seas to continue his career, working in the vast kitchens of the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, where, he says, “every night is a party.” Next, a travel stop in Australia enticed him to return Down Under to cook for the 2000 Olympic Games. He spent that Christmas enjoying the high summer of the Southern Hemisphere on Sydney’s renowned Bondi Beach, with “plenty of beers and a big barbecue.” After a stint working near Park City, Utah’s famous ski slopes, Ridgeway signed on with the Rosewood Hotel Group and headed to Jumby Bay resort in Antigua. The five-star hotel served an enormous Christmas buffet, chock-full of fresh seafood and whole fish roasted on the grill on the beach. “The resort was accessed by a small ferry from the mainland,” Ridgeway remembers, chuckling, “and on Christmas we would employ a massive islander to play Santa and drive the boat that transported the customers back and forth.”

For the past two seasons, Ridgeway worked at the famous Carlyle Hotel in New York City as executive sous chef, where his holiday cooking was full of dishes for celebrations both Jewish and Christian. This year the new Santa Fean weaves traditional holiday foods together for his menus at Anasazi Restaurant, giving them Southwestern and occasionally British touches. He offers green chile–and-cornbread stuffing baked in roasted poblano chiles, Brussels sprouts and baby carrots sautéed with crispy pancetta, and cranberry-ginger relish to top the roasted turkey, ever a holiday favorite. Ridgeway is clearly a chef whose gourmet cooking pays tribute to his culinary past.
Anasazi Restaurant, Inn of the Anasazi, 113 Washington, 505-988-3236

Marja Martin, Owner, Marja Custom Catering 

It is one of the busiest times of the year for caterer Marja Martin, who remembers traveling from Dallas to Shreveport, Louisiana, to visit her grandmother over the Christmas break every year. The holiday was never particularly religious for the Texas-born redhead, but the food, she remembers, was a sacred family tradition. “Grandmother had a bunch of freezers that she would spend the months leading up to the holiday season filling with goodies: canapés, Washington lace, and pressed pecan cookies—all ready for the family visitations,” she recalls.
This year, Martin is honoring the memory of her grandmother by including, as part of her holiday menu, some vintage recipes she remembers being served from her grandma’s kitchen in her youth. Goodies like cheese petits fours, cocktail olives in cheese pastry (great with martinis), and elaborately designed crudités platters have also become a part of Marja Custom Catering’s standard repertoire. No doubt Martin’s party-planning savvy is inherited, too. “The Christmas dinner menu never varied,” she explains. “It was a formal affair in my grandmother’s dining room that she would elaborately decorate. The table was laid with individual cranberry-pecan-Jell-O ‘congealed salad’ molds—sitting on butter-lettuce leaves with a good dollop of homemade mayonnaise on top—a creamy Gruyère asparagus casserole, a carrot soufflé ring with peas in the middle, turkey of course, with giblet gravy, and pecan-Andouille stuffing. There was always chocolate-cream pie with lots of whipped cream, and my favorite dessert, which I still make today: a pear-preserve cake.” Martin also makes an updated version of the cake using a recipe she received from her best friend, Paula, who bakes it with apples and cider from Tesuque.
This year, Martin and her team will be busy catering-elves until December 19, but from the 20th to the 27th the creative chef is taking time off. “I feel as though I am at the age where it’s important to take time to be with family,” says the vivacious mother of one. But not to worry: Right away on the 28th, it’s back to the stoves. Or if you’d rather prepare the victuals for your winter fete yourself, check out her recipes to make sure your guests leave with full bellies and warm hearts. Marja Custom Catering, 1314 Rufina Circle #A7, 505-986-3858

Al Lucero , Owner, Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen

Al Lucero, longtime owner of regional-cuisine restaurant Maria’s—a favorite among residents—is as local as you can get: He was born and raised in Santa Fe and is certainly her most celebrated margarita master. Lucero’s family home, at the corner of Guadalupe and Aztec Streets, was smack dab in the middle of the pageantry of the Catholic celebrations at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Though not a Catholic himself, he remembers the bonfires built along the middle of the road that lit the way for the annual Christmas procession.

Despite his New Mexican heritage, Lucero thinks of his childhood holiday celebrations in a more “Courier & Ives” light. “Santa Fe then was just an all-American town,” he recalls. While the family’s Christmas Eve dinner did include tamales and posole, the table was also set with the complete range of Anglo goodies. “Our little street had a great mix of heritages: Italian, Spanish, African-American. We all celebrated together.”
Lucero’s love of the most famed of all NuMex food staples—chile—is reflected in the large menu at Maria’s, which he decks in Christmas decorations for the festive time of year. His favorite type of chile? “Red,” he says, remembering that in his youth, “fresh green chile was pretty much gone by Christmas, but my mother used to actually dry green chiles by loosely wrapping them in wax paper and hanging them on the clothesline with clothes pins.” The posole, he recollects, was rich with pork and chile—not the plain white posole he started to encounter as he moved around the country, working first in radio broadcasting and then the television industry. When he bought Maria’s from Priscilla Hoback and her husband, Peter, in 1985, after happening upon the phenomenon of fajitas as he traveled the Southwest, he imported the concept to Santa Fe to serve along with the New Mexican dishes he loved.

It is here that Lucero developed his amazing collection of tequilas (more than 100 varieties) and his world-famous margarita list, which locals and visitors flock to the historic restaurant to enjoy. Lucero’s favorite is the Joven Esteban—tart and pungent with El Tesoro Muy Añejo tequila, Cointreau, and lemon juice. With hints of bitter and sweet orange, it’s sure to be a holiday hit.
Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen, 555 W Cordova, 505-983-7929

Jacob Hilbert, Executive Chef, A La Mesa

From his Jewish upbringing in Hartsville, South Carolina, Jacob Hilbert has vivid memories of his grandmother Goldberg organizing the Hanukkah celebrations. “There are no specific food traditions for this holiday, but it is with the familiar dishes of my youth I love so much—brisket, Mandelbrot, egg kichels, kugels, and hamantaschen cookies—that I dream of someday opening a high-end Jewish restaurant,” says the executive chef of A La Mesa, a new bistro and wine bar that opened this fall in the former location of Café San Estevan. Although his great-grandmother kept a kosher household, Hilbert’s youth was nontraditional in the secular sense: While he never had a bar mitzvah, he did attend Hebrew school and loves the rituals and ceremonies of his faith.

Hilbert spent many holidays with his Christian stepfather’s family, too, and admits, laughing, “One of my favorite holiday dishes from my childhood is green-bean casserole with mushroom soup and canned onion rings.” He remembers family parties being full of good food and song, and most important, “steeped in love.”

Hilbert moved to town from Las Cruces in August to take a position at A La Mesa. For his first holiday in Santa Fe, he plans to incorporate some of his favorite Jewish dishes into the menu. This effort includes a gourmet version of noodle kugel, a traditionally rustic dish from Germany that can be savory or sweet. Hilbert’s version is decidedly the latter. The passionate chef likes to bake the pudding in individual portions and serve it with a warm and rich dried-fruit sauce—a treat to satisfy the holiday sweet tooth in foodies of all faiths.
A La Mesa, 428 Agua Fria, 505-988-2836

Mu Jing Lau, Owner, Mu Du Noodles

Chinese New Year is a month behind the traditional American holiday season, falling on January 25 in 2009. This creates a perfect opportunity to stretch the holiday spirit all the way through the depths of winter. Mu Jing Lau, founder and chef of Mu Du Noodles, considers it the most important holiday on her personal calendar. “It’s a time to clean house, both metaphorically and spiritually,” the petite chef says. “To get rid of broken things and prepare for the new year.”

During the two-week-long celebration, which is an ongoing party, only good things are spoken of and good food is prepared. Lau explains, “It’s important not to burn any food, and each dish served throughout the holiday has a specific meaning. Some food from the old year is saved and served in the new. It is very important to be happy at this time of year. Good feelings, says Lau, enhance the accumulation of luck for the future. Heavy on tradition and mysticism, it is also believed that if things go awry during this important time, there could be dire consequences. Lau remembers a year when some fresh tofu her mother had purchased for the holiday did not set up properly, a circumstance that Mother Lau believed caused the death of her own father-in-law several months later.

Children have a special part in the preparations for the New Year, much like American kids who help get ready by decorating cookies and the like. Chinese children, says Lau, are particularly well behaved at this time of year, hoping perhaps that the festive red envelopes they receive from family members will contain more money as a result. Lau remembers being a “little slave”—getting everything ready for the holiday, cleaning house, and preparing dumplings. Containers in the kitchen needed to be filled to the brim; rice and other staples were topped off and organized. Her eyes twinkle, however, when she recalls “festive Chinese sponge cakes, translucent shrimp dumplings, and steamed pork buns.”

Menus are planned to include some of each ingredient prominent in the Chinese diet: fish (for good luck), chicken (for good fortune), and pork. Among the most popular is a dish Lau now calls Chinese New Year Chicken—a simple, versatile recipe that results in extremely tender meat. “The texture is well worth the effort and time,” she says. Add it to other dishes as the meat component, or serve it accompanied with a strong dipping sauce.
Mu Du Noodles, 1494 Cerrillos, 505-983-1411