The Fresh Chile Company Podcast

This last weekend I was thinking about an interesting surprise in the history of New Mexico. Saturday, May 4th, the Kentucky Derby was run. There was a surprising Kentucky Derby fifteen years ago. New Mexico was front and center of that surprise. Let us look back 15 years to a tough little gelding named Mine That Bird that oddsmakers had at 50 to 1, meaning they thought the horse had very little chance at winning. A two-dollar bet ...

The Fresh Chile Company in Las Cruces, New Mexico, according to owner Randy McMillan, started from a culinary family tradition. One year it was Red Chile season in Hatch, New Mexico, and Randy’s father, Arnold McMillan, who loves food and loves to cook came up with the idea of using fresh, crisp Hatch Red Chile right off the Chile Vine instead of traditional Dried Red Chile Powder or Dried Red Chile Pods for his Sunday Red Enchilad...

Chile and Onion Farmers in Southern New Mexico have faith in many ways. I think of this fact as I munch on the world-famous Hatch Valley Chile and Onions. Day after day the farmers get up and do what has to be done, They have faith in several things beyond traditional religion. Don’t get me wrong, they are on their knees often in prayer to the good Lord. But there is something else. Faith is not exclusive to religion since there is...

There are several stages of being a Chile and Onion farmer in the Hatch Valley, the Chile and Onion capital of the world. Many are multi-generational, so they were born into the farmer role from having a toy shovel when they were small to driving a real tractor as a teenager as part of their learning. I asked one what was the most important part of being a farmer? He said when you think about seeds, water, soil, sunlight, fertilize...

Most people visiting New Mexico are not aware that they are walking on Gold some of the time. It is true. Because of the volcanic activity for millions of years there is Gold all over the great state of New Mexico. What’s the problem? Finding it. Let us talk about “Get rich in New Mexico with gold” efforts. I am mostly talking about the second half of the 1800s to the 20th century in New Mexico. Some people back east came here in N...

Today I’m talking about Sid Gutierrez, who had a dream and then did so much more afterwards. What he knew was that he wanted to go into space as an astronaut and that there were steps which must be taken. First was to be the top of his high school class at Valley High School in Albuquerque and get an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There he must distinguish himself and be allowed to become a figh...

For ten thousand years people have been walking in and around what is now Southern New Mexico. Paved roads are a luxury of less than a hundred years, but the improvement was great. The Interstates 10 -25 and 40 are just over 50 years and now Southern to Northern New Mexico is quick. Before that it was travel New Mexico on dirt trails. Some trips took weeks. We are not the first people to go down the streets of our town. 400 years e...

There are some people who you know not so much individually but as both of them. Like my Mom and Dad. People referred to them as George and Joan. Or Randy and Carol McMillan, the owners of the Fresh Chile Company. They sponsor these podcasts and many Fresh Chile Company videos have both of them or Randy and daughter Jenna. In that manner I say former New Mexico Governor Bruce and Alice King when I talk about Governor Bruce King.

Lov...

Think of how far growing Chile has come over the years. Today it is a major crop in New Mexico with thousands of acres. A long time ago it was a family garden staple that most families in Southern New Mexico grew, one family at a time. Long ago each family who year after year grew Chile in their garden did so by keeping some of the seeds from the last Chile harvest. Those seeds were kept safe over the winter. When it seemed that wi...

Here it is, my friends, April fifth and as you are listening to this Podcast, Chile Plants are going into the ground in the Hatch Valley Chile growing areas. In the growing areas, some of the Chile plants are started as seeds. That is happening right now and some Chile Plants were planted some weeks earlier in greenhouses since Chile (how should I say this?) well now Chile Plants just doesn’t like cold weather. So those young Chile...

While we are thinking about March madness, I think back to the most dominate coach in New Mexico high school Boys’ Basketball. Even though he died at age 80 in 1999, you still see the Ralph Tasker name since the Hobbs High School gymnasium is the Ralph Tasker Arena. And I have interviewed several of his former players who to a man started talking with the term: Full-Court Press. What that meant was they were always active on both e...

It was 42 years ago today that the eyes of the world were on Southern New Mexico and the landing of STS-3 Columbia. Like much else in New Mexico, it wasn’t easy. The day of return from low earth orbit the Columbia was supposed to land in California but the weather there was such that landing Space Shuttle Columbia was not possible and while the Kennedy Space Center return landing strip was finished the weather wasn’t good there. So...

I’m talking today about Glen Campbell, the famed musical artist, television, and movie star. He was the seventh of twelve children in Arkansas living a sharecropper’s family life. Growing up he shared a bed with three brothers. When he was four years of age his Uncle Boo got him a $5 Sears Roebuck guitar and taught him some chords and they became a musical group. Both were natural musicians and were self-taught. School was of littl...

There are Southern New Mexico students in one town who can spell the word consequences with no trouble. The time was March 29, 1950, and the leaders of the New Mexico town of Hot Springs, New Mexico, decided to get national attention. The town of about ten thousand was mostly known for two things: the Elephant Butte Dam and the medicinal hot springs in the area. Founded in 1880 and called Palomas Hot Springs, it was shortened to Ho...

I want to tell you about Edwin Mechem who lived a full active life of service in New Mexico. He was born in Alamogordo on July 2, 1912, six months after New Mexico statehood. He died ninety years later after an extraordinary life. He was the first New Mexico Governor to have been born in the state of New Mexico, not territory. I have talked about many Extraordinary New Mexico People, but I believe Ed Mechem’s life in New Mexico to ...

It was 108 years ago this week that Columbus, New Mexico in Southwestern New Mexico was squarely in the national and international news due to a raid by Mexican soldiers under the command of Pancho Villa in the middle of the night on the town of Columbus just over the border with Mexico and about 30 miles south of Deming, New Mexico. The title of the event is often called the Columbus Raid or the Pancho Villa Raid or the Battle of ...

I’m talking today about New Mexico rural one room schoolhouses from the year 1900 to perhaps 1940 or so. It did several very important things in the Territory of New Mexico and then in 1912 we became a state. One-room schoolhouses did some things that are not talked about these days. First, it allowed very rural families to have education for their kids in reading, writing and arithmetic. Often, this was from the McGuffey Readers. ...

I got an interesting email from a listener planning a trip back to Southern New Mexico after almost 50 years of being away. His grandparents lived in Deming, New Mexico. He was able to visit while his grandfather was alive. He lives about forty miles east of Flint Michigan. He asked about the Chino Mines at Santa Rita and about the Gila Cliff Dwellings. First, let’s talk about the Gila Cliff Dwellings in the Southwestern part of Ne...

Literally thousands of people in New Mexico saw him play basketball for the University of New Mexico Lobos myself included. There was something that he didn’t know at the time nor did any of us. As Paul Harvey had a Rest of the Story series years ago and I’ll tell you the rest of the story before I am done talking about Tony Snell, Jr. We who follow New Mexico sports for the Lobos and the Aggies first started hearing of Tony Snell ...