One day I was asked about the Carson National Forest in Northern New Mexico. “I thought Johnny Carson from the Tonight Show was from Nebraska." Yes, Johnny Carson was from Nebraska. However, The Carson National Forest in Northern New Mexico is named for Christopher Houston Carson, better known as Kit Carson, frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and lastly U. S. Army Officer in the Civil War, part of which was fought in New Mexico. Let me tell you about Kit Carson.

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Southern New Mexico has proudly been in movies but there is one movie that local film people have not mentioned. It is a 1991 Mexican film directed by Nicolas Echevarria call Cabeza de Vaca. It is based on a real person. In 1535 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, and three companions were the first Europeans to travel through Southern New Mexico. Let’s talk about those tourists.

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Later this year, when you bite into some delicious Hatch Valley grown chile, think back to the first week in April of 2025. This week starts the chile planting season which features many innovations in the process of commercial Hatch red and green chile production. Let’s talk about the incredible innovations that provide outstandingly wonderful Southern New Mexico red and green chile.

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This is an odd question for New Mexicans: did you realize that Billy the Kid made you some money this last year? I mean how could he since he died a hundred forty years ago? Well, my friends Billy the Kid, the Old West outlaw did make people in New Mexico richer long after his death by Lincoln County Sherriff Pat Garrett. Let me tell you how this happens for you and I to get money about them.

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We in New Mexico live completely differently than in the 1880s though there is a similarity that I want to talk about today. We travel without much effort all over the state and if we need to travel to Albuquerque from anywhere in the state it is just hours away. The change in New Mexico started with trains and that is the topic today. Trains were the change agent.

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We all enjoy gold, yes, real gold. In New Mexico there are several ways to get yourself some gold. Buy it – costs money, trade something for it or, find it. Yes, in New Mexico you can find it either by prospecting in a stream with a pan, cold work or even better would be to find some gold that has been hidden for at least a century. Let’s do that. New Mexico has some hidden gold for you to find.

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When March comes around, well we have March Madness with the wind but the other March Madness of basketball - those of us in New Mexico who enjoy College Basketball are thankful for a 2015 member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, one of 89 coaches in the Hall of Fame. If you attend a basketball game at New Mexico State University’s Pan American Center, you will see the court is the Lou Henson court. Let’s talk about him.

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When people look at Elephant Butte Dam in southern New Mexico it looks like it has been there forever. Not so. It is a little more than a hundred years old but it took thousands of people a very long time to complete the dam. And I look at it and think of green and red chile. YUM! There is a very good reason for this. Here is the story about Elephant Butte Dam and Hatch chile.

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Many things have changed over the years, especially in our kitchens. Many years ago, there were absolute vegetable and fruit seasons. In the 1960s citrus was a treat at Christmas usually sold in boxes by the local High School band as a fundraiser. Now perhaps we can say there are no absolute season except Hatch Valley grown chile only grows without freezing temperatures. But it is available every day, 365 days a year which is wonderful.

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New Mexico is the land of enchantment. Oh, yes, I don’t to tell you that, we all know about the very enchanting New Mexico. But what I find enchanting is some of the place names that are in New Mexico and here are a couple: Bug Scuffle, one of my favorites along with Candy Kitchen, Carrizozo and Tucumcari. Let’s talk about unusual place names in New Mexico.

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When the planet Pluto is mentioned, it isn’t often that someone says, oh yes, New Mexico’s Clyde Tombaugh found it 95 years ago February 18th. Is Pluto a planet? It is with me. Not that I spend time looking in the night sky for Pluto. Nope, Pluto is about three billion miles away from the sun so even with a powerful telescope it is not easily seen. Let’s talk about Clyde Tombaugh and Pluto.

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Let’s talk about the red, of the red or green question. The official New Mexico question is, red or green? The 1996 New Mexico Legislature passed that Red or Green was officially the state question. It put a spotlight on the New Mexico chile pepper industry. We hear about green in roasting but what about red chile? Let’s talk traditional red, fresh red and the new red chile.

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When talking about the great state of New Mexico, green and red chile are central in its identity. Where are you from? I’m from New Mexico. Oh, I love the Green and Red chile. You hear that often. But Green and Red chile in the preparation of food used to be very far apart even though they come from the same plant. The culinary use of these green and red chile peppers has changed over the last hundred years or so or even in the last twenty year.

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Tourists come to New Mexico for many reasons. Some destinations are New Mexico unique such as the Taos Hum, the Roswell Space Aliens museum and festival, the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, the White Sands that cling to visitors and the Carlsbad Caverns with all that spectacular space underground. Let’s talk about some unique New Mexico destinations.

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Since New Mexico is a big part of the Old West, there are questions about New Mexico gunfighters. Truth be known the people in New Mexico and the Old West didn’t spend their time in bars and getting in gunfights. But there were a few unusual gunfights unlike what Hollywood would put in a Western movie. Let’s talk about some unusual Old West gunfights.

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When it comes to commercially grown chile peppers, there is a special label Hatch Chile. Some people think Hatch Chile is a specific variety of chile peppers like Big Jim or Sandia chile. It is not. Rather, Hatch chile reflects the place in Southern New Mexico where very tasty chile peppers are grown. Hatch Chile only describes the unique Hatch Valley grown chile peppers. There is even more to consider after the chile peppers are harvested. 

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Today, January 6, 2025, is the 113th anniversary of New Mexico becoming a state. It was a Saturday at 11:30 a.m. in Washington, D. C. when President William Howard Taft signed the statehood bill officially making New Mexico the 47th state in the United States. I want to talk about people who were there in 1912.

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New Mexico is so big that you could make at least four other states out of our size. And we are in the unique touching three other states at the Four Corners spot. Tourist love to put one foot in one state, one hand in another, their other foot in another and if they don’t fall over, which does happen with laughter, the final hand in a fourth state. Let’s take a tour of New Mexico, a quick tour at that.

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Wherever you live some of the streets and some of the areas of New Mexico are named after real people. They are called Place names since the place, be it a New Mexico county, town, street or some other descriptor is tied to a real person’s name. Example: Deming New Mexico is named for the wife of a railroad executive in the 1880s. We have lots of place names of real people in New Mexico.

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New Mexico chile peppers always get lots of attention for the hot that they have and not appropriately for the more important outstandingly wonderful taste. The first thought most people have looking at just harvested green chile peppers is the heat, the burn, the sensation of chile peppers in the mouth. But what is more important is that they are also outstandingly delicious along with just the right amount of heat so that we smile and say YUM!

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There are websites that show people having a difficulty like falling off a ladder amid a Hollywood laugh track. The New Mexico version is when I ask people about their first bite of New Mexico chile peppers. Usually, it involves some discomfort. We do know when and why chile peppers are hot. It is a fact that the same seemingly hot chile peppers to some people seem not hot enough to other people. It is the same chile peppers so how can that be true? The same chile pepper is hot, sometimes too hot to one person, while it is considered not hot enough to another person.  This is a New Mexico syndrome where someone is eating happily and another person’s face is red, they are sweating and they say loudly, “My goodness that is very hot,” or words to that effect. Why? It is because each of us experiences the heat in the chile peppers differently. 

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When visitors come to New Mexico, one topic of discussion is our delicious chile peppers in foods like enchiladas. Our chile is a treat as long as to the visitor it is not too hot. It is always uniquely flavorful. That is chile with an e, not chili with an i, chilly in winter nor the country of Chile five thousand miles to the south. The very robust New Mexico chile industry did not happen by accident. It took many decades of work to take the original chile that has grown in Southern New Mexico for centuries and through research develop it into today’s chile. More than a hundred years ago three things happened to enable today’s chile peppers.

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In 1985 there was a poster on the wall of a restaurant in Las Cruces that caused me to smile. “On this spot 100 years ago, nothing happened.” Actually, in the then New Mexico territory in Las Cruces, a lot was happening for everyone. What was a daily task for citizens? Finding and cooking food. Let’s talk about some Old Time New Mexico food and how it was prepared.

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Today is 2024 Veteran’s Day, a national holiday celebrating the men and women who have or are serving in the military. Don’t confuse Veteran’s Day with Memorial Day which honors American service members who died in the service of their country. We want to celebrate the about 150,000 Veterans in New Mexico, and their families. We bless them all today.

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When I go outside in Las Cruces I look up and see airplanes. Little ones, big ones, those with propellors or jet engines along with helicopters. In 1916, airplanes came suddenly to New Mexico. They didn’t fly here, they took a train from San Antonio, Texas to Columbus, NM. The Army’s first military airplanes found out the effect of New Mexico’s spring winds. 

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