Customer Reviews

Santa Fe School of Cooking: Flavors of the Southwest

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The Santa Fe Cooking School is located just a couple of blocks from the Plaza, and offers a host of opportunities for anyone looking for information on Southwestern cooking. It's well worth checking out the home page of the school listed in the first Comment to this Review.

Santa Fe Cooking School Flavors of the Southwest by Susan D. Curtis, owner of the school, is the second "official" cookbook for the school; the first is The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook.

The first book is a good introduction to the school and its approach, but the second is clearly a better book. There are dozens of new recipes, techniques, traditions and flavors with more of a focus on fresh ingredients, local foods and products, Native American, Mexican, and Spanish flavors. The photographs by Eric Swanson are especially good and add to the value of the book. And, frankly, Curtis has become a better teacher; the recipes seemed clearer and more friendly to this intermediate cook.

Amazon provides a very generous selection of pages from "Southwest Flavors" so I'll not provide a sample recipe. Instead, the following list of recommended Santa Fe oriented cook books was provided by an excellent cook who has spent ten years cooking and eating in Santa Fe. She warns that the quality of the books varies, but "I like to get books and compare their versions of standbys like green chile stew or enchiladas or posole. So it might seem like I have a lot of these, but I use them all at various times for various dishes."

Cafe Pasqual's Cookbook: Spirited Recipes from Santa Fe by Katharine Kagel.

Cooking With Cafe Pasqual's: Recipes From Santa Fe's Renowned Corner Cafe by Katharine Kagel.

The Food of Santa Fe: Authentic Recipes from the American Southwest by Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach.

Coyote Cafe by Mark Miller.

Harry's Roadhouse Cookbook by Harry Shapiro.

The Red Chile Bible: Southwestern Classic & Gourmet Recipes by Kathleen Hansel and Audrey Jenkins.

Green Chile Bible: Award-Winning New Mexico Recipes from readers of the "Albuquerque Tribune." [According to my friend, "This one is really hit and miss as it's a compilation of submitted recipes by everyday people. Some things just seem odd. But then again, they are mostly the way the majority of people here eat."]

The Rancho de Chimayo Cookbook: The Traditional Cooking of New Mexico by Cheryl and Bill Jamison.

I've signed up for a short course at the school, and have been practicing several of the recipes in anticipation of getting professional guidance. I've also put together a collection of these books. It will be great fun to learn about the ins and outs of Santa Fe cooking.

Robert C. Ross 2008

This book has great recipes and great photos. I'd love to go to the school to further educate my southwestern cooking skills.

The only advice I have for New Mexican cooking is:

Make it spicier and serve it with beans, rice, and a garnish of lettuce and tomatoes.

THis is a gift for a friend who saw it and wanted it! So I can't provide a useful review except to say that it was easy to find the cookbook, and that was very rewarding! However, I find doing this kind of review not particularly useful.