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When we left The Ranch Escapees Park we weren’t sure where we were going to end up – Las Cruces or Truth or Consequences. We wanted to visit Deb & Jerry in T or C if they were home, but would go on to Las Cruces if they weren’t.
On our way we stopped at Oliver Lee State Park outside Alamogordo to get our Sunset fix
And to revisit the White Sands National Park
We made it to T or C and spent some delightful time with Deb & Jer!
The Chile Tour
While the fellas’ tried to find out if the squealing brakes on the Motor Home were a problem, Deb and I went on a Chile Discovery Tour.
The first thing I learned was that Chile is spelled with an ‘e’ not an ‘i’ – huh – imagine that!
Hatch, New Mexico, the Chile Capital of the World is close to T or C – so off we went.
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The gal at the local service station directed us to a couple of Chile processing plants just up the road.
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Once the chiles are trucked to the plant from the fields, they are washed with a special solution to sterilize them; put onto trays that are on tracks to travel through the drying tunnels that reach 150 degree F.
The second plant (MBJ Packing) is family run and our tour was with two of the brothers (Angel and Manuel). They not only dry chiles, they produce salsa and do custom packing. Their mother was working in the area where they make the salsa and do the customized packing. Angel does the marketing in El Paso but he was at the plant because they were busy and needed his help.
Their process is different because they pack some of the chiles whole – dried but supple so the chiles can be packed into boxes without damaging them.
We discovered that the long string of chiles that are sold all over are called Ristras. The Ristras are mostly decoration now but originally they were a way to dry the chiles to use later.
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