Blogs by José Smith

The Beans and Chile

In 2006 my wife and I broke ground on a new house, making official our heels-dug-in return to Santa Fe. Fast forward nearly five years and the birth of two children, and the house now cowers in the presence of our toddler and 13-month-old, who’s goal, I swear, is to dismantle the place and our lives on a daily basis. That I even have enough time to string a few sentences together for this blog is a small miracle. Parenting, I’ve learned, is total insanity; the fact that there’s people out there who lead successful lives beyond childhood is utterly mind boggling. 

Speaking of boggling the mind, welcome to The Beans and Chile, a blog that aims to boggle the mind through an exploration of the people, places, and minutiae that nourish life, both past and present, in and around Santa Fe. Having been born here, in 1976, in a little apartment just off of St. Francis Dr., on Onate St. I can say that I know a few things about the city different, or better yet, I know “the beans and chile” of this high desert oasis. Of course, there’s always more to know and understand about any town or city. Santa Fe is certainly a unique and complex place that has changed, for better or worse, over the years, and I relish the opportunity that this blogs provides to get to know my hometown better than I do. 

I’ll spare the biographical timeline of my life for now because my intention will be to weave bits and pieces of my journey, as they are relevant, into future posts. To tickle your curiosity though, here’s a few tidbits: raised by a single-mother, an only child, dropped-out of high school, took the scenic route to a degree in English, got married, built a house, and had two kids. Would love to add the white-picket fence and family dog to this chronology but, for one, the historic design review board would never approve a white-picket fence in my walking-distance-to-downtown hood, and secondly, as a stay-at-home dad, I’m already up to my ears cleaning poop. 

Stay tuned for next week’s post: I’ll explain the origin of the real beans and chile and how I recently had to write and give the eulogy for the woman responsible for this culinary juggernaut.