Sedlar's Southwest Kitchen

Just say the word Abiquiu ("A-bih-CUE") to anyone who has been there and you immediately conjure powerful sensory memories. The aromas of pinon smoke and roasting green chiles. Bone-white steer skulls hanging from ranch posts. Brick-red cliffs and parched chocolate-brown adobe walls. Hot, dry winds rustling through the sagebrush. Such is the spell the Abiquiu weaves.

Sedlar's Southwest Kitchen comes to you from Abiquiu Foods, a company named for and inspired by that northern New Mexico village, a unique blend of Indian Pueblo and Spanish settlement. John Rivera Sedlar's great-grandparents, Eloy and Pablita Martinez, were born there in the late 19th century. Their fertile farmland along the Chama River yielded abundant crops-- apricots, apples, chiles, pinto beans, and corn. Eloy and Pablita also raised a dozen children there, including Sedlar's Grandma Eloisa.

Another of Eloy's and Pablita's daughters, Sedlar's Great Aunt Jerry, never left the Abiquiu region. As an adult, she became personal cook to one of Abiquiu's most renowned and revered residents, the famous American painter Georgia O'Keeffe, who spent the final half-century of her life creating canvases that changed forever the way the world views the Southwest. Some of the recipes Aunt Jerry cooked for Miss O'Keeffe are featured in Sedlar's Southwest Kitchen.