I’m a week late, not to mention a dollar short, but you NEED to know that a local radio station has started up a weekly segment where the goal is to promote local restaurants and entice listeners to give up their chain habits and forever avoid places like the Olive Chili Outback Corral kind of spots.

This Saturday will be another live show with at least one featured guest, and yeah, this weekend it IS yours truly:  http://breakthechain.info/

Here’s the press copy from the parent radio station:

“If your loyalties lie with local restaurants – those owned and operated by our friends and neighbors, you’ll love “Break the Chain,” an enlightening and entertaining new radio program hosted by Ryan Scott. Break The Chain premiered on Saturday, May 14th at 3PM on 1550 KIVA AM and www.1550kiva.com. This weekly radio show will feature locally owned and operated restaurants here in New Mexico.

Obviously Break The Chain isn’t about breaking or bankrupting heavily bankrolled chain restaurants. It’s about breaking the chain “habit,” the inclination many have to visit the ubiquitous and convenient chains. Break The Chain is a celebration of local mom-and-pop restaurants, aiming to show the many outstanding alternatives to the familiar chains. It’s an interactive show in which you can call in and express your opinions and share your experiences. Most of all, it’s a fun and lively show you will love.”

Chris Martinez and his family have sold the Albuquerque Tortilla Company’s production to Mission Foods, a massive company and subsidiary of Mexico-based GRUMA that removes ownership of one of the last wholly New Mexican tortilla companies.

Interestingly, Chris and Pete Martinez, under the new ownership, will start up a subsidiary company to sell salsa and BBQ sauce.  It will be called The Authentic New Mexican and is something they feel they can make money on, unlike tortillas which are suffering from high raw materials costs that have devastated many all across Mexico in the last few years, causing tortillerias to close en masse and families to feel the pinch.  If “the authentic New Mexican” is the kind of folk that adds their family-owned long term business into the sludge pile of a multinational conglomerate, then I suppose they are doing OK.

GRUMA also could have an influence on the high prices of corn that are sending all these little tortillerias out of business, as stated in the article,  “In 2009 GRUMA controlled an estimated 75 percent of the strategic corn flour market in Mexico”

Who’s left for the locally owned?  Just one, from what I know:  La Mexicana Tortilla Company.  They have a downtown restaurant and are some of the nicest people I’ve talked to in a long time.  Stop by and say hello, and have some fantastic chips and salsa.

Yeah, yeah, I know you can already BUY chocolate and coffee in Albuquerque, but this is the first festival we’ve had to celebrate some of the two more important C words in all of English.  Heck, in all of my DIET, too.

It is called the Southwest Chocolate and Coffee FEST, and is going on at the Convention Center this weekend, April 16th and April 17th.  I am so crazy bummed because I will be out of town, and missing a potentially cool event.  It’s a who’s who of local chocolate and confectionary wizards, personal favorites to new folks I’d love to try out (later), including Chocolate Cartel, Theobroma, ChocolateSmith, Candy Lady, yum!

Here’s what else I am missing, just so you don’t have to:

ABQ Beer Week (ok, it ends on Saturday, so there’s still time!)

Jubilation’s Monthly Wine Tasting – Saturday at 2pm:  these are ALWAYS fun and even if I don’t plan to buy wine I usually do, which I suppose is the point.

APRIL is the month to eat cookies and save critters – Flying Star’s annual Animal Humane Center promotion gives a BUCK for every blob of sugary wafer (i.e., cookie) that you buy with the AHNM logo on it.  Mmm, sugar.

Today is the LAST day to get your vote (or votes) in for the best Green Chile Cheeseburger in the entire gosh-darned state of the Land of Enchantment. The Land of Enchilement.

Whatever you want to call it, your voice must be heard, crying out in the wilderness of yellow processed cheese and canned chiles – choose the best, and vote as many times as you can ethically stand.  Get creative and remember that amazing burger you had in some little dive in a tiny town, or just pile the love on to something BIG and inspiring and well-known.

VOTE NOW!

Readers voted over the course of a month, and the BIG honkin’ list is now out from the Local IQ, the upstart little alternative newspaper that continues to succeed.  I applaud them, I hope they stay around for awhile, and make sure you visit the businesses featured on the list!

Some personal faves, where the readers at large and I agree:

Most Romantic Restaurant
Blades’ Bistro
221 State Highway # L, Placitas, 505.771.0695
bladesbistro.com

Blades is under-appreciated for their tucked away location, their gracious hosts, and the “wow” factor for special meals.  Everyone knows about Antiquity and Jennifer James 101 – Blades is something new and nifty for most Duke City diners.

Best Place to get a Chocolate Fix
Chocolate Cartel
315 Juan Tabo NE, Ste. A, 505.797.1193
chocolatecartel.com

Hells Yeah! Even if it is only one of the two original brothers, I’ll still take the confections that come from any cute tall man, especially when the flavors are delicious and weird and the chocolate is not cheap Rocky Mountain Chain Place crap.

Best Pizza
Farina Pizzeria
510 Central SE, 505.243.0130
farinapizzeria.com

Stewart Dorris took his wine skills and pie-loving friends across the street from Artichoke and has been making sweet music with dough and tomatoes and meatballs ever since. GO.

Oh, but I disagreed with y’all (or the Local IQ) on a lot of food categories…. stay tuned for that dirt.