My name is Tom Lopez and I was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I work as a Senior Art Director for an ad agency in West Texas, and I have a small catering business cooking for family parties, quinceañeras, anniversaries, and weddings ranging from 50 up to 300 people. I’ve competed in a salsa cook-off in Las Cruces, New Mexico. and Phoenix, Arizona. In my first competition my salsa was awarded "People's Choice Award" out of 14 competitors, we also won 1st place best salsa after a couple years competing in Las Cruces. Cooking, for me, started out when I was a kid and would help out my father with caterings for church fundraisers, Matanzas (Spanish for slaughter, where a pig is made into chicharrón, carnitas, and chile colorado) and cooking while out camping. The memories of cooking over the camp fire using a disco (plow disk cooker) bring to mind "fritanga" — what my uncle Joe named a meal we made while mixing what consisted of most every ingredient left in the ice chest into breakfast on the last day of a fishing trip in Arizona. 

I’ve always loved watching food and cooking shows, some of my favorites are Taco Chronicles, Diner’s Drive-Ins and Dives, Street Food Latin America and many others on YouTube. My current hope is to travel to Mexico City and visit some of the mercados and street vendors i’ve seem on these YouTube shows. I want to learn the traditional Mexican ways of cooking the foods I eat in New Mexico to taste the difference. Eating Oaxaca Cheese in Mexico, Tlacoyos, Machete tacos, Tortas, fresh pan dulce and even chapulines(Grasshoppers).

I'm going to share my love for cooking and my journey into making some family recipes as well as some foods I see on these shows, in hopes that I will grow my passion for the culinary arts. This will give me the opportunity to try some new recipes and revive some old family classics that may have been forgotten.

Please email me is you have any question on any of these recipes as some of the instructions can be difficult. tlopeznm@gmail.com