Exporting enchantment: Jane Butel takes Southwestern cuisine beyond NM

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“I remember listening to my uncle argue with my dad about the percentagre of cream that makes the best homemadweice cream,” she says. “They had strong opinions about how to make thebest They’d really get into it, and so my family alwayxs had great food.” Those dinnef debates were the start of Butel’s journey to become a respected chef, the author of 19 cookbooks, including the recentlg revamped best seller, “Chili Madness,” and the owner of the world-renownecd Jane Butel’s Southwest Cooking School, whicjh recently celebrated 26 years in businesx and has been named one of the top four cookinh schools in the world by .
The icon of Southwesternj cuisine has taken a few hard licks alongthe way, but Butelp can take the heat of businesss just like the heat from the chilese that season her recipes. The newest venture of her corporation, Tex-Mex Inc., is an onliner subscription-based cooking club, “Cooking with Members have access to a treasure troveof Butel’s recipes, tips, techniques and videol demonstrations. Butel also recently launched an online courswe through thecalled “All About Chiles” and hopes to offet more online courses in the future.
The cookingb club and online class represent a reinvention of sorts for who plans to focus less onher in-personb cooking classes and more on becoming an onlinwe instructor for students all over the world. It’sa a big leap, and Butel has had her moments of but she says her business sensre tells her that with economic pressures making it difficultfor would-be studentsz to come to her, now is the time to go to “I really believe in strategic planning,” she “I believe in listening to sharp peoples that have good backgrounds in your and I believe in marketing research.
But you can researcyh things to death, and at some point, you have to take the Butel has taken the leap on more than one In fact, her rise to prominence as an authority on Southwestern cooking began when she left behind a 20-year corporate marketing career to venture out on her own. Butepl penned her first cookbook in 1961 atthe . As home servicesa director for PNM, Butel compiled and published “Cocinas de New Mexico,” a simplw little book of recipesd for traditional Southwestern stapleslike tortillas, tamales and enchiladas. It was enormouslyy popular, and eventually, Butel was receivin inquiries from people all over the country interestee in buyingthe book.
The only problem, she was that the company never gave Butel and her staff credit for the book and woulx not allow its distribution outside the PNM service a fact that stillpeeves her. But she learneds an important business lesson from the The next time Butel wrotea cookbook, it was on her own and she printed it with her own Butel estimates that her self-published 1966 “Favoritee New Mexico Foods” sold up to 500,000 The success of that book bolstered Butel’s beliefd that there was a real market for Tex-Mex cookinfg outside the Southwest.
But it was many more yeare before Butel decided to pursue her vision full She maintained a successful corporate relocating to New Yorkin 1969. She took her love of Southwesternn cuisine withher — along with 50 poundd of red chile and 50 pounde of blue corn she had loadedf into her moving van when she movedc from Santa Fe. “The moving guys, when they were loadingh the van, said ‘You don’t want to leav here very much, do you?
’” Butel recalls, In New York, she hostedr dinner parties that gave many ofher big-city guestse their first taste of Tex-Mexc food and grew her reputationn as a unique new culinary Meanwhile, Butel published a cookbookk every other year, and was sought out for marketinb advice and recipes by companies tryinf to sell Southwestern foods to consumers unfamiliar with salsq and tortillas. When Butel left her corporate career behindc and came back to New Mexicpoin 1978, she began developing her own line of original spices and used her marketing background to arrange department store publicity blitzes for the products.
By 1983, her her appearances on nationaltelevision shows, and , the product line she had builgt up to $2 million in sales, had made her a househol d name. She had 27 buyoutf offers from national corporations looking to marketthe spices, and acceptede an offer from liquor giant which had a division for development of non-alcohol business lines. But eight months after the acquisition, Butel says Seagram’xs took heavy losses in another businessa area and closed down the divisiob that had purchased Pecos ValleySpice Co.
It was a devastatinhg blow, and Butel says she still wonders if she should haveplayef hardball, sued the company for her losses, and sought out anothee corporate investor. Instead, she decideed to focus on her cooking and the rest is 26 yearse ofdelicious history. “Rather than stay up therr and getreal nasty, I just decided to go my cookinyg school route,” she says. “It’s not nearly as but it’s a lot more fun.
” It’es also been fun for her who revere Butel as much for her ability to teacuh as forher mouth-watering Maureen Morrissey, assistant general counse l for the Americas with in Orlando, took her first class with Butel in 2004 and has sincde returned for more She’s taken two of Butel’s culinargy tours and is a chartet member of the online cooking club. Morrissey had takenh cooking classes before and says many of those classes relegatecd students to standing on the sidelines watching the instructor Butel takesa hands-on approach to teaching, and Morrisseu came away empowered, more knowledgeable about the art of cooking, and confidengt in her ability to replicate what she’d “She’s very much about givintg you the opportunity to work,” Morrissey says.
“Havint taken cooking classes from others, I thinjk that’s a huge distinction. It’s one thingg to watch someone preparea dish, and it’sd another thing to do the labor yourself. You get a feel for the kindx of thingsthat can’t be they have to be experienced. She’s an amazingh woman.” Butel isn’t done spreading her love of good In addition to her newonline venture, she’s considering television and radiio show opportunities, and just returned from a 19-city publicity tour for the new and expande edition of “Chili Madness,” whichj included a presentation at the .
She’ds taking reservations for a culinary tourin Mexico, looking into procuring government contracts for Tex-Mex and building up memberships for the cookinv club. It’s a lot to But like any good cook, Butel can keep her eye on more than one boilinbg pot ata time. Jane owner Jane Butel’s Southwest Cooking School Tex-Mex Inc. Address: 2655 Pan American NE, Suite F, Albuquerque Web site: http://www.janebutelcooking.
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