An All-Ages Special at Green House Bistro

When I walk into the lush garden at the Center for Ageless Living, eighteen-year-old Chad Warren is busy harvesting rhubarb. Alongside him are owner Suzette Lindemuth and restaurant manager Stephanie Gallegos, who guide him on how to cut the crimson stalks just right so the plant keeps producing. A few steps away, Warren joins fellow Valencia High School seniors Sam Sanders, Ryan Saavedra, and Lynda Sanchez, who are all busy prepping for Albuquerque Restaurant Week at the Green House Bistro.

This group of students belong to Connie Hall’s culinary program at VHS, unique in Valencia County. This year Hall partnered with the bistro, where her students have spent multiple days a week helping in the kitchen. “It’s been nice to have more hands-on experience,” said Saavedra.

The wellness campus, located between Los Lunas and the Tomé Land Grant, focuses on supporting aging in a community-based setting with an on-site heated pool, spa, low-impact exercise classes, and bistro—all of which are also open to the public. During their internships, the students helped prepare snacks and desserts for residents, helped assemble dishes for residents and restaurant service, and worked alongside restaurant staff in creating the menu for Albuquerque Restaurant Week, held in April just a few short weeks before Warren, Sanders, Saavedra, and Sanchez walked their graduation.

“They were the masterminds behind creating the menu,” said Gallegos. “We all sat down and gave each other our pitches—me, Suzette, and the students. They were the ones that came up with the entire menu.”

Green House Bistro serves daily meals and snacks to at least a hundred campus residents, and caters special events, takeout, and poolside dining for their Dip and Dine experience, which is one of my favorite ways to spend a summer afternoon.

Much of the produce used at the bistro is grown on the six-acre campus, and menus and meals change according to what is in season. Albuquerque Restaurant Week, organized through the New Mexico Restaurant Association, encourages restaurants to create special prix fixe menus that showcase seasonal ingredients and culinary creativity.

“We just decided that since we had our students from Valencia High School here helping us, it would be a fun thing to sort of take the students through how to prepare a menu, how to look at the ingredients, what’s working, what’s not working,” said Lindemuth. “We have our own gardens, and we raise a lot of vegetables and food here on the campus, so we are very excited about showcasing fresh ingredients.”

Mint, rhubarb, and peas sourced from the center’s gardens became the stars of the menu, which reflected many days spent testing recipes, refining dishes, and preparing for service. Offerings included roasted tomato bisque or cucumber salad rolls stuffed with pickled vegetables for starters, followed by either grilled spring lamb chops with mint-jelly glaze and roasted potatoes or pea and mint pasta crowned with burrata. “The cucumber salad roll comes with a little bundle of beets and carrots, and we wrap those with onion shoots from the garden,” Gallegos said. For dessert, the students decided on rhubarb-strawberry compote with vanilla ice cream and a carrot cake made from Sanchez’s own recipe.

I had the chance to meet some of the students the day before they rolled this menu out, but I still wasn’t prepared for how good it was. The richness of the bisque and zing of the salad roll primed the palate for the sweetness of the mint-jelly glaze on the grilled lamb chops, and the glaze brought out layers of flavor in the meat I had never experienced before, balancing the fat while highlighting the tender meat and delicate char, making it my personal favorite of all the dishes. Meanwhile, the fresh pop of peas and mint gave a green, springtime energy to each bite of pasta, a dish beautifully complemented by the lightly sweetened rhubarb-strawberry compote that topped the ice cream.

“Working at the bistro let me experience a professional work setting and learn how to work in a small space,” Warren said, echoing his cohorts and their reflection on the semester.

Jerry Hargrove, head chef at Green House Bistro, said the students immediately impressed him. “If any of them wanted a job here, I’d hire them right now,” he said, praising their technical skills, attentiveness, and professionalism. For Hargrove, one of the most rewarding parts of teaching young cooks is seeing moments of understanding click into place. “You know that little light bulb that comes on above people’s heads in cartoons?” he said. “I like seeing that in people’s eyes when you show them something and they actually get it.”

The students spent years building culinary fundamentals inside VHS’s kitchen, each one saying they were drawn to the program as freshmen and sophomores out of a love of cooking and desire to expand their skills. By the time students reach advanced levels, they’re catering school events, mentoring younger classmates, and working in team-based kitchen settings.

Sanchez plans to continue her culinary education after graduation, hoping eventually to own a bakery. She has already been accepted into Central New Mexico Community College’s Culinary Arts program.

“We do think that food careers are so broad,” Lindemuth said. “They can work in health care, nutrition programs, hospitals, high-end restaurants, smaller restaurants. There’s so many ways you can go with a food career these days.”

5 Thomas Rd, Los Lunas, 505-866-1936, gardengatespa.com