Before she became an integral part of the local cuisine, Adams was skeptical of offering her food to customers up here. “I was scared, wondering if people here would like my stuff,’’ Adams says. “Then I thought, Americans like bread, I’ll make some burritos, and pretty soon those burritos were kicking butt!’’
On any given day, the long lines for her food might include locals and tourists, farmers and hunters, newcomers and repeat customers. Some are Mexican aficionados, others still find a “tor-till-a’’ foreign.
One Hardwick customer approaches Adams skeptically. “Do you have any salsa that won’t kill me?’’ says Wendy Valliere at the farmers’ market.
Other devotees are natives of Mexico, many of whom work on local farms. Adams offers them two valuable services: She provides comfort food from back home and uses her language skills and community connections to advocate for their rights as seasonal laborers.
Many of Adams’s ingredients are grown on those very farms. While her recipes remain faithful to her heritage, the ingredients she uses hail largely from Vermont.
Sometimes she obtains what she needs through a veggies-for-tamales barter system with area farmers, and her pork is raised by friends who keep pigs. She also patronizes the Buffalo Mountain Co-op and Café in Hardwick and purchases from online Mexican groceries when necessary.
Despite some difficulty adjusting to life in the United States, Adams’s presence is appreciated in a region better known for its sweeping vistas than piquant cookery. “It’s much needed,’’ says Caitlin Irwin, manager of the Hardwick market.
Adams describes her first three years here in the United States, in Phoenix, as the most difficult of her life. “When I came here I ordered like I did in Chihuahua, saying give me $2 of this and $2 of that. They looked at me like, who is this idiot from the mountains?’’ she recalls.
She also struggled with English until she realized she needed to defend her children from racial slurs. “Then I learned right away,’’ she says. “And then nobody messed with my kids.’’ Her oldest, Thomas, is now a firefighter in the Air Force.
