Savor the Southwest: Behind the Scenes

Make-up artist Clara Taillole-Nardo touches up Mary Sue Milliken during a break.

The spice girls

Through the speaker in the garage, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are heard laughing in the kitchen. They sound relaxed; they're enjoying themselves. No one would guess that the frantic movements throughout the house are in their honor.

In the other kitchen

The preparation kitchen in the garage was a hive of activity.

Milliken and Feniger are the real spice girls. They don't sing; they don't pose and they don't pretend to be something they're not. The hosts of the celebrated "Too Hot Tamales" cooking show, they are preparing a dish made with chiles. And if you think you know all there is to know about chiles, you've got another think coming. One look at the preparation kitchen in the garage shows a variety of colorful chiles and their results in various stages of preparation.

Platters, pans, cutlery practically fly off the table. The preparation assistants rush through the hallway that snakes from the garage to the kitchen at the other side of the house. They remove platters and pans from the kitchen, return with dishes, fresh from the oven.

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