NM MANSION COOK. Her cooking finesse has kept Lupe Jackson as cook to two consecutive governors. Photo by Velencia Tso-Yazzie, Institute of American Indian Arts.

Her hands are dry and rough, and her arms are marked with burns. They prove 55-year-old Lupe Jackson’s dedication to her career, and she’s earned each blemish. Jackson’s chosen career inspires the saying, “If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

She’s handling plenty of heat and excitement, the kind that comes from a position that only she can claim — private household cook for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. “I am busy from the time I get (to work) until I leave,” she explains.

Like most young pueblo girls, the San Felipe Pueblo woman was elbow deep in dough when she was 10-years old. The little girl could knead 50 pounds of flour together with other ingredients to make oven bread for village feast days. Her love and skill in cooking led her to Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in Albuquerque, NM, less than an hour’s drive from her home.

In the 1970s, SIPI offered just one certificate program in industrial cooking, and students could pick one emphasis: baking or cooking. Jackson opted for cooking. While going to school, she took a part-time job making tortillas for a restaurant. She also worked in the bakery at SIPI.

The college staff helped her get a job at the exclusive Petroleum Club in downtown Albuquerque, foreshadowing her future career. The private restaurant catered to wealthy business people, the movers and shakers in the state. It was there where she had her first experience cooking seafood, including lobster. “I liked to put the little things in hot boiling water.” Her main focus was preparing salads.

She has good memories of her years at SIPI and says she learned, “Never to give up, that I could be somebody.”

Yet when she graduated in 1973, Jackson didn’t go directly into a professional kitchen. A marriage, kids, and overall family duties kept her close to home. Then, in the early ‘80s, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work for the New Mexico State Police Academy, cooking for the police cadets and staff. Each day she fed as many as 125 people.

Contacts she made at the police academy led her to the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe, NM, when Gov. Gary Johnson hired her in 1995. Jackson grew close to the Republican politician’s family, which included his former wife and two kids. At that time all the elaborate state dinners were catered, and Jackson’s role was to oversee the process.

“They made you feel like you were part of the family,” she recalls. She has good memories of the huge holiday dinners she prepared when the parents of both the governor and first lady came to stay at the mansion.

In 2003 when Johnson left the office and Bill Richardson, a Democrat, moved into the mansion, Jackson found herself cooking for a new boss, a new party, and with a new supervisor. Richardson hired Mary Putman, the first chef, for all official state dinners at the mansion.

“He has a lot of really important people coming in, and we have to be ready!” she says of Richardson who recently won re-election. They keep the pantry well stocked. “One time we had three hours’ notice to prepare a lunch,” she recalls. She doesn’t remember what they made, but it wasn’t tuna fish sandwiches.

As with the Johnson family, she has become close to Richardson’s family. But unlike Johnson, Richardson travels more and has more company to wine and dine. Jackson enjoyed former President Bill Clinton’s visit, but she was really excited to meet and cook for boxer Sugar Ray Leonard.

Today Jackson’s supervisor is Maryann Deery; the two of them keep the food fresh and ready for any occasion. While Deery is the mansion chef, it’s Jackson who is responsible for making breakfast for the governor.

This governor could one day move from the New Mexico mansion to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in our nation’s capital. Asked if she could envision herself cooking breakfast in the White House, she laughs. “If I was asked to go, I might consider it,” she says speculatively. Then she laughs some more at the thought of making oven bread on the White House lawn. “They would have to build me an horno (outside oven)!”

Thus this SIPI graduate — who has cooked and eaten her share of government commodity food – could one day cook for the president of the United States. The road to success and career fulfillment is not straight; it’s not a super highway; and it’s not without potholes.

Yet Jackson has some straight-forward advice for all students. “Leave the social life out,” she says, “you’ll have time for that later. Education comes first. Stay in school, and don’t let all the other sideshows distract you.”

It’s her recipe for success.

Patty Talahongva (Hopi/Tewa) is an independent multimedia journalist who works in print, radio and television news.  She comes from the Water and Corn clans and her Hopi name is Qotsakookyangw Mana, which means White Spider Girl.