Neto's Tucson by Ernesto Portillo Jr. : Tucsonan's book offers a 'Taste' of her family recipes and history

A little more than 15 years after her father's death in 1992, Carrillo has kept a self-made promise: She published a book of family recipes and history.

"I wanted to leave a legacy for my children and my grandchildren so they would be proud of their heritage and culture," said Carrillo, mother of two sons and grandmother of two girls.

Her self-published book is called "A Taste of Love From the Heart, With Love, Nanie." It contains mostly recipes she has collected from her family and others she developed at home.

But the book also includes bits of Carrillo family history, which is similar to the history of other older Tucson families.

The ranch her father fondly recalled was called La Cebadilla, which Carrillo said means "wild barley." Her great-grandfather, Emilio Carrillo, founded the rancho.

Today, the verdant desert land homesteaded by Don Emilio is the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch, an upscale dude ranch on several hundred acres on the far East Side at the toes of the Rincon Mountains.

Carrillo's great-grandfather arrived in Tucson from Sonora in 1854, the same year Tucson changed from the Mexican tri-color flag to the U.S. Stars and Stripes. Spanish was the lingua franca, and many property owners were Mexican.

The Carrillo patriarch married Catalina Elias a few years later. By the late 1860s, Carrillo's great-grandfather branded the property Rancho Buena Vista and later renamed it La Cebadilla.

Carrillo wrote that her great- grandfather became well-known in the valley for his cattle and land holdings. His cattle brand was Los Ganchos, Spanish for "the hooks."

Living far away from Tucson had its advantages and disadvantages.

In 1904, bandits arrived at the ranch, looking for hidden gold.

They claimed Don Emilio had hidden treasure in his ranch house. He rebuffed them. They strung him up — in his home.

He lived, but he died four years later of complications connected to the hanging, Carrillo wrote.

The Tanque Verde Guest Ranch uses the story to lure guests.

It's said that Carrillo's ghost roams the grounds, as well as the guest lounges, which were part of Carrillo's main house. Some of the original buildings, made of mesquite, adobe and river rock, remain part of the guest ranch.

After Don Emilio's death, the ranch went to Carrillo's grandfather, Rafael Carrillo. He changed the ranch's brand to "RC."

The ranch became the center of the growing Carrillo family. Rafael's children spent days on the ranch, working and frolicking.

But they also spent time in Tucson, where they attended school. The Carrillo family had a house at the corner of North Warren Avenue and East Sixth Street, now a university parking lot.

The future of the ranch, however, stopped when Carrillo's grandfather died. He was 50 years old. With his death came the end of the family's rancho. Carrillo's grandmother could not keep it, so she sold it.

Carrillo still laments the loss of the family land and a way of life. But the memories and stories and recipes survived.

She said her father was proud of his family history and the days on the ranch. "Before he died, he talked with me about his history and asked me to share this with my children," she said.

Inspired, Carrillo set out to work on her book.

It wasn't easy, said Carrillo, 57, who retired from Raytheon Missile Systems in 2005. But publishing it herself gave her the freedom to produce the book she envisioned.

"I said I always wanted to do this," Carrillo said. "My dream came true."

DID YOU KNOW

"Tanque verde" is Spanish for green tank. Use of the name here is believed to have derived in the 1860s from two or more large water holes containing green algae. The holes are at the base of Tanque Verde Ridge, which is a northwestern extension of the Rincon Mountains.

The area historically had water and mesquite bosques. Anglo, Chinese and Mexican settlers established ranches and grew vegetables, which were taken by wagon to Tucson to be sold. In 1858, Tucson pioneer William Oury bought 400 head of Kentucky cattle and transferred them to a ranch he had in Tanque Verde.