GRIST FOR THE MILL by Briana Olson and Robin Babb CONTRIBUTORS
LOCAL HEROES
Congrats to our 2024 Local Heroes!
FACES OF FOOD
The Abiquiú Farmers Market by Jessica & André Kempton
IN THE WILD
Will Hike for Beer by Jennifer C. Olson
FERMENTI'S PARADOX
Crushing It in the Mimbres Valley by Michele Padberg
EDIBLE DISPATCH
A Day in Downtown Toronto by Alexandria Bipatnath ARTISANS
Kinna’s Kitchen by Sophie Putka
COOKING FRESH
Cross-Pollination of a Menu by Stephanie Cameron
OUT AND ABOUT WITH THE BITE
Field Notes on a Few Places to Eat and Drink LAST BITE
Cabbage Carbonara Pizza
RARE BREEDS
Revitalizing Heritage Livestock in the Southwest by Zach Withers
DISAPPEARING CHILE AND DOMESTICATED CORN
Reginald Punnett, Fabián García, and the Consequences of Crossing Seeds by Robin Babb
FEASTING ON THE BOSQUE
Where Wild and Tamed Foodsheds Meet by Briana Olson
Lorenzo Candelaria's blue corn, photo by Stephanie Cameron.
Cross-Pollination
As we ready this issue to go to press, a gift of cool rain interrupts days of heat. Cottonwood fluff sticks between thyme leaves, collecting in gardens and ditches and fields, while overlooked elm saplings shoot forth new growth. Sunflowers open. A hummingbird runs its beak around the edge of its tiny nest. Bird mamas pass food off to their young, nestled in the cavity of a trunk or a cholla thicket. Piglets crowd and jostle for a spot at their mother’s belly. A goose couple guards their single gosling fiercely. Lettuce begins to bolt. Squash vines plunge outward; snap peas peak. Tomatoes steadily approach fruition.
How are things made? Few questions are more compelling than this one. Whether speaking of the universe or aglianico, heirloom corn or chile paste, a garden or an ecosystem, the question becomes more intriguing as it gains in specificity. In this issue of edible, we dive into the complexities of making and discover anew what is clear to anyone who studies the world closely: creation comes from relationships, connections, casual and concerted intersections and receptions. In a word, cross-pollination.
Is it any surprise, then, that these pages are packed with love stories? There is love for the Chimayó chile, love for the Rio Grande bosque, love for the Navajo-Churro sheep. There is love for the community in and around Abiquiú. There is love for thru-hiking and love for beer. There is love between people—love that sparks culinary inspiration, love that underpins the success of a business, love that feeds conversation and action oriented toward a livable future. There is love, too, for the multifaceted work of this year's Local Heroes, announced in this issue.
These are not Hollywood love stories that end at the beginning. They are stories about long days and the long haul. In one feature, a local pig farmer considers climate-adapted animal husbandry. In another, longtime contributor (and now associate editor!) Robin Babb breaks down the consequences of crossing seeds. A third investigates the sometimes precarious crossing of wild and domesticated foodsheds. With material and inspiration drawn from sources as near as the Continental Divide Trail and as far as Friuli and the Carpathian Mountains, these are inevitably stories about adaptation. If a recipe is a set of suggestions, this issue is a recipe, still being tested, for the future of the unique, precious, and hardy state of New Mexico. We hope you love it as we do.
Briana Olson, Editor
Robin Babb, Associate Editor
Stephanie and Walt Cameron, Publishers
PUBLISHERS
Bite Size Media, LLC
Stephanie and Walt Cameron
EDITOR
Briana Olson
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Robin Babb
COPY EDITORS
Marie Landau and Margaret Marti
DESIGN AND LAYOUT
Stephanie Cameron
PHOTO EDITOR
Stephanie Cameron
EVENT COORDINATOR
Natalie Donnelly
SALES AND MARKETING
Kate Collins, Melinda Esquibel
PUBLISHING ASSISTANT
Cristina Grumblatt
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ROBIN BABB is the associate editor of edible New Mexico and The Bite. Previously, she was the food editor at the Weekly Alibi (RIP). She’s an MFA student in creative writing at the University of New Mexico and lives in Albuquerque with a cat named Chicken and a dog named Birdie.
ALEXANDRIA BIPATNATH is Anishinaabe and Guyanese from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is a clinical integrative nutritionist and chef who specializes in First Nation fusion foods. Bipatnath founded The Wholesome Conscious in 2018, which began as a catering company and now offers a wide variety of services.
STEPHANIE CAMERON was raised in Albuquerque and earned a degree in fine arts at the University of New Mexico. She is the art director, head photographer, recipe tester, marketing guru, publisher, and owner of edible New Mexico and The Bite
JESSICA AND ANDRÉ KEMPTON, partners in life and business, are involved in and support projects relating to local farming and regional food security. Both are the owners of Wild Leaven Bakery and Kempton Communications. In their free time, they enjoy outdoor activities. Find them on social media @wildleavenbakery and @kemptoncommunications.
BRIANA OLSON is a writer and the editor of edible New Mexico and The Bite. She edited two volumes of the Greenhorns’ New Farmer’s Almanac and has written on food, land, and art for outlets such as Southwest Contemporary, Cordella, and the local plant zine Rootwalk. She lives in Albuquerque.
JENNIFER C. OLSON tells the stories of the Land of Enchantment’s people, places, and culture through outlets such as
edible New Mexico and New Mexico Magazine. Whether shining a light on a single fruit or diving into the complexities of the rural food system, she relishes the grains of stories in all of life’s moments. She lives on the outskirts of the Gila National Forest.
MICHELE PADBERG is an advanced sommelier, international wine judge, and co-owner of Vivác Winery. She has taught master classes, hosted VIP tasting experiences, and lectured at the American Wine Society National Conferences, the University of Upper Alsace in France, and the Association of Wine Educators in the UK. Coauthor of the e-book The New Normal in the Wine World, Padberg also wrote for Sommeliers International magazine from 2019 to 2022 and has covered wine for a number of newspapers and blogs. She loves to travel and explore new wine regions, often with her family in tow. Find her at @winefirstsomm.
SOPHIE PUTKA is a full-time journalist and part-time food writer and photographer. She has been a barista, outdoor educator, and mushroom farmer at local New Mexico businesses, and lives in Albuquerque with her dog Iggy.
ALLISON RAMIREZ has been a private chef, food and wine event coordinator, café owner in Da Nang, Vietnam, and food photographer. She speaks English, Japanese, and Spanish. She lives in Santa Fe with her husband and dog daughter.
ZACH WITHERS is a pig farmer, butcher, and cider maker from San Antonito, New Mexico. He owns and runs Polk’s Folly Farm with his brother Ethan, raising hogs, hens, sheep, and goats. They collect food waste from local businesses and feed it to their pigs, selling the meat along with other local products at their farm stand in Cedar Crest.
Polk's Folly Farm piglets, photo by Sarah Wentzel-Fisher.
photo: Gabriella Marks
LOCAL HEROES
Congrats
TO OUR 2024 LOCAL HEROES
An edible Local Hero is an exceptional individual, business, or organization making a positive impact on New Mexico's food systems. These honorees nurture our communities through food, service, and socially and environmentally sustainable business practices. Edible New Mexico readers nominate and vote for their favorite local chefs, growers, artisans, advocates, and other food professionals in two dozen categories. (Winners of the Olla and Spotlight Awards are nominated by readers and selected by the edible team.) In each issue of edible, we feature interviews with a handful of the winners, allowing us to get better acquainted with them and the important work they do. Please join us in thanking these Local Heroes for being at the forefront of New Mexico's local food movement.
FARM/RANCH
Bernalillo County
Loose Leaf Farm, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Santa Fe County
RESTAURANT
Albuquerque High Point Grill
Santa Fe La Boca
Greater New Mexico
Sugar Nymphs Bistro, Peñasco
CHEF
Albuquerque
Eliza Esparza, Farina Pizzeria
Santa Fe
Erica Tai, Alkemē
Greater New Mexico
Myles Lucero, Prairie Star Restaurant, Santa Ana Pueblo
BEVERAGE ARTISAN
Beer
Steel Bender Brewyard, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque
Wine
Noisy Water Winery, Ruidoso
Spirits
Trujillo Farm & Orchard de Nambe, Nambé
Greater New Mexico
Ojo Conejo, Ojo Sarco q
Left Turn Distilling, Albuquerque
COCKTAIL PROGRAM
Apothecary Lounge, Albuquerque
Photo by Douglas Merriam
Photo by Stephanie Cameron
Photo by Stephanie Cameron
Congrats
TO OUR 2024 LOCAL HEROES
FOOD SHOP
The Farm Stand, Corrales
GASTROPUB
Quarter Celtic Brewpub, Albuquerque
FOOD TRUCK
Mighty Mike's Meats, Albuquerque
CAFÉ / COFFEE SHOP
Java Joe's, Albuquerque
BEVERAGE ARTISAN
New Mexico Ferments, Albuquerque
FOOD ARTISAN
Heidi's Ice Cream Shop, Albuquerque
BAKERY
Chocolate Maven Bakery & Cafe, Santa Fe
INNOVATOR: EDUCATION
The Kitchen Table Santa Fe, Santa Fe
OLLA AWARD
Emigdio Ballon, Agricultural Director, Pueblo of Tesuque
SUSTAINABILITY: CULTURAL PRESERVATION
Indigenous Farm Hub , Corrales
NONPROFIT
Street Food Institute, Albuquerque
SPOTLIGHT AWARD: FRONT OF HOUSE
Mary Francis Cheeseman, The Copper Lounge, Albuquerque
SPOTLIGHT AWARD: BACK OF HOUSE
Randall Watson, Farm & Table, Albuquerque
SPOTLIGHT AWARD: FARMER
Keegan Tranquillo,
The Vagabond Farmers and Ground Stone Farm, La Puebla
SPOTLIGHT AWARD: FOOD SYSTEM
Clark Case, Dixon Cooperative Market, Dixon
Photo by Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli
Photo by Stephanie Cameron
Photo by Stephanie Cameron
Environmentally Packaged Fresh and Nutritious Food
ALBUQUERQUE
La Montañita Co-op–Nob Hill & Rio Grande Lowe’s Market on Lomas
Moses Kountry Natural Foods • Silver Street Market
Triangle Market in Sandia Crest Sandia National Labs
UPC at UNM • UNM Hospital in Cafe Ristra Presbyterian Rust Hospital INTEL- Rio Rancho • Nusenda Corporate Office
Skarsgard Farms • Fancies Modern Market in Corrales
Presbyterian Cooper Center
UNM Campus - Mercado, SRC, Cafe Lobo
SANTA FE
La Montañita Co-op
Kaunes Market
Eldorado Supermart at the Agora Christus St Vincent Hospital
Pojoaque SuperMarket
Ohori’s Coffee Roasters Ten Thousand Waves
LOS ALAMOS
Los Alamos Cooperative Market
Los Alamos National Laboratory
ESPAÑOLA Center Market
• Presbyterian Hospital
TAOS
Cid’s Market
GALLUP
La Montañita Co-op
VEGETARIAN KITCHEN
Fine International Vegetarian and Vegan grab and go including ready to serve complete meals.
CATERING
Corporate Catering Available
Delivery Statewide
Call for Menu: 505-266-6374
Dine on our patio in Nob Hill 116 Amherst Dr SE, Albuquerque, 505-266-6374
THE ABIQUIÚ FARMERS MARKET
COME FOR THE FRESH FINDS, STAY FOR THE COMMUNITY
By Jessica & André Kempton
Every year, more than fifty New Mexico farmers markets help farmers and producers sell their agricultural bounty to their neighbors. In the north-central region, the Abiquiú Farmers Market is one of them.
Seven years ago, Andrew Furse and Lupita Salazar started the Abiquiú Farmers Market (AFM), which now counts about thirteen weekly vendors, and up to twenty in peak harvest months. “Pueblo de Abiquiú has been a place of trade and interaction for hundreds of years,” Salazar explained. “We are continuing that tradition by providing a space where folks can gather, and local farmers can sell food close to home.” Before they started the market, Salazar said, farmers in the Abiquiú area would generally sell their produce through a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, while many would attend bigger markets in Taos and Santa Fe. Even though she sold her produce to a few local businesses and neighbors, her farm, Querencia Creations, did not produce enough for a larger farmers market.
Born and raised on her family ranch in Cañones, Salazar traces her love for farming back to her grandfather Ben Salazar, who taught her and her brothers how to plant and take care of their garden. Salazar’s family and ours are longtime friends. More than once, we have purchased lamb raised by her family.
“I grow lettuce, other greens, beets, carrots, peas, amaranth,” the 2020 Young Farmer Grant winner said. “I eat many of the weeds that grow in the garden, and love to find wild medicine hiding in different places around the ranch.” Salazar also grows red and blue corn for grinding, using a take on the nixtamal process, which she describes as the practice of soaking corn in an alkaline solution in order for the corn nutrients to become more accessible to the body. “Following the Diné practice, I previously used juniper ash to process my corn,” Salazar said. “Now I use ‘cal,’ or lime (calcium hydroxide), as shown by my friend Elsa Lopez, whose family is from Chihuahua. I sell it dried and ground at the farmers market.”
Furse, who moved from Chicago to Medanales in 2012, met Salazar around 2017 while both were involved in the Northern Youth Project (Furse as a volunteer and Salazar as a staff member), a nonprofit focused on supporting teens. Furse also had an agricultural background. On his farm, Cassius Quail, located in Medanales, he raised quail and chickens for eggs and meat. Furse also sold quail as pets to children at the market and raised turkeys for Thanksgiving for over a decade.
Furse’s desire to start a veggie delivery business led him to reach out and convince Richard Trout, then a board member of the nonprofit
The Abiquiú Farmers Market, photos by Janet Harrington.
‘Chimayó
Tradition Salsa’: Your Secret Ingredient to Mastering New Mexico Cuisine
Imagine unlocking the secrets of centuries-old culinary traditions with a single jar. That’s what you get with Chimayó Tradition Salsa, a taste so rich and authentic, it transforms every meal into an exploration of New Mexico’s most cherished flavors.
Our salsa isn’t just another ingredient; it’s a journey into the centuries-old tradition of our infamous chiles.
These chiles, harvested in the heart of New Mexico, bring not just heat but a depth of taste that takes your dishes from good to unforgettable.
Here’s what Sarah, one of our valued customers, had to say: “Discovering Chimayó Tradition Salsa was a revelation. The depth of flavor is incredible—you can taste the sun-soaked chile with every bite. It’s not just a salsa; It’s a piece of New Mexico.”
With Chimayó Tradition Salsa, each jar celebrates our dedication to real, down-to-earth flavors and the art of traditional salsa making. It’s about getting friends and family together, sharing meals that are not just served but truly savored.
Find us at your favorite grocery store in the 'local products' section or visit us online at CiboloJunctionSalsa.com.
Tres Semillas, that hosting a farmers market on the organization’s land would be successful. Thanks to a collaboration with Tres Semillas, the AFM secured an official physical location near the Abiquiú post office. On the first day of the first market in early July 2017, Salazar and Furse both set up their booths under the trees and waited patiently for customers.
To raise awareness in the early market years, Furse emailed folks a weekly list of available produce, while Salazar invited friends through Facebook. Both agreed that while the AFM may have started small, the momentum slowly built to make the market “a social place where people could meet and enjoy time together.”
In 2019, the AFM became a program of Luciente, a nonprofit that serves children and youth in the northern part of Rio Arriba County, after Furse and Salazar reached out to Luciente board members Wendy and Bob Dolci. “This was one of the best decisions we’ve made since showing up to that empty parking lot,” said Furse. “With the support from Luciente, we developed a voucher program called Kid Bucks that engages children with the market by providing them economic independence.” Luciente’s president, Jen Harrington, prints and cuts out every “dollar” given away for the voucher program. Partnering with Luciente also allows the market to participate in USDA programs like SNAP and FreshRX.
“Children that show up to the market receive a colorful paper voucher—money that can be used however they choose,” Furse explained. “It’s amazing to see how much joy three dollars can bring to children when it’s their decision on how they will spend it. We hope that this experience will leave lasting memories and help them develop positive associations with farmers markets.”
Furse cited Gil Luhman, Gloria McFarland, Peggy McCracken, Jeff Nitz, Vivian Jean, Tiffany Fernandez, Lloyd Ferran, and Eunice Naranjo as some of the first AFM market vendors.
“Look for what you like, ask questions, and try something new or revisit the familiar. Just remind yourself that growing food takes a lot of work. Comparing the price of commodities from hand-grown farmers markets to the supplemented, big-box growers is like comparing apples to oranges,” Furse said, encouraging first-time visitors to come with an open mind.
Loretta Fresquez, who has owned the three-acre Monte Vista Organic Farm with her husband, David, for fifty years, described the AFM as “a fairly new and friendly market that has a really local feel.” Both born and raised in Española, the Fresquezes reside in La Mesilla, a small community located across the Rio Grande from Santa Clara Pueblo. All year round, this multigenerational family farm produces crops outside and in three large high tunnels.
Left: The Abiquiú Farmers Market vendors and goods, photos by Janet Harrington. Right: Querencia Farm table, photo by Lupita Salazar.
‘TiS ThE SeAsOn
LaVeNdEr
Lavender season makes us downright giddy here on the farm... and we couldn’t be more excited to share all that we have to offer during this fabulous season!
Join us during our favorite time of year by attending any of our exciting, upcoming events:
Lavender Distillations, Tuesdays and Thursdays
Live distillations in our alembic copper stills.
Lavender craft workshops, 7/19 & 8/20
Tour the fields and create a beautiful lavender decoration for your home.
Afternoon Tea at La Quinta
Enjoy an elegant seasonal menu on select Wednesday and Sunday afternoons on the La Quinta portal.
3rd Annual Tamarind Institute Summer Season
This exhibit features original lithographs from the Tamarind collection with opportunities to hear from artists and master printers.
Spa Patio Saturdays
Visit the Hacienda Spa patio to sample signature products and enjoy light refreshments.
Dr. Armin Rembe Lecture Series at La Quinta, 8/30
Join us for a screening of ‘Acequias: The Legacy Lives On’ with award-winning film maker, Arcie Chapa.
Harvest Celebration LongTable Dinner, 9/12
Join us for this six-course wine-paired dinner at La Quinta celebrating the bounty of the fields.
Visit the calendar at lospoblanos.com for event details.
photo courtesy: Sergio Salvador
“Our biggest crop is the many varieties of tomatoes we sell to restaurants in Santa Fe, Abiquiú, Los Alamos, and the Abiquiú Farmers Market,” Loretta said. “We cultivate veggies and flowers.” She added that the AFM offers a wide range of produce, delicious types of bread, pastries, homemade jams, jellies, fruit drinks, and even tamales.
Salazar describes the AFM vendors as an eclectic group made up of seasoned farmers, bakers, chefs, foodies, and mamas and kids who had a bumper crop in their garden. “There are a few people who come and go according to what is abundant in their gardens. Particularly, fruit vendors will show up with apricots, cherries, apples, plums, and peaches when we have a good fruit year,” Salazar said. “It’s a small market, but there are some really great finds and a dedicated core group of vendors who show up every single week.”
According to Furse, the market is open to all, from hobby orchardists to veteran farmers to ranchers to beekeepers. Regular vendors are charged five dollars per market day, and first-timers who want to try it out, zero.
In 2023, pastry chef Nina Armijo was a first-time vendor and quickly earned the nickname of the Pie Lady. Born and raised in Northern California, Armijo moved to Abiquiú in 1998 with her family. Now she lives in El Valle de Arroyo Seco, between Pojoaque and Española, and owns Boxed Bakery. “I will go pick fruits from orchards in Abiquiú and anywhere people allow me to pick and purchase fruits. I raise chickens and use the eggs I gather for my baked
goods,” Armijo said. “It feels good to be part of this community. I feel welcomed.”
For Armijo, the market is the place to be on Tuesdays from 4 pm to 6 pm. She became an AFM vendor to give back to the community, be involved with something positive, and make people smile with a small pie or a tartlet. “Last year, many people who came to the market were just passing by and stumbled upon the market, while others came from Colorado,” Armijo said. “I think they see the community we have and want to support it.”
Located across the street from Bode’s General Store next to the Abiquiú post office, the Abiquiú Farmers Market is operating again this year every Tuesday, rain or shine, June 4 through October 29, between 4 and 6 pm. The market hours are set after the nine-to-five crowd is off work, which allows for maximum participation and visibility since the selected space is located on a major highway. In addition to fresh finds, visitors may also enjoy live music.
“The Abiquiú Farmers Market is where I meet some of my favorite people, excited to find out what they have grown or made. I can get most of my groceries at the market during the summer. My weekly intake of zucchini, bread, and cookies goes up for sure,” Salazar said. “Between what my family and I raise, and all the delicious goodies folks grow and make, I eat good all summer.”
2 County Rd 187, Abiquiú, lucienteinc.org/programs
Left and bottom right: Nina Armijo of Boxed Bakery and her pies, photos courtesy of Nina Armijo. Top right: Roasting chiles at the farmers market, photo by Janet Harrington.
WILL HIKE FOR BEER
OPEN SPACE BREWING
By Jennifer C. Olson · Photos by Stephanie Cameron
It was standing room only at the Open Space Brewing taproom when Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project held the Gila River Legacy and Reconciliation Gathering. The line at the bar extended out the raised garage door on the afternoon of packet pickup for the Tommy Knocker 10 mountain bike race. And during the release party for a beer collaboration with New Mexico Wild, the story was much the same.
Wherever there are outdoor festivals and events in southwest New Mexico, you’ll find Open Space Brewing. Owners Matt Leef and Alexa Tubbs flit around Continental Divide Trail Coalition Trail Days in Silver City, float Frisbees into metal baskets on the disc golf course near historic Fort Bayard, and fly through the finish lines of the Tour of the Gila citizen fun races. That’s not to mention the buzz of events at the nano brewery’s taproom in a former National Guard Armory in Santa Clara, a small mining community situated outside Silver City and near a network of multiuse trails.
“We’re very much an outdoor brand,” Leef says.
Sprouted out of a love for adventure and a taste for beer, Open Space Brewing rides on the allure of southwest New Mexico as a burgeoning destination for outdoorspeople. Leef and Tubbs themselves have metamorphosed from thru-hikers on a migration along the Continental Divide Trail to full-time residents and small business owners in Grant County. Likewise, their brewing setup has bloomed from wild yeast and foraged hops in a Nalgene bottle on the trail to a brewhouse and taproom in Santa Clara.
During each week of their thru-hike, Leef invented beer recipes using ingredients plucked from the side of the trail. “I’d be walking and looking around at all the plants, taking a tiny piece off of a plant and rubbing it between my fingers. There are some plants out there that you don’t want to put in beer, so I was pretty careful. Pine needles were common additions. Sage was my favorite,” he recalls.
Open Space Brewing owners Matt Leef and Alexa Tubbs.
A raspberry ale stands out in Tubbs’s memory. She recalls the rosy color of the beer made with the wild fruit found in the mountains of Colorado.
Leef now brews in a one-barrel system, and many of the small batches highlight ingredients that were gifted by area gardeners or gathered locally off-site. This will be the brewery’s third year of collecting—and incorporating into beer—neomexicanus hops grown in Silver City proper at the historic Waterworks Building, which a local nonprofit is giving new life as an in-town campsite for thru-hikers.
The seasons dictate the infusions. “Last fall we did a batch of beer that had clary sage—a great saison addition,” Leef says. “In spring, we might collect cherry blossoms and use them in a nonalcoholic and a beer.”
And once per year, Leef brews a batch with his favorite hops combination. “I love Bru-1 and Citra together. Those two are only supposed to go together for Trail Days Haze,” he says, pointing out that the recipe has remained the same ever since the Continental Divide Trail Coalition–Open Space Brewing collaboration began a couple years back.
Reserving favorite concoctions for other organizations is a habit at Open Space Brewing, which aims to cultivate community around the region’s abundant outdoor resources and nurture local organizations that enrich outdoor recreation. Whether in their taproom or around town, Leef and Tubbs go out of their way to redirect the spotlight from their brewery to the aforementioned organizations as well as the likes of Gila Back Country Horsemen. “We’re trying to give back to the community outside of the beer community,” says Tubbs, who leads occasional group bike rides and hikes before opening hours.
Indeed, going from outdoor event to outdoor event proves fruitful. “It’s resonating with the community,” Leef says. “Those who are already outdoorsy really are vibing with the brewery concept. Those who maybe aren’t so outdoorsy are getting inspired to get out there and go explore their backyard.”
Perhaps in response to the brewery’s efforts, Grant County is in talks about adding a frontage road to the nearby Bataan Memorial Park with a parking lot “plus hopefully a trailhead” providing an even more direct connection between the taproom and the Fort
Left: Beer flight featuring a rotating selection. Right: Open Space Brewing's window into the Gila wilderness.
Bayard / Dragonfly Trail system, Tubbs says. An unofficial approach trail exists behind Open Space Brewing now. “You can park at the brewery and access the trail system,” she adds. “It’s sort of a twotrack right now. When people come and ask where the trail is, I just tell them to follow the fence.”
A more official approach trail that provides another access point may distribute the users along more areas of the system, she says. “A lot of people have parked at the Dragonfly Trailhead and done loops there. This side of that whole system of trails is really nice; it just doesn’t get a lot of use yet,” she says, noting that the brewery functions as a trailhead for some. “It’s great to see people out on Saturdaymorning hikes park in our parking lot, and then we open our doors when they finish here. People would not be doing that if not for the space we’ve created.”
This summer, the taproom is open Thursday and Friday from 2 to 8 pm and Saturdays from noon to 8 pm. While Tubbs and Leef dream of bringing on employees and creating jobs with Open
Space Brewing, it is now run by a small team. “You saw Jerry and Bobby running around,” they joke, referencing their black cat and lovable mutt.
Tubbs’s brother Spencer helped build out the armory as an attractive gathering place with a brewhouse. Friends contributed the ponderosa pine slabs making up the bar top. The Fort Bayard Historic Preservation Society donated unused tables and chairs. And, since the brewery doesn’t have a kitchen, a pair of food trucks have established themselves on site.
The plan is for Open Space Brewing to continue as a destination brewery where residents and travelers can come together. With a rotating selection of staple beers, three or four seasonal beers, plus two designated nonalcoholic taps, the taproom offers variety for their patrons. And customers won’t find their products in the liquor aisle. “It’s all about bringing people here,” Leef says.
11990 US Hwy 180, Santa Clara, openspacebrewing.com
Left: Brews in the making. Right: Matt Leef and Jerry the cat.
CRUSHING IT IN THE MIMBRES VALLEY
LUNA ROSSA WINERY
By Michele Padberg · Photos by Stephanie Cameron
Las Cruces locals probably know about the fabulous Luna Rossa Winery just a short drive away in the Mimbres Valley. It’s certain that the wine world knows Paolo D’Andrea is there crushing it. Pun intended.
Surrounded by thirty acres of vineyards just west of Deming, the Luna Rossa (red moon) tasting room is bright and friendly, with a courtyard patio and a roomy indoor space full of all kinds of goodies. The wines, made by Paolo and his son Marco, are unpretentious and dripping in medals. There are crisp whites, like the Vermentino with
citrus notes and a mineral finish. There are fan favorites, like the Nini (named after Paolo, a nickname in Friuli traditionally given to the youngest child in the family), a blend of seven Italian varietals that never disappoints with its rich ripe fruit and dense yet supple tannins. And then there are stunners like the small-production Negroamaro, a robust, perfumed, bold red. The winery’s list, which also includes familiar French, German, and (obviously) Italian varietals, along with an array of sweet wines, is a treasure trove of palate delights.
Luna Rossa Winery's acres of vineyards in Deming.
Hotel Chaco Welcomes Chef Sean Sinclair
We’re thrilled to have Sean bring his passion, experience, and zest to Albuquerque.
“I’m excited to be back in Albuquerque, a place that I hold near and dear to my heart,” says Chef Sinclair. “Level 5 is always listed among the top places to eat in the city, and I don’t think this is just because of the stunning Sandia Mountain views. We have an incredible culinary and bar program. I’m excited to share the next phase of Level 5 with New Mexico.”
— SEAN SINCLAIR Executive Chef, Level 5
As if more than two dozen wines were not enough, the Deming tasting room hosts a weekly pizza night, serving pies from the familyowned and -operated Luna Rossa Winery & Pizzeria in downtown Las Cruces. The pizzeria uses house-made mozzarella and imported Italian “00” flour to make pies baked in ovens fired with pecan tree wood. When I am in Las Cruces, I visit multiple times simply so I can devour all my favorites and get into some gelato (also made in-house) without putting myself in a coma. The Luna Rossa pizza is a unique take on the supreme, with a little bit of everything, and the Prosciutto Crudo shines with the simplicity of high-quality prosciutto, tomato sauce, and mozzarella.
On this day, though, I am not in Las Cruces or Deming. It’s late February, far from this year’s harvest, and I am in Santa Fe for the annual New Mexico Wine Conference. I’m seated across from Paolo and Marco in a side room at the beautiful Eldorado Hotel when Paolo leans in and says, “Do you remember when you were just starting out and you guys would come pick up grapes from me and sleep in the picking bins?” His eyes twinkle with amusement as he sits back and smiles at me, like a proud papa looking at his child finally all grown up. I remember this occurrence well; when we started our winery, we couldn’t even afford a hotel room. I laugh and try to redirect him to
my long list of interview questions, but his velvety voice, rich with a thick Italian accent, continues to whisper trade secrets. Paolo has been in the wine industry for his entire life, giving him a wealth of stories that weave together highs and lows that can make you laugh, cry, and even drop your jaw.
It is not only his talent for farming vines but the way Paolo wears his heart on his sleeve, his gentle kindness and his honesty, that define him. He is the type of person who remembers your kids’ names, gifts you a bushel of green chile for no reason, and always greets you with a warm hug. Paolo takes his time as he moves through life, as if enjoying every moment. This is quite a feat seeing as New Mexico Vineyards keeps him incredibly busy supplying grapes to most of the wineries in New Mexico as well as many wineries in Texas, Colorado, and Arizona, while Luna Rossa also produces a whopping seven thousand cases per year. Speaking with Paolo seems to stop time, triggering an intense urge to cancel whatever you were supposed to do that day and simply be in his presence. His wines echo this way of being in the world, asking that you pause and sip slowly.
Paolo was born into a family of winemakers in Friuli, located on the Swiss-Italian border. After pursuing viticulture in college there, he landed an exciting job across the world in southern New Mexico,
Marco and Paolo D’Andrea in the barrel room at Luna Rossa Winery.
Local ingredients, served locally. We seek out the eshest, seasonal organic produce, meats, and fish. Then we serve it up with flair and attentive service right in your neighborhood.
teaching migrant workers how to graft vines. It was 1986, and the Swiss owners of a large vineyard in Deming brought him over, intending for him to stay only six weeks. Weeks stretched into months and eventually Paolo became the manager of the three-hundred-acre New Mexico Vineyards, settling permanently there. The Swiss company entrusted Paolo with every decision, to run the vineyard as his own, and he brought the enterprise great success, but the truth of it was that he didn’t own it. He knew that his future could easily become endangered should the owners decide to make changes. With a notso-soft shove from his wife, Sylvia D’Andrea, a tornado of power packed into a petite frame, Paolo planted his own thirty-acre vineyard, also in the Mimbres Valley, then opened his own winery, Luna Rossa, in 2001, sourcing grapes from New Mexico Vineyards until his own vineyard reached maturity. Finally, in 2023, Paolo bought the majority of the vineyard he’d first moved to New Mexico to tend, a total of 146 acres—a romantic bookend to his start.
Speaking of romance: I can’t tell the story of Paolo’s success without including the woman behind the scenes. He met a young Sylvia Gonzales in Las Cruces when he first arrived in the United States. In a story befitting a rom-com meet-cute, Sylvia was the regular waitress at his go-to restaurant. Sitting alone, no doubt twinkling his eyes at her, their friendship blossomed. Sylvia, a New Mexico native, has an intoxicating thirst for life that can make the most driven people feel like they are lumps on a log by comparison. Of course, no romantic story is complete without overcoming some great obstacle. This came when Paolo went to Switzerland to give his annual report to the vineyard owners, returning to find Sylvia married to someone else. Eventually that marriage dissolved, and she and Paolo ignited a romance. Babies, the vineyard, and their winery and tasting room propelled their lives forward, and in 2011, again at Sylvia’s beckoning (and under her
leadership), they opened their second tasting room, the Luna Rossa Winery & Pizzeria in Las Cruces.
Marco, the third of four children, has followed in his father’s footsteps to become a winemaker. Graduating from enology school in Italy in 2018, he then returned home to work in the family winery. His gentle yet determined nature comes through when he talks about making wine alongside his father. Paolo says that Marco brings new enthusiasm and technology to the table, something that is evident when Marco reveals the science behind new vintages. New varietals have been added to the list, and Marco has implemented a cascade of updated protocols, yet Luna Rossa stays true to the old-world ideas with which Paolo started. While Paolo and Marco are at the winemaking helm and Sylvia runs the restaurant and tasting room, the entire family is involved in the business, with all hands on deck when the popular pizzeria is packed to the gills, despite the fact that they have busy, independent lives of their own.
Let us raise a glass of Reserve Aglianico, rich with earthy notes, baked pie fruit, and a velvety finish to toast the delightful story of Sylvia and Paolo, which continues to unfold as their children have children and the couple adds to their array of assets. It is hard to not fall in love with Luna Rossa simply by meeting the D’Andrea family. Their support and love for each other mixed with their passion for the family businesses makes you think of seeing life through rose-colored glasses. In this case it is a beautiful life under a radiant red moon.
Deming tasting room: 3710 W Pine St, Deming, 575-544-1160
Winery and Pizzeria: 1321 Avenida de Mesilla, Las Cruces, 575-526-2484
lunarossawinery.com
Left: Claimed to be the largest grape vine in New Mexico at thirty-eight years old. Right: Paolo's namesake wine, Nini.
A Day in Downtown Toronto
By Alexandria Bipatnath
Known as one of the most multicultural cities in the world, Toronto is also one of my favorite places to eat. From classic feel-good menus to Caribbean spice and French-inspired desserts, I’ve mapped a day’s worth of eating for your next visit.
A Torontonian’s cult favorite, SCHOOL RESTAURANT is considered one of the best brunch spots in the city. Located on Fraser Avenue in a restored industrial space, the eatery’s decor stays true to the name, with analog clocks on the wall, lined-paper menus, glass beakers, and other classroom-inspired vibes. My all-time favorite dish, and one I’ve been ordering for the past five years, is their Krispy Krunch French Toast. A crispy outer layer rolled in Krispy Krunch cereal, paired with a raspberry and peach compote and a drizzle of maple syrup, makes for an insanely delicious dish that will ensure no crumb is left behind. For lunch, my Caribbean go-to is ALI’S ROTI shop on Queen Street West. I’ve been going to this shop for years and the smell of the curry behind the service counter reminds me of walking into my grandparents’ kitchen. Growing up in a West Indian household, my grandparents, immigrants from Guyana, always had something delicious cooking on their stovetop for when visitors came by. Many curries are on the market, from Jamaican to Indian to Trinidadian,
and not all are equal in their taste and flavor profile. At Ali’s, the rotis taste just like the ones my grandmother prepared. I love the curry goat dhalpuri roti and the pumpkin shrimp dhalpuri roti. Originating from India, dhalpuri roti is a flatbread that is filled with split peas and often served with curries. It is soft and malleable and comes with your curry wrapped inside, neatly folded for easy handheld eating. If you favor heat, be sure to ask for extra pepper sauce. Made from the Jamaican scotch bonnet pepper, its heat will dance on your lips and tongue.
The finale of this food tour is the chef’s kiss of desserts. ROSELLE sells small-batch, French-inspired pastries Friday through Sunday from their King Street East storefront. This shop is far from average, and their team never comes up short with their special menu offerings (announced on Instagram), which only last four to six weeks. Walking up to their cute service window, you will find a display of irresistible desserts—and will no doubt leave with a few extras. Daily offerings include delectable madeleines, cookies, and shortbreads, to name a few. Their seasonal pandan coconut chiffon cake is a beautifully light and fluffy green cake topped with coconut milk glaze and toasted coconut flakes. Anything you order is guaranteed to be a divine and one-of-a-kind tasting experience.
Left: Krispy Krunch French Toast at School Restaurant, photo by Alexandria Bipatnath. Middle: Roti at Ali's Roti, photo by Alexandria Bipatnath. Right: Pandan Coconut Chiffon Cake at Roselle, photo courtesy of Roselle.
KINNA’S KITCHEN
WHERE LAOS MELDS WITH NEW MEXICO
By Sophie Putka · Photos by Allison Ramirez
Kinna's Vegan Chile Paste.
Pig + Fig Cafe
Comfort food for everyone.
Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
11 Sherwood Blvd, White Rock, NM 87547
In-house dining, patio dining or carryout available
Open Monday - Saturday 7am - 7pm
Closed Sundays Come visit us!
1789 Central Ave #1, Los Alamos, NM 87544
In-house dining, patio dining or carryout available
Open Monday - Saturday 7am - 7pm
Closed Sundays Come visit us!
Nearly twenty years ago, Kinna Perez and her husband, Manuel Perez, struck a deal. Really, it was more of a dare. If he could successfully re-create her mother’s signature Laotian chile paste in their home kitchen in Taylor Ranch, Albuquerque, Kinna would agree to turn it into a business with him.
Manuel Perez had fallen in love—first with the woman, then with the sauce her mother made from scratch with a mortar and pestle and kept on the table to accompany each meal. Even these days, he polishes off a jar within two days. Kinna had learned to make the sauce from her mother as a teen, and Manuel had watched Kinna make it for family many times. But when he suggested actually packaging and selling it, Manuel recalls his wife saying, “Are you crazy? That’s too hard.”
He told her, “‘Well, let me try, and if I have a hard time, I’ll forget about it.’” Hours later, he emerged from a messy kitchen to give her a taste. Kinna’s verdict? “It came out good.” With the test passed, his wife agreed to start Kinna’s Kitchen with him, a project they’d build together through more trial and error.
Preparing the sweet, spicy, deep red-brown, and complex sauce wasn’t for the faint of heart. At the beginning, Kinna asked her mother for advice, tweaking the recipe until it had almost reached its final form. The couple eventually added rice vinegar—and swapped in New Mexico red chile.
It remains a from-scratch endeavor for the Perezes, who refuse to take shortcuts on quality for the sake of speeding up sales. Every month or so, Manuel and Kinna process the sauce in small batches in a shared church kitchen in Albuquerque. “Only three cases at a time,” Kinna says.
Kinna’s Laos Chile Paste begins with fresh ginger, garlic, and red onion, deep fried in rice oil. The Perezes toast New Mexico red chiles from Bosque Farms, mix everything with cane sugar, Squid Brand fish sauce, and rice vinegar, then reduce and blend the mixture to a smooth, paste-like consistency that packs a big punch.
The original chile paste is spicy and complex, with just enough sweetness to make it habit-forming. Kinna’s vegan version omits the fish sauce and swaps in shallots for red onion. Her mango salsa combines habanero, bell pepper, and jalapeño with chunks of the sweet fruit, yielding a satisfyingly light, yet layered, texture packed with fruity, fiery flavor. Everything that can be is purchased fresh for their lineup of four products: Laos chile paste, a vegan version that came later, mango salsa, and the most recent addition, a bright tamarind chile sauce.
If you ask Kinna, the classic sauce makes the perfect accompaniment to sticky rice, meat, and steamed vegetables. Kinna drops it in soup, and uses the tamarind sauce as a marinade or blends it into
Left: Ingredients for mango salsa. Right: Mango salsa cooking.
Susan’s Fine Wine and Spirits
UPCOMING EVENTS
Herdshare Fundamentals Webinar
$60 (fee waived for NMCG members)
July 18, 4:30-5:30pm
Whiskey and Cheese Pairing
Collaboration with Santa Fe Spirits
$85 (25% o for NMCG memberslimited spaces available at the reduced rate)
July 28, 3:00–4:30pm (max 18)
Sour Milk School 5 Day Natural
Cheesemaking Camp with Polk's Folly
$900 (25% o for NMCG memberslimited spaces available at the reduced rate)
September 5–9, 9:00am–3:00pm (max 12)
salad dressing. One regular customer mixes it with peanut butter for an improvised spring roll dipping sauce.
The couple’s commitment to fresh ingredients is unwavering, although they’ve transitioned to frozen mango. Without stabilizers or thickeners, calibrating the acidity to food-safe standards is a balancing act, and a bigger volume of fresh ingredients must be added to get the consistency of their sauces just so.
According to Kinna, chiles from New Mexico weren’t always in the picture. They’re nowhere near as spicy as Thai chiles, Kinna says. But, she says of the red chile they use, “I love it.”
The marrying of a Laotian tradition with New Mexican flavors is a natural fit. Manuel met Kinna years ago while both were working at a jewelry manufacturer (“She used to reject all my work,” he recounts, smiling). Together, they’ve raised three children, who are nearly all out of the house themselves. Manuel and Kinna started the business as a weekend hobby when both were still working. A few years later, when Kinna took maternity leave, she finally had more time to give to the business. She jokes that she’s been on leave since her sixteen-year-old was born.
But the pair are adamant: although their youngest helps out with markets in his spare time, their children shouldn’t take over the family business. “You know, it’s hard work,” Kinna says. “If he can do it, that’s fine. But I want him to get his own dream.”
At one recent Downtown Growers’ Market, curious market goers and regulars alike approached Kinna’s table, where she handed out sample crackers with a swipe of cream cheese and the chile sauce on top. She passed around tamarind sauce on tortilla chips. The week before, they had nearly sold out.
“My day is really long,” she tells me later. By the time she was packing up the truck after the market, she says, “I felt like my body got turned upside down.”
But for now, the endeavor is worth it. The pair love cooking for their friends and sharing the sauces in unexpected places. After their son’s friend from volleyball tried the mango salsa, the friend’s family has been ordering a case for their weekly taco night each time a new batch is made. The Perezes brought the mango salsa, with a basket of sticky rice, to friends at the Cañoncito (To’Hajiilee) reservation who had given them some beef from a freshly slaughtered cow. Other friends, who spend time near Florida and the Bahamas, spoon it over their freshly caught fish.
At eighty-four, even Kinna’s mother approves, despite the milder chiles in the New Mexican version of her original recipe. She doesn’t make her own sauce anymore, but when the Perezes produce a new batch, she sometimes asks Kinna to bring her some to eat with sticky rice.
505-554-4721, kinnaskitchen.com
Kinna Perez cooking and processing mango salsa.
Come Explore with Us!
Canyon de Chelly Weekend Adventure
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, October 25, 26 and 27, 2024
Join the Circles Explorers, the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s membership program designed for those with an adventurous spirit. Members enjoy exclusive benefits and engage in the art, culture and history of New Mexico, venturing beyond the walls of our four state museums in Santa Fe, eight historic sites statewide and the Office of Archaeological Studies.
Embark on a weekend of exploration at Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona with a custom itinerary of culturally immersive activities. Journey through the canyon alongside Navajo guides, learning about the Navajo and ancestral peoples who have called this region home for millennia. Other highlights include visits to Acoma Sky City, the Navajo Nation Museum and the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site.
To learn more contact Cara O’Brien, Director of The Circles, at 505.216.0848 or email cara@museumfoundation.org, or visit museumfoundation.org/explorers.
EDIBLE INGREDIENT
Compared to other radishes, Japanese daikon radishes have a milder taste, without the spicy element associated with smaller Western varieties. When eaten raw, they’re slightly sweet yet peppery, with a crisp and watery texture. When cooked, they mellow and become sweeter, similar to cooked turnips. Daikon can also soak up a lot of flavor, making it the perfect canvas for dishes with rich sauces. Low in calories, daikon is high in vitamin C, fiber, and antioxidants. Many Asian recipes use daikon, but often, you are left with half a radish sitting in your refrigerator; this recipe can use up a lot of daikon at once.
Peel the thick skin of the daikon radish to remove the fibrous portion that runs vertically near the skin and becomes stringy when cooked. It will depend on each daikon, but peeling off 1/4 inch of skin is usually recommended. Cut the daikon into
1 1/2-inch-thick slices. Cut a shallow crisscross pattern on both sides of the slices.
Add salt to a pot of water and bring to a boil, then add the daikon slices and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain the daikon and pat dry.
Mix the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
In a large skillet with a lid, heat the oil and butter on medium heat. Fry both sides of the daikon slices until they are a nice brown color. It will take a couple of minutes for each side.
When both sides have browned, pour the sauce onto the daikon. Flip the daikon 2–3 times to cover both sides in the sauce. Continue cooking until the sauce is reduced, about 4 minutes. When sauce is almost gone remove from heat.
Place daikon radish steaks (or coins, if using small-diameter radishes) on a plate and garnish with scallions or chives. Serve as a side or appetizer.
*Sourcing note: La Montañita Co-op carries locally grown daikon radishes at all their locations.
Cross-Pollination of a Menu
CELEBRATING THE SEASON OF MAIZE
by Stephanie Cameron
Words and Photos
I love small prix fixe menus: I want to eat what the chef wants to cook, and I like that the decision has been made for me. Popups and special dinners create a moment in time, here today and gone tomorrow. The Kitchen at Plants of the Southwest and NOSA are two New Mexico restaurants that have made this their mantra. Both for special events and as a matter of course, chefs across the state have taken to presenting pop-up meals that make lasting food memories. They are creative with their ingredients and descriptions, so as soon as I start to read a one-night-only, one-of-a-kind menu, I am hooked.
Naturally, I’ve also found myself following pop-up projects from afar. Dinner Party (@dinnerpartybk), a restaurant in Brooklyn,
New York, offers a weekly prix fixe menu based on local ingredients found at the market and bought from local farmers. They seat guests communally, hoping to foster connection between neighbors and strangers. Their menus are written with enough intrigue that there is no doubt that if I lived in Brooklyn, I would be making a reservation to dine there every week.
The theme of this issue, Cross-Pollination, inspired me to take a menu from this Brooklyn restaurant and adapt it to New Mexico. Combining items from Dinner Party’s menus, I chose a seasonal ingredient close to home—corn—to center the recipes for this edition of Cooking Fresh. Integrate one of these dishes into your own pop-up dinner, or prepare them all together for a summery meal.
Dinner Party menu: corn bread, red pepper rémoulade
When summer corn hits the markets, you can add an extra burst of sweetness and texture to your corn bread recipes. Bring this along to barbecues and potlucks, or start a meal with a warm slice served with red bell pepper rémoulade.
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 ear of corn, kernels removed and set aside
Preheat oven to 375 F°. Mix dry ingredients—cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt—in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk together melted butter, sugar, and honey in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, milk, and sour cream and whisk until smooth. Stir in dry ingredients until combined and a few lumps remain (do not overmix). Fold in corn kernels.
Pour into a greased 9-inch square or round baking pan. Bake for about 30 minutes, until lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
A rémoulade sauce is traditionally a mayo-based condiment. It is classic French but has a heavy Cajun influence around the United States; you will find multiple variations of this sauce in recipe books in the South. Use rémoulade with veggies and meat, sandwiches, or as a spread for corn bread. You can also use different colors of bell peppers such as orange or yellow, but the red makes for a brighter spread.
2 medium red bell peppers
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon of your favorite hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Preheat oven to high broil setting. Slice the red bell pepper in half down the middle, beginning at the stem, and place skin side up on a large baking sheet. Place in the oven beneath the broiler, about 12 inches from the heating element, and roast for about 15 minutes or until the skins blacken and bubble.
Remove from oven and cool enough to handle and peel away the skins, stems, and seeds. Add the roasted red pepper with the remaining ingredients to a food processor and process until smooth. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow flavors to meld. Store in refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Dinner Party menu: chilled corn bisque with cotija, zhoug, and heirloom tomatoes
This soup is amplified with corn stock made with corncobs. Once you’ve made this golden broth for the chilled corn soup, save the leftovers and use them in place of chicken or vegetable stock to make risotto or polenta. The heavy cream can be left out for a vegan dish.
4 ears sweet corn, shucked and kernels removed, cobs saved
8 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2–3 cups corn stock
1/4 cup heavy cream (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Zhoug, for garnish (see page 44)
Cotija cheese, for garnish
Handful of heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved
Corn stock
Place the corncobs and water in a large stockpot or dutch oven over high heat. Bring to a boil, turn the heat to low, and let simmer for 2–3 hours. Use tongs to pull cobs from the broth and place them in a colander set over a bowl to catch the liquid. Once they have cooled to room temperature, squeeze cobs into the broth to capture the last bits of flavor, then discard them.
Soup
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add shallot and garlic and sweat until translucent (about 5 minutes), lowering heat if necessary to avoid browning the shallots.
Add corn kernels and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add corn stock and bring to a low simmer for about 10 minutes.
Pour soup into a blender; blend until smooth. Pass soup through a strainer. Add heavy cream, if using. Chill in the refrigerator or an ice bath until the soup is cold. Garnish with zhoug, cotija, and heirloom cherry tomatoes.
Zhoug
Makes 1 cup
Prep time: 15 minutes; Total time: 15 minutes
Zhoug is a spicy Middle Eastern condiment made from fresh cilantro, green chiles, olive oil, and spices. I use jalapeños in this recipe, but don’t be afraid to experiment with other chiles, such as serranos. This condiment adds a wonderful layer of depth to the Sweet Corn Soup and balances it with a spicy finish. Zhoug can be used on eggs, pasta, bread, and as a dipping sauce for crudités.
1 bunch fresh cilantro, with stems
1–3 jalapeño peppers, roughly chopped (1 for mild, 2 for medium, 3 for hot)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Juice of 1 lemon, about 2 tablespoons
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup olive oil
Add all ingredients except olive oil to a food processor and process until evenly chopped. Scrape down the sides, add olive oil, and pulse a few times until everything is combined. Add more olive oil if you like a thinner texture.
Store in airtight container with a thin layer of olive oil to protect it from exposure to the air. Refrigerate for up to 1 week.
Zhoug
Red Chile Chimichurri
Red Bell Pepper Rémoulade
Dinner Party menu: maitake mushroom “steak,” habanada chimichurri
These pan-pressed mushrooms can resemble a chewy, beef-like steak with crispy edges and a juicy center. You can use any large mushrooms, such as lion's mane, king trumpet, or wild-harvested boletes, as well as mushrooms sold in clusters, like black pearls and maitakes. Using oyster mushrooms is a great option because they are readily available from local growers around the state.
2 4-to-6-ounce clusters of black pearl mushrooms (maitakes are a great option as well when available)
1 tablespoon avocado oil
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
3 tablespoons red chile chimichurri
Heat oil in a large cast-iron pan on medium-high heat. Add clusters of mushrooms and place a weight, such as a cast-iron press or another pan, on top. (If using large mushrooms, slice into 1/2-inch steaks or leave mushrooms whole.) Cook for 3 minutes, until golden brown. Flip mushrooms, replace weight, and cook for 2–3 minutes more. Remove the press from the mushrooms and season lightly with salt and pepper.
Chimichurri is a Uruguayan and Argentinian condiment usually used on grilled meat dishes. This recipe has a twist using fresh Hatch red chiles. The absolute best time to make this chimichurri recipe is when the red chiles are fresh from the vine and being strung for ristras but before they are dried. Fresh red chile is optional, and you can substitute with 1–2 teaspoons of dried red chile flakes, which gives it a different flavor profile and texture. Also, most recipes call for flat-leaf parsley, but if your garden is overflowing with curly parsley, by all means, use it instead.
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
3–4 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
2 small red chiles, deseeded and finely chopped (or 2 teaspoons red chile flakes)
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Allow to sit for 5–10 minutes to release the flavors into the oil before using. If time allows, let sit for more than 2 hours.
Dinner Party menu: charred corn and salted caramel ice cream, quicos, and cherries
Chicos and Salted Caramel Ice Cream
Makes 1 quart
Prep time: 15 minutes; Cook time: 6–8 hours; Cooling time: 24 hours; Total time: 2+ days
I love experimenting with ice cream flavors, and I have made sweet corn ice cream before. However, the description of charred corn from the Dinner Party menu conjured smoky chicos for me, and I found that mixed with cream and sugar, the horno-roasted kernels are magical. Adding to the complexity of the recipe, I incorporated salted caramel into the ice cream and topped it with corn nuts and a candied cherry. This is a multiple-day endeavor with a well-worth-it finish.
Chicos
1/2 cup chicos, dried
Caramel sauce
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon flaky sea salt
Ice cream
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup caramel sauce, room temperature
Garnish
Toasted corn nuts
Candied cherries (I like Luxardo)
Chicos
Cook 1/2 cup of chicos in 3 cups of water for 6–8 hours in a slow cooker. Drain any excess water and refrigerate chicos until ready to use. Chicos can be cooked up to a day in advance.
Caramel sauce
Whisk together granulated sugar and water in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan with tall sides. Cook over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves, about 3–5 minutes. Stir in butter and bring the mixture to a slow boil over medium heat. Continue cooking until mixture turns a deep golden brown, about 9–10 minutes, maybe longer, depending on your stove. Do not stir during this process. Remove from heat and immediately stir in the heavy cream. Be careful during this step; the caramel will spit and bubble up aggressively. Stir in vanilla and salt. Vigorously whisk mixture until smooth and set aside to cool. Store in refrigerator until needed. Caramel sauce can be made up to a week in advance.
Ice cream
Over medium heat in a large saucepan, warm milk, cream, and sugar until sugar dissolves. Add cooked chicos, maple syrup, and salt. Simmer for 4 minutes, stirring continuously; do not boil. Pour mixture into a large food storage container and allow it to rest in the refrigerator overnight. Process mixture in an ice-cream machine following manufacturer’s directions. (Note: To make a creamier, less chico-forward version of this ice cream, strain the mixture before processing it in your ice cream machine.)
Put a layer of the ice cream into a 9x5-inch loaf pan or similar-size pan. Drizzle with the caramel sauce. Add another layer of ice cream and another layer of caramel sauce. Freeze overnight. Scoop and serve with a sprinkle of corn nuts and a candied cherry on top.
Santa Fe’s Gardening Experts
Dahlias
Petunias
Geraniums Peonies
Daises
Yarrow
out and about WITH The Bite
FIELD NOTES ON A FEW PLACES TO EAT AND DRINK
The iconic (and formerly kinda run-down) Monte Vista Fire Station has been reincarnated as a swanky cocktail bar called The Smoky Note in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill.
A couple of months ago, we riffed on Ex Novo Brewing Company chief Joel Gregory’s adventures in crowdsourcing menu ideas for the brewery’s upcoming venue in downtown Albuquerque. Now Gregory’s team has drawn a conclusion very similar to ours: if you want a chef-driven menu, hire a chef. Marc Quiñones is the chef in question, and he’ll be taking the helm as director of culinary operations and exec chef. Also, there’s now a projected opening date for the much-anticipated Ex Novo downtown: July 10. We’ll believe it as soon as we’re sitting down at the bar sipping But It’s a Dry Heat.
Chef Sean Sinclair, who previously helmed the kitchen at the Castañeda Hotel in Las Vegas and has been behind the scenes at Heritage Hotels & Resorts for a while now, is the new executive
chef at Level 5 at Hotel Chaco, down the road from the Sawmill Market in Albuquerque’s Wells Park neighborhood.
As signaled by a shiny new sign across the street from the Tennis Club of Albuquerque, vegan comfort food restaurant Vegos has reunited with its other half, Nobody Calls Me Chicken. The new shop is open till 9 pm every day but Sunday.
Last fall, La Finca Bowls closed to take some time and remember what its life was supposed to be about. It kinda sounded like that might mean coming back as an occasional farm dinner interspersed with trips to Puerto Rico, but it turns out it means a new life as less of a bowl and more of a hot deli. In June, they reopened their shop near the Lofts at Albuquerque High as straight-up La Finca, promising to hold true to local sourcing and options for eaters of all dietary needs and persuasions.
The team behind Tulipani Pasta has opened Gimani, “a slice bar” in the vicinity of Trader Joe’s and Target in Albuquerque’s Uptown. People have been willing to wait in long lines for their massive slices made with sourdough crust.
Wing It Up, where you can find excellent fried pickles as well as an extensive menu of dry and sauced wings, has moved into Bourbon & Boots in downtown Albuquerque. While this is a bummer for Gold Street, where the wing shop formerly lived next door to The Brew, it means that they’re open waaaay more hours. In fact, you can get your wing fix up until midnight three nights a week and until 2 am Thursday through Saturday. Tuesdays, no. Those who like their crepes sweet—as in stuffed with custard, Fruity Pebbles, condensed milk, whipped cream, ice cream, and fruit fillings, then drizzled
with chocolate or caramel or strawberry—will find themselves in sugary bliss at Crepe Brulee, a new shop in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights.
Birrieria y Tacos Alex Tijuana Style, formerly a food truck rotating between Albuquerque’s North Valley and Rio Rancho, celebrated the grand opening of a brick-and-mortar shop at 930 Sunset Road last Saturday. That marks their second new brick and mortar; the first moved into the old Pizza 9 in front of Sadie’s and jazzed it up with orange and red. Their menu was the first place we saw ramen birria locally, and yes, they also do birria pizza, along with more old-school fusion like carne asada tortas and standards like chorizo and eggs. Is champurrado corn mush? That depends on the maker, but whether thin or thick, silky or chewy, it is, in essence, an atole. You can find an iced version on the spring and summer menu at Eldora Chocolate in Albuquerque, which has racked up quite a few awards for their bars.
Speaking of awards, Stargazer Kombucha’s Assam and Cota kombuchas both won Good Food Awards, which means that in addition to tasting wonderful, they had to meet all kinds of sustainability criteria.
The Smoky Note.
Wing It Up.
“We’ve been on this journey for four generations,” Joe Powdrell told Nora Hickey for a story published in edible New Mexico six long years ago. His father, Pete Powdrell, opened the original Mr. Powdrell’s Barbeque on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue in 1962, but it was his great-grandfather, Joe said, who was first in line. “Isaac cooked mainly for community events. He fused barbeque with whatever work he could get in the post-slavery era. He was a naturalist and believed that everything was naturally endowed with flavor—a tomato needs no help being a tomato.” That’s an opinion we respect, even if many “tomatoes” these days need all the help they can get. Mr. Powdrell’s Central location closed eight months ago, and we’re sad to report that June was the last month in business for the North Valley location.
Mulas is up and running in Corrales. This is the second project of the duo behind Debajo Tapas Y Vino in downtown Albuquerque, and there seems to be consensus about the greatness of their pizzas. Equines may not be allowed on their patio (formerly the patio of the Corrales Bistro Brewery), but word is dogs are.
Los Lunas lost one of its only taprooms when Tractor Brewing Company’s lease was
not renewed. Tractor’s three Albuquerque locations remain open for business.
The Santa Fe Biscochito Company has graduated from food cart to brick and mortar. On top of cookies and ice cream, they’ve been serving Out of This World bagels and Chocolate Maven Bakery breakfast burritos at 330 Sandoval.
Santa Fe has a new Chinese restaurant: Zeng Chinese Restaurant, owned by Jason Zeng, also affiliated with Dumpling Cafe and Dumpling Tea.
If you go, your Singapore noodles may be delivered by a robot.
If all has gone according to schedule (does anything?), Escondido is open for business at El Camino Crossing in Santa Fe. Chef Fernando Ruiz will be dishing out all kinds of ceviche and aguachile while mezcal, tequila, and sotol cocktails are poured in a space with rooftop dining and a purportedly fabulous sound system. Meow Wolf cofounder Vince Kadlubek collaborated with Ruiz to develop the Escondido concept, and there have been murmurings of immersive dining encounters to come. The restaurant’s tiered membership program, unlike most internet fundraisers, actually comes with some perks.
The Eldorado Coffee Corral, formerly in La Tienda, is now open at the Agora, with donuts from Whoo’s and bagels shipped in from Queens.
Up in Taos, the Suchness Dining Room opened in June and is serving dinner five
nights a week. Their very contemporary menu is enough to pique our interest— caramelized forbidden rice pudding, with rhubarb sorbet, thyme, and pink peppercorn? Yes, we’ll be trying that, thank you.
It’s been a year since we first heard that Maria’s Mexican Restaurant in Taos would be moving into an old IHOP, and last month they officially opened at 830 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, across from the Taos Food Hall. Part of their charm, as ever, is an absolute lack of web presence.
Elijah Safford, the chef who bought ACEQ Restaurant before he could legally drink, is in the process of rebooting another Arroyo Seco venue. What was Sabroso will reportedly reopen as a new concoction sometime this summer.
Rincón de Mesilla, which opened in 2021, announced that June 30 would be their last day of operation. This is sad news for the many who have found community in what we’re told had become a cultural haven for Las Cruces. We can’t promise they’ll be there when you are, but Fork Off has been doing pretty regular Thursday through Sunday pop-ups on the corner of Texas and Yankie Streets in Silver City. Think Korean carnitas, Philly cheesesteak paninis, and big smiles, served right across from the also-friendly Artisan Mill Bakery.
The executive chef at La Vie Est Un Bistro is Haitian American, and on the menu at this Silver City newcomer, you’ll find such offerings as rack of lamb with yucca puree, a seared cactus starter, and malangas stuffed with anchovies and green chiles, alongside, yes, omelettes and onion soup.
Joe Powdrell, photo by Sergio Salvador.
Mulas.
MARKET PLACE & LOCAL FINDS
RARE BREEDS
REVITALIZING HERITAGE LIVESTOCK IN THE SOUTHWEST
By Zach Withers
Red Wattle / Mangalitsa mix piglets at Polk's Folly Farm, photo by Sarah Wentzel-Fisher.
“W
What do royalty and the best lamb chop you’ve ever tasted have in common? While a joke about being “rare” would make a good guess, the point I’m after is that attempts to maintain a degree of genetic purity in a small population create some real challenges in the world of local agriculture. “Purebred” is often given a positive association in the animal world, but in reality the line between purebred and inbred is mighty thin.
Navajo-Churros from Sarah Wentzel-Fisher's flock, photo by Sarah Wentzel-Fisher.
While there are dozens of distinct breeds of most domesticated animals, industrial agriculture has focused on just a handful that have been adapted to the intensive model of production that has dominated—and radically changed—food systems over the last century. Unfortunately, those breeds were not selected based on what tastes good or which breeds are best suited to a particular region, but rather what drives up profit or which animals will best tolerate the abuses inherent to concentrated feeding operations. What does this mean for the future of food and food production in an increasingly erratic and challenging climate? How do genetics affect the taste of that bite coming off your fork?
Let’s start with sheep. Spanish colonizers brought a breed called Churra (brush) to the Southwest in the late 1500s. The Diné (Navajo people) developed a particularly close connection to the sheep, and over several centuries the Churra adapted to the local environment, forming a beautifully symbiotic relationship to the Diné people and traditional communities across New Mexico. The sheep produce beautiful wool, a decent amount of milk, and some of the tastiest meat of any breed. They are excellent mothers, have exceptional survival instincts, do fine in both extreme cold and extreme heat, and in many ways are an ideal breed for small-scale agriculturalists to use for food and fiber production as well as regenerative grazing in the high desert. So what’s the catch?
The national sheep herd has shrunk from over fifty million to around five million animals over the last century, and heritage breeds have not been exempt from that trend. (Between the competition from chicken, beef, pork, and synthetic fabrics, the sheep industry has had a rough go.) Given that the genetic diversity that came over on boats was limited to begin with, the real challenge is maintaining and rebuilding the flock of what are now referred to as Navajo-Churros without sacrificing the traits the breed is prized for or ending up with a bunch of inbred sheep. While the Spanish brought Iberian Churra sheep to other parts of the country, the descendents of those sheep have developed and adapted to their particular localities, making them essentially different breeds. One of them, the Florida Cracker sheep, faces challenges similar to the Churro’s. Crossbreeding these two genetically similar breeds would increase the diversity of the gene pool, but it could also result in a loss of the traits that have evolved over years of selective breeding in the same area. These are precisely the traits that make the two distinct breeds desirable and important for the future of climate-adapted local agriculture.
The work of preserving Navajo-Churros is supported by organizations like the Livestock Conservancy and the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association, but mostly it is up to local producers to keep breeding the animals while tracking the genetic lines to maintain a sufficient
Ideal for the New Mexico climate, Navajo-Churros have exceptional survival instincts, photo by Sarah Wentzel-Fisher.
level of diversity. Audrey Marlar in Los Lunas is one such producer. She and her husband, Richard Marlar, have been breeding Navajo-Churros for more than five years, and they keep around twenty registered ewes. They are excited to expand the herd size while also working to improve the breed by selecting for animals that meet the standards established by the breeding association. They send many of their animals back to the Navajo reservation to help rebuild the flock there, and also sell wool to artisans both on the Navajo reservation and in Chimayó. They bring in new genetics every couple of years by trading out registered rams from flocks in other states. The registration process helps track the different bloodlines and also ensures that only animals carrying the most desirable traits of the breed are being selected.
Audrey also provides stock to other aspiring sheep breeders who want to join the effort. Last year, she sold a small starter herd to Sarah Wentzel-Fisher, executive director of the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of conservation and agriculture, supporting and advocating for adoption of regenerative grazing practices throughout the Intermountain West. Sarah lives on my farm, Polk’s Folly, in the East Mountains and grazes her sheep alongside my brother Ethan’s herd of goats as one of several integrated micro farm enterprises. She is interested in breeding this rare
sheep for a number of reasons: to expand the herd, as a personal exploration into the challenges involved in starting a small livestock enterprise, and as an educational tool for teaching people about regenerative grazing practices, sheep shearing, and the process of humanely harvesting animals on the farm.
This spring, I took a drive with Sarah to the Marlars’ farm, where we learned about the process of sorting out which animals are related to which and what bloodlines Sarah might be able to use to expand her flock. The multiple genetic variables, from color (for wool production) to temperament to which animals breed easiest or grow fastest, make for dizzying calculations. The conversation drove home the importance of good recordkeeping, registering breeding stock, and, perhaps most crucially, building trust and relationships between producers.
Alongside this nascent flock encountering the challenges of maintaining genetic diversity while guarding the positive characteristics of one heritage breed, another adventure in cross-pollination and adaptation is happening with heritage-breed hogs. Much like the sheep industry, the hog industry has focused on a small number of breeds that are well suited for large scale, indoor, factory production models, leaving the better adapted—and much tastier—breeds to dwindle along with the population of small farmers. At Polk’s Folly, the hogs
Sarah Wentzel-Fisher shearing her Navajo-Churros, photos by Francesca Oldani.
Audrey Marlar and her Navajo-Churros in Los Lunas, photos courtesy of Audrey Marlar.
we started with were all purebred Red Wattles, a heritage breed that was developed in Texas and is well adapted to a desert environment. We sourced our breeding stock from another farm an hour south of us that had been bringing in Red Wattles from different states to maintain genetic diversity and selecting the animals that did best in our particular climate. After a few years, we started mixing in Mangalitsas (originally bred in the Carpathian Mountains in Central Europe), both to ensure a solidly diverse gene pool and to increase the animals’ adaptability to the cold winters in their new mountain home. Now, nearly a decade into production, the question is whether to stick with Red Wattles and Mangalitsas and risk recycling genes from related bloodlines (we did not do a great job keeping records early on, so it’s hard to say if any of our pigs are related to other Red Wattles or Mangalitsas in this area) or prioritize what is sometimes called “crossbreed vigor” by mixing in even more breeds and ending up with “mountain mutt pigs.” Either way, we will continue working to keep diversity in the genetic composition of our herd while maintaining the characteristics that make the hogs well-suited to an increasingly arid mountain climate—and ensuring the meat is super tasty.
In the bovine world (“bovine” is the fancy word for cows), the story is similar to sheep and hogs, perhaps complicated (and con-
centrated) further due to the incredible Mad Men-style marketing efforts to brand one particular breed—Black Angus—as the ultimate beef-producing animal. There certainly are purebred heritage cow breeds on farms and ranches around New Mexico; Dexter cows are a popular multipurpose breed for homesteaders, and Scottish Highlanders have developed an almost cult following for their cuteness. The Weaver ranch near Portales imported and bred African Mashona cattle with Angus and Brahma bulls to produce incredibly hardy and drought-tolerant cattle lines, and some of the craziest-looking beeves I’ve ever seen! More common is the integration of some of the older Spanish bloodlines into herds that are primarily conforming to the industry-favored British bloodlines. Corriente cattle, which descend from the cows the Spanish brought over along with Churra sheep, are mostly bred and sold as sporting animals for rodeos, because they are extremely skittish, fast, athletic, and tough. (That is also why most folks raising animals for meat don’t want to deal with them.) But ranchers in the high desert are increasingly recognizing the value of the Corriente’s genetics for improving their animals’ ability to digest less palatable forage, hold body condition and conceive young during drought, travel farther to get water without suffering weight loss, fend off predators, and fatten up into a harvestable size
Polk's Folly Farm piglets, photo by Sarah Wentzel-Fisher.
with far fewer purchased inputs such as the protein supplements that are commonly required to fatten cattle out on the range.
(Author’s note: Corriente meat is very distinct and, to my taste, absolutely delicious, though it does tend to be leaner and tougher than Angus, especially if it’s coming off a roping circuit. But I do not recommend buying Corrientes for your first grazing animals. It’s an absolutely terrible idea. Just don’t. No matter how good a deal it might seem to be, it really isn’t.)
My friend Emily Cornell, who operates Sol Ranch in northeastern New Mexico, has been bringing more Corriente genetics into her herd over the past several years. For decades, her father had used Corriente bulls to breed his first-year heifers because Corriente calves tend to be smaller and much easier for young cows to birth. The long-term impact of this practice is evident in the herd: the cows are slightly smaller and stockier than purebred British varieties of cattle and seem to be able to survive and thrive even when there is not much in the way of fresh forage. But as Emily is transitioning away from producing and selling calves and toward grass finishing and direct marketing, she is also seeing other benefits: marbling in the meat at an earlier age (which reduces the cost of producing marketable meat), increased survival instincts (Corrientes are very handy using their horns to fend
off predators, or ranchers!), and feeding on a greater variety of plants on her ranch. She jokes that they will eat the bark off the cedar fence posts and not seem the worse for wear. (You can find Sol Ranch beef at tiny grocer ABQ, Polk’s Folly Farm Stand in Cedar Crest, and Semilla Natural Foods in Las Vegas, or through Reunity Resources or Squash Blossom CSA in Santa Fe.)
While the reality that most of these breeds are considered threatened or endangered is certainly worrisome, the good news is that more and more people are, first, waking up to the vital importance of preserving the breeds’ genetics and, second, returning to a type of agriculture that focuses on regional adaptability and resilience in the face of rapid climate change. Paradoxically, one of the best ways to support the revitalization of heritage-breed animals is to support the producers raising them by buying the meat and eating it. While maintaining and growing the herds and flocks of heritage breeds is vitally important work, those of us raising animals for food and fiber are also tasked with the project of remixing and matching animals in order to develop new breeds that will be adapted even better to the shifting conditions and extreme challenges facing agriculturalists of the future. And as an added bonus, the meat that comes from these animals tends to be so much richer in flavor than their industrialized commodity cousins that they bear almost no comparison.
Emily Cornell's cows and calf, photos courtesy of Sol Ranch.
DISAPPEARING CHILE AND DOMESTICATED CORN
REGINALD PUNNETT, FABIÁN GARCÍA, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF CROSSING SEEDS
By Robin Babb
Bloody Butcher corn, a centuries-old heirloom variety of dent corn, photo by Nina Katz.
“O
One of the only things I remember from my high school biology class is filling out Punnett squares. Devised by the British scientist Reginald C. Punnett, the square diagrams are used to predict and track the phenotypic and genotypic outcomes of crossing certain plants—in other words, their observable physical traits, and the particular genetic information that corresponds to those traits. Punnett originally devised the method to track generations of crossbred (or hybrid, as we say in the plant world) pea plants and manipulate their traits, things like flower color or whether the peas the plant produced were smooth or wrinkled. Although what I most remember is diagramming dominant and recessive traits like eye color in humans, Punnett squares were very much designed for plants, and edible plants in particular.
Drying chiles in Chimayó, photo by Pat Eby.
In a Punnett square, the first generation of a cross between two varieties is labeled f1; if you’re a gardener, you may have seen this appellation on some seed packets. Successive generations are called f2, f3, and so on. After several generations of selectively breeding these resulting hybrid plants with an eye toward a specific combination of traits, Punnett found he could stabilize that combination, thus ensuring that each seed saved from the parent plant would be highly likely to produce a plant with nearly identical phenotypic traits. After many generations of breeding a hybrid selectively for certain traits, the stabilized variety becomes open-pollinated, a prerequisite for all heirloom varieties.
But this kind of careful plant breeding across many generations takes many years of producing no sellable product—possible for a scientist like Punnett but not for a modern commercial farmer. Most hybrid seeds sold commercially are f1-generation seeds, not only because they have the most hybrid vigor (characterized by increased size, growth rate, and yield) but also because every following generation of that hybrid is highly genetically unstable: if you were to plant those f2 seeds the following spring, you’d have next to no idea what kind of plant will come out of them. Theoretically, seed companies could do the many years of work to stabilize a given hybrid into an open-pollinated heirloom—but why would they when they could keep growers feeling dependent on those reliable, vigorous f1 seeds year after year?
This is all a bit oversimplified, of course. There is no hard-and-fast, agreed-upon definition of an heirloom variety. Some people in the seed world believe that it requires a minimum of seven generations of careful breeding for a hybrid to gain heirloom status; for some, it’s only an heirloom if it was grown as is by their great-great-great-grandparent and has a name like One-Eyed Preacher’s Delight. The terms hybrid and heirloom hint at something immutable, but the truth is that most domesticated plant varieties exist on a spectrum between genetic extremes.
Although the Punnett square was created in 1905, farmers and gardeners have been selecting seeds for desirable traits and crossing plants since, well, since the beginning of agriculture. In The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food, author Janisse Ray gives this hypothetical on how humans began domesticating plants: Out walking along some river, perchance the braided Nile, some long-ago human would discover a strange fruit and would taste it. She would not die. The tribe might save the seeds and begin to grow the plant in spots where they paused during a summer sojourn. Then someone would discover that a certain plant had a particularly large fruit, and that plant would be specially guarded and its seed saved to scatter the following spring. A plant with a large fruit might be crossed with a plant with a sweet fruit. And on and on.
Corn is perhaps the best example of a thoroughly domesticated plant—corn didn’t exist before farmers got involved. Long ago in what is now southwestern Mexico, a large grass plant with multiple stalks and small, hard kernels grew wild in the valleys and floodplains. This plant was teosinte, and it is the genetic ancestor of all corn. (Wild teosinte, a descendent of that earlier wild grass, still grows in the Balsas Valley of Mexico.) Ancient growers planted teosinte near their settlements, then saved the seeds from those plants that grew the biggest
Top: Measuring chile peppers at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts Horticulture Department, circa 1950, photo courtesy of NMSU Library. Bottom: Hanging up chile peppers to dry at Isleta Pueblo, circa 1940, photo by Russell Lee.
ears with the fattest kernels. They planted those seeds the next season, then selected again. They continued doing this for centuries, sometimes crossing one cultivar with another for more desirable traits, until they eventually produced something that looked a lot like the modern corn that we grow today.
In the roughly nine thousand years since corn’s domestication, people have developed hundreds of varieties of it all over the American continent. Some varieties, growers discovered, did better growing at elevation and in dry climates, while others preferred floodplains; some were cultivated to be eaten fresh off the cob, others for making into meal for tortillas or corn mush. Glass Gem, Hopi Blue, Golden Bantam, Stowell’s Evergreen. Often, these heirlooms bear the name of the family or tribe that grew them, or of the region where they were traditionally grown. For some, the origin of the name is lost to time. Now, many of the varieties are lost to time themselves. In the same way that biodiversity of wild plant and animal life is waning now in the Anthropocene, so are the varieties that farmers grow. But these early domesticated varieties of corn, as of squash, chile, and other domesticated plants, are reliant upon human cultivation; they can’t be released into the wild and live without us. If farmers and gardeners don’t grow them, they disappear.
These old varieties are disappearing not just because farmers neglect to grow them anymore, opting, instead, for the more profitable monocropped varieties that fill so much of our country’s arable land, but also because of the issue of genetic drift. Corn is open-pollinated, meaning that it is naturally pollinated by wind, insects, and birds—and because of its anatomy, corn is especially promiscuous, shall we say. Some of the corn silks in a field are cross-pollinated by a corn plant of a different variety, perhaps one that’s growing up to a mile away. The resulting seed will bear genes from both of its parents, of course, whether those parents are Hopi Blue or Corteva Agriscience’s lovingly titled P9188 AMX. A farmer growing only one variety of heirloom corn on their farm may still wind up with seeds that bear patented genetic material—that’s right, many hybrid and genetically modified (GM) seed varieties are patented. Agricultural corporations like Monsanto, Syngenta, and Corteva Agriscience patent any seeds they develop as a matter of course, and will also buy patents from other seed companies. Other breeders, including universities, sometimes patent hybrids they develop. If that patented germplasm winds up in the field of a farmer who didn’t buy those seeds, they could potentially land in some legal hot water. And regardless, that farmer will then be producing seeds that they cannot legally grow the next season and that may behave a lot differently from what they were expecting.
This is where Mexico’s proposed ban on imports of GM corn for human consumption—and on glyphosate, the herbicide that many GM crops have been specially designed to be resistant to—begins to make a lot of sense. Not only does imported GM corn have the potential to contaminate the diverse landrace maize growing there, it also floods the market with cheaper corn and corn-based products. While Mexico has banned domestic cultivation of GM corn for a decade now, there is already evidence of some crop contamination there. If that ban were lifted, some farmers, quite reasonably, might find it hard to resist the siren song of efficiency and profitability that GM seeds sing, even knowing the long-term threats they pose to the genetic diversity and
Top: Drawings of variations of chile pods from the New Mexico Experimental Station, New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, drawn by J. W. Rigney, image courtesy of NMSU Library. Middle: Harvesting new corn from Jim Norris's field in Pie Town, circa 1940, photo by Russell Lee. Bottom: Chiles and bagged chiles in field in the Mesilla Valley, photo courtesy of NMSU Library.
security of the country’s crops, not to mention their neighbors’ livelihoods and a cultural history rooted in the tradition of la milpa. Even knowing that these seeds come with the implicit contract to keep buying them, year after year—and to soak them in the herbicides sold by the same corporation.
Mexico chile” at a grocery store now, there’s a not insignificant chance that it was grown in another state, or in Mexico. It has become such a cash crop even within the state’s borders that other chiles—the older, more regionally adapted and unique tasting heirlooms—have largely fallen by the wayside. Case in point: the Chimayó red chile.
Green chile, like corn, is also a product of careful crossing and selecting over generations. At about the same time Punnett was fiddling around with his pea plants in England, Fabián García, a horticulturalist at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts in Las Cruces (what is now New Mexico State University), was hard at work on an experiment of his own, trying to make the chile—and Hispano foods in general—more accessible and commercially viable around the United States. According to Willy Carleton in Fruit, Fiber, and Fire: A History of Modern Agriculture in New Mexico, García “bred for a more consistent, narrower, fleshier, and more peelable chile for canning purposes. He also sought a milder pepper to appeal to people elsewhere in the country unaccustomed to pungent flavors.” This experiment, in which he enlisted the help of many growers over the course of a decade, involved collecting and crossing many varieties of landrace chiles from across the Southwest, including several from Mexico. The work yielded New Mexico No. 9, the genetic ancestor of one of the more popular commercial strains of green chile still grown in the state today.
This was scientific plant husbandry, in the most classic sense. There is some confusion on this point, so let us be clear: a hybrid plant is not (necessarily) a GM plant. The labs of these early twentieth-century scientists did not include gene-splicing technology. Still, the implications of the type of crossbreeding García did can be tectonic. When plant crossing is done to create more commercially desirable (read: more uniform and thus easier to mechanically grow, harvest, and process in large quantities, and more universally palatable rather than suited to specific tastes) varieties, the consequence is often a variety that outcompetes (whether by nature or by human design) other older, more regionally specific varieties—the heirlooms and landraces. Since García’s time, and in no small part thanks to his work, we’ve seen an explosion in the popularity of New Mexico chile, which has become something of a double-edged sword. When you buy “New
“Chimayó chile is pretty much nonexistent,” says Anjel Ortiz, the grower at Zitro Farms in Chimayó. He says this despite the fact that you can buy Chimayó chiles at the store, as well as seeds and starts of it at the nursery. Ortiz knows, from his own experience and from talking with the old-timers in the village, that that’s not true Chimayó chile— not the landrace variety that has been grown in northern New Mexico for three hundred years. Heirloom Chimayó chile is a smaller, hotter chile that thrives in the heat and the scorching summer sun. The chile labeled Chimayó that you buy in stores might be a descendant of that heirloom, but Ortiz believes there’s been some crossing over the years that has diluted its genetics. For years, he’s been trying to un-dilute it.
“I found the families that claimed to have old, old Chimayó chile,” he says. “I grew four of the families’ chiles, based on what they told me. They explained the way it was forty, fifty years ago. So I started to grow out the chiles and save the seed that looked and tasted like what they explained it used to. I was trying to revert it to how it used to be.”
It’s very possible that genetic drift from fields planted in commercially bred chiles contaminated heirloom Chimayó chile at some point—either intentionally, in the case of growers who were actively trying to cross their chiles to make them bigger, milder, more sellable, or on accident, by that natural drift of pollen on the wind, on the fuzzy bodies of bees and other pollinators. However it happened, Ortiz is now trying to “back out” from the modern, crossed form of Chimayó chile, to select for and breed in the traits that old Chimayó chile had. This dedication resembles reinventing the wheel more than it does turning back the clock. While small-scale farmers like Ortiz can’t go through each of their plant’s genomes with a fine-tooth comb, editing out all the genes they don’t want, they can try to select seed for observable traits. Back to Punnett squares, garden notebooks, and talking to the other growers in your neighborhood. Back to the same process that generations of Native and Hispano growers have stewarded here for centuries: irrigation with acequia water, careful cultivation and saving of seeds, selective crossbreeding, and—as is required of growing anything—lots and lots of patience.
Zitro Farms in Chimayó, photo by Anjel Ortiz.
FEASTING ON THE BOSQUE
WHERE WILD AND TAMED FOODSHEDS MEET
By Briana Olson
Pollinators visit wild rose near the river in Rio Grande Valley State Park, photo by Briana Olson.
“A“All the plants are beautiful, Grandma,” says landscape designer and author Judith Phillips, quoting her granddaughter at age three. “What can I eat?”
Phillips, leading a spring tour of the habitat garden planted near the perimeter of the visitors center at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, offers that when water is a limited resource, maybe that’s the ultimate criteria for what to plant and what to leave alone—not only whether we humans can eat it, but whether anyone can.
Porcupine, photo by Briana Olson.
The tour is part of Build Your Backyard Refuge Day at the wildlife refuge in Albuquerque’s South Valley, and her focus is on native plants for wildlife gardening. She points out threeleaf sumac as good bee support, horsetail milkweed—“thought to be the main [food] source for monarchs in New Mexico”—and threadleaf sage, which traverses the whole valley, from the West Mesa into the bosque and up to the foothills. But she also mentions that dandelions are good for early bees.
“What is a weed?” she asks. “One definition I like is that it’s a plant in the wrong place. To me, a weed is a weed if it’s so aggressive that it starts pushing out desirable [species].” This points back to some of her first, casual yet grand words on this morning’s tour: “Diversity is the stability of ecosystems.”
Beyond the habitat garden stretch the refuge’s 570 acres of retired dairy farmland. There’s a constructed playa, a demonstration pond, and, near the west edge, young stands of willow and cottonwood. None of this impedes a visitor’s sight lines; even with their heartshaped leaves yet to grow in, the telltale markers of the Rio Grande bosque draw one’s eye beyond the ditch that helped dry this floodplain, turning it into viable farmland and enabling the development and growth of Albuquerque itself.
Turnout for today’s event is high, and people walk throughout the refuge, but many are drawn toward that majestic, life-giving cottonwood gallery that is approaching the end of its time.
It was early February when, near an entrance to the bosque in Albuquerque, something different caught my eye: a sign flapping against a pile of logs felled as part of a large-scale thinning project designed for fire mitigation in Rio Grande Valley State Park. I had to come close enough to touch the wood in order to read its message: “Please ask for permission BEFORE cutting down trees in their prime. Love, Pachamama.”
Many logs in the pile, as in similarly dramatic stacks closer to Central Avenue, were the trunks and limbs of Siberian elm trees, classified by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture as category C noxious weeds and well known both for the shade they provide and for the prolific edible seedpods, samaras, that soar through spring winds to germinate any- and everywhere they land. (“I tell my friends to eat as many as possible,” one person I interviewed said wryly.) But the person identifying themselves with Mother Earth did not distinguish between native trees and non.
“Was it you?” a friend wrote, forwarding me a report on the colorful signs that went up soon after the first. The answer was no, but I had contacted the Bird Alliance of Central New Mexico to see if they knew about the project. I’d dug up a draft of the proposal, spearheaded by Albuquerque Fire and Rescue, for which FEMA had
Logs felled for fire-mitigation project in Rio Grande Valley State Park, photo by Briana Olson.
awarded about a million dollars to cover the removal of “ladder fuels,” targeting “invasives”—Siberian elm, salt cedar, Russian olive, tree of heaven—in the 400 acres of bosque that crown downtown Albuquerque. I had reached out to people near and far from the project, seeking information, direction, and solace for what felt, at least initially, like unwilding.
Visiting the first area cleared, I found the earth riddled with stumps. Despite a few remaining stands of New Mexico olive, the area felt bleak, torn open. With so much of its understory shorn, the loose canopy of elderly cottonwoods was suddenly thrown into relief. What would be left when they were gone? More immediately, how did the coyotes and porcupines, the thrushes and flycatchers, feel about the sudden disappearance of so many prospective meals and perches? In this warming, drying region, might invasive plants be better than none?
In the worst-case scenario, fire would have torn through this vulnerable riparian forest—but what would be the best?
people with climate grief,” she says. “Now we’re active agents healing it.” Twice a year, volunteers participate in a bosque restoration field day, removing ravenna grass by hand and planting native plants that will be watered for three years by a site-caretaking crew. “We do this out of love,” she says of her all-volunteer staff. “Community caretaking of land is an antidote to all of this grief.”
“We plant things to nourish the land,” she says. “What animals need, it’s the same thing we need.” Kneeling to rub yerba mansa leaves near a wildlife pond built by the Army Corps of Engineers, Saville invites me to smell the plant’s medicinal aroma as she talks about its detoxifying properties and its historic role in stabilizing soil after the disturbance of floods. Wild rose, or Woods’ rose, as I’ve learned from Phillips at Valle de Oro, can also stabilize streambanks. Butterflies and bees use the pollen, birds eat the fruit, and herbalists collect it because it’s high in vitamin C. “When you think of plant medicine as ecological medicine—we are this external world, this world is us,” says Saville.
“Before starting Yerba Mansa Project, I’d walk through the bosque and I was very aware of what was dying,” Dara Saville tells me as we walk through an area where the nonprofit has led community-driven restoration efforts since 2014. “As an herbalist, I hear from a lot of
Saville, like Phillips, draws my attention downward. “I’m very big on shrubs,” she says. “They provide food, they provide medicine, they provide shelter. They stabilize the land. And also, they seem to be doing well.” Coyote willow is an important medicine plant; golden currants are nutritionally dense; sumac is cherished by humans. She shows me a false indigo, a plant in the pea family, that Yerba Mansa Project volunteers planted a couple of years ago. “They look like mermaids in the bosque,” she says of their clustered flowers.
Left: Planting yerba mansa in the bosque, photo courtesy of Yerba Mansa Project. Right: Morel found in the bosque at a Yerba Mansa Project restoration field day, photo by Briana Olson.
Speaking to people’s relationships with plant medicine in New Mexico, Saville, who also founded the bioregional herbal studies program Albuquerque Herbalism, notes that “traditions with plants are much more alive here.” She points out that Russian olive, too, is revered in some places, but we don’t have the cultural context. “Blaming Russian olive is a fallacy,” she adds. “We are the ones who created a situation where it can create monoculture.”
itself served to lower the water table and drain the fields. He directs me to a UNM student’s master’s thesis that, in 1935, documented this ecological transformation. “The entire ecosystem of the valley floor was completely sacrificed,” he says. “They wanted to build a city—and to be fair, I love my city.”
High-impact farming and grazing upriver, along with deforestation, had led to an accumulation of sediment, raising the floor of the riverbed. Increased flooding ensued.
“The Bureau of Reclamation came in a second time in the 1950s,” Fleck tells me, and “in some places they literally dug a new channel,” installing lines of jetty jacks that slowed the river’s flow and allowed sediment to build up so the river would have a narrower channel. Cottonwoods, whose tiny seeds love wet, open earth, thrived on these new banks—at least at first. So, over time, did longestablished Russian olive and salt cedar. It was not strategic planning by plant armies but the very irrigation network upon which many of us depend that enabled Russian olives and salt cedars to populate the now-fixed riverside.
“The problem now,” Fleck says, “is that it can get super choked with non-native species,” which creates a fire hazard—and “also, as a human, I can’t get to my river.” (To wit, three bosque fires were reported as I was writing this article.) Also, with the river restrained and the water table continuing to drop, natural conditions favorable to the growth of cottonwoods—flood-scoured land with fresh deposits of sediment and access to sunlight—no longer exist.
“I can tell you what I think,” Fleck says when I ask about his vision for the future, “but this is a question of community values. Where do we have the community conversation about desired future conditions for this ecosystem?”
“There’s a moment in Albuquerque history where they disconnected the river from the city,” John Fleck tells me, describing the construction of the levees and drains that began to lock the once-meandering Rio Grande into its current path. Fleck, who describes himself as a “writer turned water policy scholar,” is writer-in-residence at the University of New Mexico’s Utton Transboundary Resource Center and co-author of a forthcoming book that is “a history of Albuquerque through the lens of how we came to make our peace with the Rio Grande.” He marvels that there’s no record of people talking about this wholescale transformation of the valley. “Most of the discourse around that time, the river was a menace.”
“Los Poblanos field was a lake—swampy,” he says. The ditches that run parallel to Second Street, Rio Grande Boulevard, and the river
“If we’re going to have bosque, we’re probably going to have to farm it,” says restoration ecologist Cameron Weber as we circle the perimeter of the long, shallow bioswale that runs through Valle de Oro. Moments later, we move along stands of healthy young willows and cottonwoods, all planted right into old alfalfa fields along with hundreds of other shrubs—wolfberry, four-wing saltbush, false indigo, threeleaf sumac—that provide seeds and berries and nesting materials. Water from the morning’s irrigation is still soaking into their roots.
Weber directs the habitat conservation program at Rio Grande Return, a nonprofit devoted to restoration of riverscapes and ecosystems in the Southwest, and much of her work focuses on “constructed habitats in the footprint of agriculture.” That includes Valle de Oro and much of Candelaria Nature Preserve, a 167-acre property owned by the City of Albuquerque and managed, like Rio Grande Valley State Park, by the City’s Open Space division. We talk about the difficulty of establishing a saltgrass meadow where it’s not hydrologically connected, the tastiness of Indian rice grass (“I like to pop it like popcorn,” she says, as can be done with amaranth), and the challenges in funding this refuge where, in contrast to the typical wildlife refuge that acquires “amazing habitat,” “the land put into the refuge was extremely productive, heavily chemically
Great blue heron with fish near Tingley, photo by Cheryl Burns.
treated alfalfa.” When Rio Grande Return did a soil seed-bank analysis here, they learned that the native seed bank had been decimated.
At Candelaria Nature Preserve, plans to rewild aim to transform the North Valley preserve from similarly hard-worked farmland to “a mosaic of habitats that will support diverse native species.” This doesn’t mean returning the land to the conditions of 1926 or 1489 but creating habitats that are missing from the area due to urban expansion. As at Valle de Oro, some of those will be wetlands that mimic the historic floodplain while others represent dryland plant communities—in Weber’s words, “climate-appropriate habitat that will endure for decades.” Mesquite, planted in basins characteristic of Chihuahuan Desert habitat, would have been present historically but not widespread, Weber says, adding that within her lifetime, it’s likely that Albuquerque will come to experience a climate more like that of Las Cruces. One key difference between the two projects is that at Candelaria, not all the plants grown are native, and several fields are devoted specifically to agricultural crops grown to support wildlife, especially protected migratory birds such as the greater sandhill crane.
“The driving story is urbanization and wildlife,” says Jeannie Allen of Friends of Candelaria Nature Preserve, a group that lovingly helps steward the work there and offers public tours once a month. The first
time I visit, they’re getting ready to plant thirty species of pollinator plants—“globemallow is the hero because its roots are long”—in a field that’s been cleared of johnsongrass and bindweed and remediated with gypsum, kelp, and chicken feathers. Oats’ root structure is good for soil health, Weber notes, plus they provide grain for birds. Returning for a birding tour led by the Bird Alliance, I watch bluebirds and phoebes dance through a field of sunflowers and cover crops. A spotted sandpiper moves along the edge of a pond, picking invertebrates from the flattened reeds.
Back at Valle de Oro, Weber points out a Swainson’s hawk, then a kestrel. Yes, she acknowledges, thickets of Russian olive and salt cedar can create habitat for the “swiffle” (a.k.a. the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher), but the reedlike coyote willow along the edge of the swale has more insect associations. She explains how this entire bioswale could fill like a bowl after a big storm, and a portion of Albuquerque’s stormwater was specifically redirected to flow here. In this way, the refuge provides a service to the city. “Soil microbes are the best agents for treating pollutants,” she says. “There are outflows where polluted water goes straight into the river—that’s the worst. Here the soil is cleaning the water before it reaches additional wetland treatments” in the bosque just beyond the refuge boundary.
Left: White-breasted nuthatch hunting for insects in a cottonwood, photo by Cheryl Burns. Right: Toad (possibly a spadefoot) in the bosque, photo by Briana Olson.
“The bosque is a sponge,” says Yasmeen Najmi of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. She identifies the bosque as a user of water—“any riparian system or any ecosystem that’s next to a stream is there because it depends on water”—but she also observes that the bosque helps clean and add nutrients to the water that passes through the Middle Rio Grande Valley. While she notes that this is not part of the Rio Grande Compact’s mandate, when I ask if there’s any way that the bosque benefits the human foodshed, she points out that surface water rights in the Middle Rio Grande valley and the compact’s requirement to deliver water down south indirectly support the bosque, which in turn provides pollinator habitat, stores water, and acts as a kind of filtration system, among other benefits for agriculture.
“Riparian areas are less than 2 percent of land areas in the Southwest and probably shrinking, so what happens with the bosque and the way we manage it is really critical,” Najmi says. This is true not only for human users of the rivershed but for the animals who rely on it, whether during migration or for their entire lives. She echoes many others in observing that current and future conditions—climate change, dropping water tables, changes in surface water supply—don’t support natural regeneration and may not support native species.
“We know that all of our ecosystems have been used for thousands of years for food and medicine,” says Najmi, who practices herbalism in her off time. Speaking as a land manager, she emphasizes the importance of communicating plant knowledge and harvesting ethics, noting that she grows native herbs in her yard and harvests yerba mansa from a friend’s farm rather than in the bosque. At the same time, “the cultural connections to the Rio Grande and the bosque are important, and it’s important for us to respect that.” While she might eat wild verdolagas, or purslane, a plant introduced from Eurasia, “when I make medicines, I try as much as possible to use native plants.”
Birds, though, tend to be opportunists. In one project Najmi led, the US Forest Service monitored research sites for changes in groundwater, wildlife use, and vegetation, ultimately gathering key information about how land management may affect birds. “What we learned is that there are whole segments of the bird population that key in on what we call midstory canopy shrubs, like Russian olive and salt cedar.” Removing those shrubs can lower bird numbers, she explains, “but not necessarily long term.”
“What we know from bird surveys is that Russian olive is one of the plants that supports one of the highest numbers and diversity of birds in the bosque. Also New Mexico olive, and berry plants. My philosophy at this point is that we’re not going to eradicate them, but they do need to be managed,” she says. “And where we have opportunities to replace them with New Mexico olive, we do that.”
White-crowned sparrows and goldfinches may be as happy to eat Russian olives as New Mexican ones, but as I’ve learned from biologist/ecologist Mary Harner, who studied the cottonwood forest along the Rio Grande with the late Cliff Crawford and others as a doctoral student at UNM, Russian olives can fix atmospheric nitrogen. Not only can they survive nutrient-poor soils, but “their leaves have a higher nitrogen content than the native cottonwood trees, and that has effects on nutrient cycling in the soil.” Still, Harner notes that both native and nonnative plants provide food and other resources used by birds, and a 2010 report for the US Geological Survey points at the need for more research on how removing salt cedar and Russian olive may impact species from cuckoos to bats to cicadas. Beavers and porcupines may be the most visible fans of munching on cottonwoods, but Harner highlights the arthropods, both the winged ones that use the canopy and the ground-dwelling ones that use the organic matter built from leaf fall on the forest floor.
Young cottonwoods at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, photo by Briana Olson.
In her 1935 master’s thesis, UNM student Mary Van Cleave cataloged the many habitats that existed in the Middle Rio Grande Valley before the river was tamed: from swamps full of watercress and protein-rich sedges to saltgrass meadows to scattered inland stands of grass-woodland bosque. Mosaic is the term often used to describe this lost patchwork of habitats. It’s also a word land managers and stewards often use to describe their visions for the future. On occasion, it has seemed to represent fantasy or nostalgia or even a euphemism for the death of the bosque as we know it. But the term can also signal possibility. The community-driven efforts at Candelaria and Valle de Oro offer an argument both for investing in the native bosque and converting some retired farmland to homes for wildlife instead of humans.
Resisting the narrative that “the bosque is dead,” Weber also points at the success of bank-lowering projects that bring the floodplain down to the river and support the regeneration of cottonwoods. Najmi mentions a backwater project where yerba mansa and cottonwoods grew in after a fire. And Dustin Chavez-Davis, project coordinator for Open Space, is hopeful that cottonwoods can be established through pole plantings in areas where the Ancestral Land Conservation Corps is actively clearing ravenna grass.
We’re standing near a willow swale constructed by the Army Corps a decade or so ago, flanked by a thick stand of New Mexico olive and a thicket of wild rose, when Chavez-Davis turns to what might be one marker of a project’s success: the disappearance of its traces.
“It’s just amazing to me how many projects there are within our Albuquerque reach,” he says, “that I didn’t know [were] restoration projects before I got this job.” What feels like nature when we’re out walking “is not necessarily a natural system—I mean, it is, but we’ve had so many interventions along the way.” He mentions the Yerba Mansa Project and talks about how restoration work can blend in over time, how golden currant and sumac were planted and watered by
volunteers carrying buckets until the plants got established, and then three or four years later, they’re thriving shrubs.
Gift, love, fortune, opportunity, incredible resource, fresh air, crown jewel: these are a few of the terms people have used in describing the bosque to me. Yet the Open Space division manages more than 30,000 acres with just forty-three staff, including a single field biologist, and the 4,300-acre Rio Grande Valley State Park is arguably underresourced. What if Albuquerque (and New Mexico) valued its bosque as much as New York City values Central Park? “In my dream world,” says superintendent of Open Space Colleen Langan-McRoberts, “we would have a dedicated, sizable staff to be in the bosque all the time, seven days a week.”
At the Yerba Mansa Project’s Bosque Restoration Field Day in midMay, the best find might be when one volunteer unearths a morel. A kid later shows off the “mudshrooms” they’ve fashioned while we were hacking at the grasses. But the greater satisfaction is in discovering a straggling young cottonwood in the middle of a plume of ravenna grass I’m prying out of the riverbank. (Tip: leave your flimsy garden hoe at home.) Recalling how Saville described kids developing relationships through events like this and wanting to come back and check on what they planted, I consider this tree. It is just one, and hardly in itself a measure of the health (or vulnerability) of all who live off the bosque, but it teaches me something. Focusing on a single tree—or a single species—can skew perspective, but it might also be a means of grounding. And an action that seems too small to matter can
“I’m working with realistic hope,” Saville tells me. “Given [the conditions that are unlikely to change], which of these plants that sustain our food and medicine and all the beings of this land— which can come with us?”
Weeding a field of sunflowers and foxtail millet grown as a wildlife crop at Candelaria Nature Preserve. Coyotes, cranes, geese, and songbirds feed on the millet, which also serves as shelter and builds soil health. Photo courtesy of Friends of Candelaria Nature Preserve.
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Although it might seem counterintuitive, the slow cooker is our favorite cooking method in the summer heat. Often associated with comfort food and winter, the slow cooker is the perfect vessel to deliver a hot meal without the heat. Mojo pork is a popular Cuban recipe that combines citrus juice, garlic, and dried oregano. This simple, satisfying recipe is excellent for multiple meals during the busy summer months. Use it to make tacos, nachos, or rice bowls.
3–4 pounds boneless pork butt, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 3 large pieces ($3.99 a pound)
3/4 cup chicken broth ($0.47)
1/2 cup orange juice ($0.34)
1/4 cup lime juice ($0.25)
1/4 cup lemon juice ($0.23)
1 yellow onion, cut into quarters ($0.99)
1 jalapeño, sliced in half ($0.22)
1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled ($0.67)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt ($0.03)
2 teaspoons dried oregano ($0.56)
1/2 teaspoon pepper ($0.02)
1/2 teaspoon cumin ($0.03)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika ($0.03)
1/2 teaspoon red chile powder ($0.05)
2 bay leaves ($0.15)
Add all ingredients to a large slow cooker and stir to combine. Cook on low for 8–10 hours or until pork shreds easily with a fork. Serve pork with black beans over rice with lime and cilantro, in corn tortillas, or on top of nachos. Store leftover mojo pork in the refrigerator for 3–4 days or freeze for up to 6 months.
The Last Bite is brought to you by Rio Grande Credit Union and highlights recipes on a budget. Costs are estimated using online budget calculators or based on purchases for edible’s test kitchen.
