NEW MEXICO STAPLES

Growing Local At Es Que Market

Words and Photos by Ungelbah Dávila-Shivers

If you are what you eat, imagine what you could become if your plate were always filled with meals sourced from the community you live in and the lands that surround you. Your veggies would always have tiny carbon footprints, your meats would come from livestock raised on ranches where they are loved and respected, and your atole and posole would come from grains that work with ecosystems rather than against them. You would become an extension of the land you live on. Where and how your foods are produced would matter to you, because they would no longer be “just food”—they would be direct rewards for investing in your neighbors’ livelihoods, in ancient cultures and traditional practices, in land stewardship and sustainability, and in your family’s long-term health and vitality.

Best of all, food would no longer be something associated with fear, whether because of scarcity or because of hidden calories and chemicals. Good food would be valued, children would grow up with bellies full of essential vitamins and minerals fueling their imaginations, and dining tables would once again be the circles at the center of our communities.

Es Que Market, the headquarters for Swan Kitchen (SK), is one such table. Here, located in the heart of downtown Albuquerque, power couple Jessica and David Swan combine their lifelong involvement in regenerative agriculture, community advocacy, and the culinary world for an experience that goes well beyond breakfast burritos (although they do have those too).

“We have an understanding that food is medicine, and that we can take care of ourselves in the right ways if we’re eating right,” says Jessica, “so we offer a really great farm-to-table breakfast and lunch menu. We’ve been working with Agri-Cultura Network [ACN] since we started our school lunch program in 2014.”

David and Jessica created Swan Kitchen in 2013, preparing food for a local delivery service. But when their oldest child started kindergarten in 2014, the Swans were horrified at the low-quality ingredients being used in school meals. A trained chef who has worked in restaurants since the age of thirteen, David decided to put his skills to work. Swan Kitchen got certified as a food vendor for the school systems, rented space at the South Valley Economic Development Center, and got busy preparing lunches for students using locally sourced food from farms within ACN.

“Why do New Mexicans, people who’ve been here for generations, get commodity food when we’ve been agricultural based for generations?” Jessica asks. “We know how to feed our gente, we just don’t have the resources [due to land loss]. Part of being a New Mexican is really understanding our history, and understanding that we’re all from farming families.”

In the fall of 2021, the three-thousand-square-foot building at the corner of Fifth and Lead became available, and since the Swans had needed to take a step away from the school lunch program during the pandemic, launching a breakfast and lunch spot with hours from 8 to 3, Tuesday through Friday, was a perfect fit for the busy parents. The building is owned by the Guadalupe Institute, a New Mexico nonprofit corporation that, among other initiatives, serves as a depository for La Virgen de Guadalupe memorabilia. The Swans designed the interior of Es Que—a play on SK that roughly translates to “it’s just that”—after the terracotta-orange and turquoise-blue tones of La Virgen’s image that appeared on Juan Diego’s tilma some 450 years ago. In one corner, an altar and collection of Guadalupe art and imagery make up a mini-museum installed by the Guadalupe Institute. Strands of marigolds, dried pomegranates, ristras of the Swans’ chile, and repurposed produce sacks create cozy moments throughout the market and dining area. Mason jars filled with blue cornmeal, posole, apple butter, honey, and other local pantry essentials are for sale alongside local art.

The menu features all-day breakfast staples like burritos, atole (made from Tamaya blue cornmeal), and the Levanta, a sandwich

Explore our beautiful space filled with the best wines, spirits, and beers from around the world!

Enjoy a beverage in our Purple Pachyderm in-store lounge.

632 Agua Fria, Santa Fe • free parking in the back 505-984-1582 • SFWineAndSpirits.com

Delivery available from

Dozens of Interesting Wines by the Glass

• Bruschetta Platters to Share

• Great Entrées

Mon & Thurs 5-8pm Closed Tues & Wed 304 Johnson St, Santa Fe 505-989-1166 terracottawinebistro.com

100% natural ingredients from around the world

A collection of artisan made products using natural materials, from cashmere wraps to alpaca throws, Oaxacan pottery, and fine art photography. 1610 Lena Street, Santa Fe | 505. 663. 7784 | LivingThreads.org upscale Italian cuisine with scrambled eggs, asadero, and serrano ham. Vegan options, such as La Huerta sandwich (seasonal veggies, pickled onions, and a spicy bean spread) and El Hongo (shredded barbecued mushrooms, vegan slaw), fill the lunch menu alongside meatier offerings like the hearty Chicano (pictured above). Over on the salad side, things stay creative with seasonal veggies and local greens. A blackboard lets customers know exactly where ingredients are coming from, listing producers like Big Bear Farm, Los Jardines Institute, St. Francis Ranch, ACNallied farmers, Vibra Farms, and many more.

“As New Mexican small business owners, we need to stop exporting profits,” says David. “We are already one of the poorest states and we export 97 percent of what we grow. So we’re here to put our foot down and do the best we can not to let that happen in our community by showing, day by day, that keeping profit local can be done.”

On the second Saturday of each month, Es Que hosts Community Supported Dinners that give guests firsthand experience in how locally sourced, regenerative farming can be applied to fine dining. Here guests gather at a long family-style table and feast on seasonal dishes such as platters of roasted root vegetables and plates of juniper-roasted trout on blue corn grits, and sate their sweet tooth with a bit of toasted pistachio ice cream or chocolate lava cake.

“I’ve got twenty years of fine dining experience and so that has manifested into these Community Supported Dinners,” says David. “It’s kind of a play on community supported agriculture. And so we’re using local products to bring the community together.”

Meanwhile, the Swans are still involved with youth engagement and education. They sponsor cooking classes through ACN’s Cooking for Health program and do farm-to-table meals at the Gutiérrez Hubbell House, where they introduce families to some of their values and practices.

“The articles I’ve been reading say that when you buy from local farms you reduce your shrinkage [food waste] by at least 50 percent,” says Jessica. “We believe in being totally sustainable and regenerative farmers by using the ancestral agricultural knowledge that was passed down to us. Monsanto didn’t teach us. Our elders taught us how to farm, so it’s not, you know, greenwashing, it’s just traditional food the way it’s always been.”

FOUR-SEASON FARMING AND DINING NORTH OF SANTA FE

By Candolin Cook

In northern New Mexico, when we think of the growing season, we think of spring: tender turnip shoots poking through freshly thawed soil, pea blossom tendrils wrapped around a trellis. We also think of summer, with its bounty of juicy heirloom tomatoes and technicolor peppers. And, of course, we think of fall. Rainbow corn, pumpkin patches, and the iconic autumnal harvest cascading out of a cornucopia basket. But what of winter? It is true that farming in cold weather can be unforgiving—frostbitten crops, impenetrable dirt, freezing hands. Yet growing certain vegetables in the winter offers its own appetizing advantages.

Consider the spinach leaf (as David Foster Wallace might prompt). When spinach and other hearty leafy greens grow in cold weather, they convert some of their starch stores into sugar, which keeps the water in their cells from freezing. In addition, because of the wide temperature swings we experience in New Mexico, our spinach leaves might frost and thaw several times, repeatedly triggering the release of “antifreeze proteins” (polypeptides that modify the growth of ice crystals and reduce the freezing point of water). These processes are said to alter and improve the flavor of many winter crops. Thus, that which makes the plant stronger also makes it sweeter.

On the coldest day of last December, I visited The Vagabond Farmers, a four-season, one-acre farm located in La Puebla, to take a peek at their winter vegetable production. Tucked under cover cloth inside a sixteen-foot-tall unheated high tunnel, The Vagabond Farmers’ Auroch spinach crop was in full production. “I wouldn’t eat spinach outside of winter,” professes farmer and co-owner Astrid Yankosky. “This variety stands upright and has [sturdy] leaves, but I think the taste really comes from the weather.”

Yankosky and partner Osiris Nasnan are no strangers to farming in icy conditions. The two moved from Minnesota three years ago, where Nasnan’s family have been potato farmers for generations. Yankosky studied agriculture at The Evergreen State College in Washington, and previously worked with a refugee resettlement agency cultivating a community garden. As recent transplants to New Mexico, the farmers say they wanted to carve out a niche for themselves in the local market (and avoid stepping on any toes) by largely concentrating on speciality or harder-to-find crops, such as baby carrots, Japanese cucumbers, cut greens, and Principe Borghese tomatoes, which are ideal for sun drying. In addition to selling at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market, they work with a handful of local chefs, including Allison Jenkins of Arroyo Vino and Graham

Dodds, who, fifteen miles up the road at NOSA Restaurant and Inn, was prepping their vegetables as we spoke.

Like winter, NOSA has a quiet serenity to it. The Ojo Caliente property sits at the end of a secluded gravel road, surrounded by the Jemez Mountains. Along with four impeccably decorated guest suites, it boasts a grand, Santa Fe–style main lodge with three elegant dining spaces of varying size and purpose. As the sole chef and innkeeper on duty, Dodds preps, cooks, plates, and, often, checks guests in, all while tending to a simmering beef stock. “It’s nice not to have anybody dictate what I’m doing. Sometimes (well meaning) owners will have ridiculous ideas or want what’s trendy, but that doesn’t fit into my vision.” At present, the chef’s vision includes an ever-changing, multicourse prix fixe menu served for breakfast (daily), lunch (Sundays), and dinner (Saturday–Sunday).

Like The Vagabond Farmers, Dodds is new to the state. He opened NOSA (an acronym-of-sorts for “NOrth of SAnta Fe”) only last July, after he saw that the former Rancho de San Juan property was for sale and went to work finding investors to make his longtime dream

FIND OUR COCKTAILS AT A LOCATION NEAR YOU OR ORDER ONLINE AT MIXEDUPCOCKTAIL.COM of living in New Mexico come true. In his hometown of Dallas, Texas, where temperatures rarely hit freezing, Dodds is known as a trailblazer in the local farm-to-table dining scene and a champion of sourcing locally and sustainably. “I love cooking that way. People should be eating what’s around. I like to base my [dishes] around an epic ingredient and go from there. That’s the fun part.”

Any bartender worth his or her salt knows that the ingredients make the cocktail. And that’s where Mixed-Up Mule® cocktails start—with fresh, all-natural flavors like grapefruit, watermelon, mint and even jalapeños. Then we add our quality spirits to craft a unique twist on classic cocktails you can take wherever you go!

AVAILABLE IN WHOLE FOODS MARKET, ALBERTSONS, KELLY LIQUORS, AND OTHER LIQUOR STORES THROUGHOUT NEW MEXICO AND EL PASO.

Sourcing locally doesn’t come quite as easily in the remote Ojo Caliente River Valley. In addition to Tuesday trips to the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market, Dodds feels lucky to have forged relationships with nearby Ojo Farm and The Vagabond Farmers. “I don’t think I’ve ever had nicer spinach before,” Dodds says of Vagabond. “It has these great leaves that are sweet and don’t turn to mush when you cook them.”

On this chilly December night, NOSA’s cozy dining room is warmed by a crackling fire and adorned with a tastefully decorated Christmas tree. Much like the space, the evening’s five-course meal manages to feel both rustic and elevated. It begins with a simply plated assortment of lamb rillette, chokecherry jam, Bread Shop cherry poppy toast, and a pickled Vagabond Farmers Hinona Kabu turnip. This is followed by a soup course, in which red kuri kabocha is transformed into liquid velvet. I don’t know how much cream and/or butter is in this dish (hint: must be a lot) but it is unequivocally the best squash soup I’ve ever had. Next comes a picture-worthy tribute to Olmsted’s (of Brooklyn) buttery carrot “crepe,” featuring Vagabond Farmers’ turnips, watermelon radish, and carrots, cut paper thin. The penultimate course is a Lazy BG Farm rib eye steak (hallelujah to grassfed beef that is this succulent), paired with Ximena Zamacona’s (of Full Circle Mushrooms) chestnut mushrooms and the spinach I’ve been hearing so much about. Prepared in a garlic confit with roasted red onion, it is indeed sweet, hearty, and making a case that spinach should only be consumed in the wintertime. The meal caps off with a golden tarte tatin. Still bubbling from the oven and topped with La Lecheria’s pistachio ice cream, the caramelized apple dessert is— excuse the obnoxious food-writer word—transcendent.

“I think [NOSA] is filling a void in the [fine dining] food scene of this area,” Yankosky later tells me. It seems that both Dodds and The Vagabond Farmers are finding their niche. As we transition into spring, I look forward to seeing how the season will shape the food they grow and cook—and that might just mean it’s time for another trip north of Santa Fe.