Early Summer 2026: Hands-on

Asked a couple of years ago to name his favorite kitchen utensil, the popular teaching chef Jacques Pépin declared, “My hands are the most useful tool in my kitchen.” Obviously, you might think, and yet, amid the rapid rise of automation and AI, not to mention the internet’s bottomless appetite for best-of lists and newfangled kitchen tools, one might almost forget that the human hand is an unparalleled marvel of design. Then again, a general sense of detachment from the production of what we eat and drink might be precisely what pulls so many people to seek out not only homegrown and handmade products but the experience of making them.

This Early Summer issue of edible New Mexico is all about that experience. In one feature, a writer raised on mostly processed food attends a trio of local cooking classes, seeking to triumph over blandness and find more ease—and more flavor—in her home kitchen. Reporting from a class in bread baking, a writer new to sourdough revels in the sensory immersion required to turn out loaves and keep the starter alive. There’s a sampling of local opportunities for wine education from a burgeoning wine nerd, and a few words of caution from a small-scale farmer about how to keep chickens.

In the spirit of the season, we also offer a dash of vacation via perfect-for-summer recipes culled from edible New Mexico’s 2025 visit to Oaxaca. For those who can’t make it to Italy, trusted forager Ellen Zachos suggests an antidote: harvesting local walnuts to make inky-black nocino. Covering a less-traveled stretch of old Route 66, Ungelbah Dávila samples the fare at two independent-spirited venues; a similar spirit presides in a travel dispatch from Wyoming and Montana. Not least, we share Denise Chávez’s meditation on that most sacred of New Mexico rituals: the procurement and processing of roasted green chile, preferably straight from the farmers who raise it and oversee its harvest.

To do something with your own hands—with the help of experts or through the proven method of trying, failing, and trying again—can bring an inimitable form of satisfaction. Whether you travel or stay home this summer, we challenge you to brave new territory in your exploration of food, and thus, inevitably, deepen your knowledge of both yourself and your foodshed.

Asked a couple of years ago to name his favorite kitchen utensil, the popular teaching chef Jacques Pépin declared, “My hands are the most useful tool in my kitchen.” Obviously, you might think, and yet, amid the rapid rise of automation and AI, not to mention the internet’s bottomless appetite for best-of lists and newfangled kitchen tools, one might almost forget that the human hand is an unparalleled marvel of design. Then again, a general sense of detachment from the production of what we eat and drink might be precisely what pulls so many people to seek out not only homegrown and handmade products but the experience of making them.

This Early Summer issue of edible New Mexico is all about that experience. In one feature, a writer raised on mostly processed food attends a trio of local cooking classes, seeking to triumph over blandness and find more ease—and more flavor—in her home kitchen. Reporting from a class in bread baking, a writer new to sourdough revels in the sensory immersion required to turn out loaves and keep the starter alive. There’s a sampling of local opportunities for wine education from a burgeoning wine nerd, and a few words of caution from a small-scale farmer about how to keep chickens.

In the spirit of the season, we also offer a dash of vacation via perfect-for-summer recipes culled from edible New Mexico’s 2025 visit to Oaxaca. For those who can’t make it to Italy, trusted forager Ellen Zachos suggests an antidote: harvesting local walnuts to make inky-black nocino. Covering a less-traveled stretch of old Route 66, Ungelbah Dávila samples the fare at two independent-spirited venues; a similar spirit presides in a travel dispatch from Wyoming and Montana. Not least, we share Denise Chávez’s meditation on that most sacred of New Mexico rituals: the procurement and processing of roasted green chile, preferably straight from the farmers who raise it and oversee its harvest.

To do something with your own hands—with the help of experts or through the proven method of trying, failing, and trying again—can bring an inimitable form of satisfaction. Whether you travel or stay home this summer, we challenge you to brave new territory in your exploration of food, and thus, inevitably, deepen your knowledge of both yourself and your foodshed.

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