Four-Season Farming and Dining North of Santa Fe
By Candolin Cook
Left: Sunchokes and squash from The Vagabond Farmers and mushrooms from Full Circle Mushrooms.
Right: Maitake mushroom rillette with pickled Hinona Kabu turnips. Photos by Stephanie Cameron.
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.”
Left: Osiris Nasnan and partner Astrid Yankosky of The Vagabond Farmers, photo by Candolin Cook.
Right: Graham Dodds of NOSA, photo by Stephanie Cameron.
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 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.”
Left: Sunchoke soup. Right: Roasted squash. Photos by Stephanie Cameron.
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.
49 Rancho de San Juan, Ojo Caliente
505-753-0881, nosanm.com
Candolin Cook is a historian, writer, editor, and former co-editor of edible New Mexico. She recently received her doctorate in history from the University of New Mexico and is working on her first book.
