Spring 2024: Mountains & Creeks

“Far up on heights, in regions of the mist,” wrote John Shepherd, a nineteenth-century journalist and poet of Colorado and New Mexico, “silvery lakes . . . sleep calmly near eternal banks of snow—the source of the life which blooms so sweet below.”

That Shepherd was writing of our region might come as a surprise to those who recognize New Mexico by its capacious horizons, its yucca-studded mesas, its cactus and cottonwoods. Known from afar for its desert landscapes, red rocks and badlands and bone-colored canyons, New Mexico is nonetheless a tapestry of mountains. The Sangre de Cristos, named, if not for alpenglow, for a red-throated bird or a red-crested flower or a crimson-colored spring; the Sandias, named for watermelon sunsets or Native squash or a saint; the Pinos Altos, named for tall trees; the Jemez, the Zunis, the Mimbres, each named for a people.

This issue of edible New Mexico is devoted to life in those mountains. We follow Ellen Zachos up Holy Ghost Creek, where she guides us in foraging for early spring greens. Weaving apprentice leticia gonzales talks with sheep farmer Elena Miller ter-Kuile about coming home, the health in diversity, and regenerating land in the Mountain West. Taking stock of the impacts of fire in Mora and around the state, ecologist Charles Curtin argues for a foodshed-centered approach to managing our drying forests, all likely to confront more fire.

In light of that vulnerability, we’ve gathered stories whose common thread is healing, through food and community as through land. At Whiskey Creek Zócalo, we find a constellation of garlic- and tree-growing, rural community building, pizza baking, and art making. Through Comanche Creek Brewery, we meet a group of disabled veterans finding recovery in fly fishing. On Taos Pueblo, we visit a café whose foods and practices are grounded in remembrance. Turning to the home kitchen, we explore a traditional practice with its own woodland roots: cooking with ash.

The mountains, whatever our perspective of their peaks, are very much of this world. We hope these stories likewise ground you in the tangible, be that through coal-roasted pumpkin fondue, spring greens fritters, a lamb pelt, or holistic, place-based ways to tend our working lands and forests through whatever comes.

“Far up on heights, in regions of the mist,” wrote John Shepherd, a nineteenth-century journalist and poet of Colorado and New Mexico, “silvery lakes . . . sleep calmly near eternal banks of snow—the source of the life which blooms so sweet below.”

That Shepherd was writing of our region might come as a surprise to those who recognize New Mexico by its capacious horizons, its yucca-studded mesas, its cactus and cottonwoods. Known from afar for its desert landscapes, red rocks and badlands and bone-colored canyons, New Mexico is nonetheless a tapestry of mountains. The Sangre de Cristos, named, if not for alpenglow, for a red-throated bird or a red-crested flower or a crimson-colored spring; the Sandias, named for watermelon sunsets or Native squash or a saint; the Pinos Altos, named for tall trees; the Jemez, the Zunis, the Mimbres, each named for a people.

This issue of edible New Mexico is devoted to life in those mountains. We follow Ellen Zachos up Holy Ghost Creek, where she guides us in foraging for early spring greens. Weaving apprentice leticia gonzales talks with sheep farmer Elena Miller ter-Kuile about coming home, the health in diversity, and regenerating land in the Mountain West. Taking stock of the impacts of fire in Mora and around the state, ecologist Charles Curtin argues for a foodshed-centered approach to managing our drying forests, all likely to confront more fire.

In light of that vulnerability, we’ve gathered stories whose common thread is healing, through food and community as through land. At Whiskey Creek Zócalo, we find a constellation of garlic- and tree-growing, rural community building, pizza baking, and art making. Through Comanche Creek Brewery, we meet a group of disabled veterans finding recovery in fly fishing. On Taos Pueblo, we visit a café whose foods and practices are grounded in remembrance. Turning to the home kitchen, we explore a traditional practice with its own woodland roots: cooking with ash.

The mountains, whatever our perspective of their peaks, are very much of this world. We hope these stories likewise ground you in the tangible, be that through coal-roasted pumpkin fondue, spring greens fritters, a lamb pelt, or holistic, place-based ways to tend our working lands and forests through whatever comes.

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