Early Winter Issue, Vessels, Hitting Stands Now

Early Winter Issue Hitting Stands Now

Special occasions call for ceremony, the ritual of special dishes, meals shaped by human hands. A birthday party, a harvest feast, a Thanksgiving potluck, a Christmas dinner, an anniversary—all these are acts that root memory, cultural celebrations whose raison d’être becomes, over time, the practice of gathering itself. And as fall spills into winter, drawing us inside, closer together, the season calls for nice things, for climbing up on the footstool to pull out the boxes of good china, the fancy pie pans, the holiday dinner set handed down from mother to daughter.

With this, the hundredth issue of edible New Mexico, we celebrate the plates and bowls from which we eat, the glasses and mugs from which we drink, the cookware we rely on, the ollas and cisterns of our gardens. In one feature, a photo essay tracing plates and cups from restaurants and bars and cafés to the hands of the potters who make them, Ungelbah Dávila stills us with the beauty of clay. In another, we follow bottles emptied of soda and booze as they return, not to earth, but—thanks to the vision and hands of artists—to be filled again at local tables and bars. And through her investigation of bebidas fronterizas, a story that is both memoir and inventory of borderland drinks, Denise Chávez celebrates the grandmother of pots and pans: the olla.

At its most elemental, an olla holds water—whose value, as we of New Mexico know, is greater than gold. Local grower and agricultural historian Willy Carleton reports on using water-filled ollas, rather than drip tape, to feed the plants in a desert garden. We also visit with a Santa Fe land steward who builds rain gardens—water catchment systems that bring office parks and community spaces back to life.

These stories make an argument, too, for the everyday use of handmade cups, special pots and pans; for using those china plates, as at one Albuquerque restaurant, to make a weeknight meal special. From rum cake baked in a great-grandmother’s Bundt pan to squash focaccia in a trusty old muffin tin, the recipes in this issue honor vessels that are built to last. But fall is fleeting, and, being where we are, we can’t resist a nod to that most ephemeral (and delicious) of culinary vessels, the flour tortilla. You can get it, of course, on Old Route 66.

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Honey cakes reach so far back in time that their origins are impossible to trace to a single source. Culinary historian Gil Marks suggests that some of the earliest cakes, baked in Egypt thousands of years ago, may have been made from mashed legumes and honey. Our version is more closely tied to later traditions—Greek honey cakes served at festivals and Jewish honey cakes baked to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Bright citrus and the warm, fragrant spice of cardamom complement the honey-forward cake. Using local honey will make this cake special; its flavor shifts with the seasons, capturing the character of the blossoms nearby.

Year after year, Edible Communities’ more than 75 hyperlocal food and drink publications in the US and Canada capture the histories and stories of local food and drink in their regions through storytelling, sharing with readers the importance of knowing where our food comes from. And each year, Edible Communities Best of Edible Awards recognizes this incredible body of work.

This year, edible New Mexico was honored with the award for Best Email Newsletter for The Bite’s Saturday newsletter. If you don’t already,
you can subscribe to that newsletter here.

Along with Edible Communities, we invite you to also dive into the work of the winners and finalists from around North America—and hope that you are inspired by each and every piece.

NOSA Restaurant & Inn sits at the end of a secluded gravel road in Ojo Caliente. As the sole chef and innkeeper on duty, Graham Dodds preps, cooks, plates, and, often, checks guests in, all while tending to whatever is simmering on the stove. In this episode, we talk with Dodds about the inspiration behind his multicourse prix fixe menu, which changes not only with the seasons but every weekend of the year.
Tune in here or wherever you get your podcasts.

The holiday season is right around the corner—allow us to help you shop for everyone on your list with the 2025 Shop Local Gift Guide, a digital catalog stuffed to the brim with exceedingly wonderful presents at all price points—it’s the ultimate handbook for finding gifts you’ll actually want to buy.

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