Even descending the stairs from the expansive view at Koi’s third-story, downtown Santa Fe perch to find that one’s bicycle has been stolen cannot ruin the sly exuberance one feels after a meal at Joel Coleman’s new eatery.

The roomy and welcoming nature of Pizzeria da Lino is belied by a cramped storefront entrance on N. Guadalupe Street and a parking situation more suited to flocks of Italian scooters than oversized American cars. Once inside, however, there’s an intimate bar and multiple rooms full of well-spaced tables. The outdoor courtyard is one of the more relaxing and friendly courtyards in town.

It doesn’t take much in Santa Fe to turn drought into abundance. Fans of affordable, flavorful Vietnamese food who have filled from the tap at Lan’s Vietnamese Cuisine and Saigon Café can now add Pho Kim to the once half-empty cup that may soon runneth over.

I don’t know why we’re fighting a multi-fronted war on terror if it isn’t to preserve the God-given right to finish up a hard day’s work and crack open a cold one. In fact, the only thing more American than fighting to feed the military industrial complex may be our propensity for self-medicating.

For some long-ago birthday—one of those foggy, early-20s episodes in innocent debauchery—I conned my grandmother into paying for me and all my friends to have dinner in the private wine cellar at the Inn of the Anasazi.

So-called tasting menus are alternately vilified and lionized in Anthony Bourdain’s most recent book, Medium Raw. But then, Bourdain’s book is a back-and-forth, thoroughly wishy-washy ride—smart and painfully funny but, as promised by the title, it’s not rare or well-done. It’s medium through and through

The next time you are haunting the bright, Santa Fe morning, urging your eyeballs to recess back into their sockets and you need solids to saturate the slurry in your stomach, consider a helping of philanthropy with your breakfast burrito.

Some people like to dip their french fries in mayonnaise. It turns out I like to dip mine in chipotle hummus. Is that so wrong? Whatever—it feels so right at the Nile Café and Catering Company food cart on the corner of St. Francis Drive and Cordova Road.

It is hard to believe that not long ago there was no mecca for pasty, thin-haired dorks cursed with bad skin and blessed with unbounded cultural irony, postmodern fashion sensibilities and the ability to apply calculus to the organization of MP3 files. But in the hipster kingdom of Portland, Ore., they reign supreme:

You can hardly chuck a piece of chorizo around here without smacking a Spaniard upside the head. New Mexico’s colonial and post-colonial history is one long line of conquistadors, craftsmen and clergy from Spain. But Spain ain’t that plain. Consider New Mexico's Basque settlers.