The Fork

It’s seriously too hot! 

Nobody really wants to cook at The Fork's house right now. It's too hot. And if we're being honest, we aren't huge fans of the microwave, either. Oh, it's not a hippie thing about energy waves, it's preferring that our food not be all soggy and floppy and weird so we can save two freaking minutes. But we digress, because we're actually looking for good workarounds for dinner and such that don't require a preheating and real heating and then cool-down period. Here's some of what we found to help:

-By scouring this handy invention you may have heard about called "The Internet," The Fork found a handy 2013 article from BuzzFeed that counts down 43 (yeah, 43) no-cook meals. Our favorites on the list? A raw corn and radish salad that looks refreshing as hell, and a red cabbage and apple salad that made us go like, "Unnggggh." A lot of these suggestions have meat, but there are some veggie ones. Ones like the ones we just said.

-If none of the 43 suggestions on that list work for you, thekitchn.com has a pretty good one, too. We particularly are intrigued by the avocado and egg brekkie pizza.

-This may sound like the most obvious thing in the world, but at our house, we usually have a watermelon, some berries, maybe some cherries from Washington, a couple cheeses, some nuts (we like cashews) and maybe a baguette we can slice up. It takes almost no time at all and makes for a nice little summer melange. We also hear that kids are pretty into watermelon, even the ones who act like they can't eat anything but chicken fingers.

-If ice cream made with avocados isn't your jam (which we get, even though we're into it), there are scads of no-bake cookie recipes out there, though we don't know if the term "cookie" should still apply. Maybe they should call them "no-bakies" or even the second thing they come up with. Anyway, here's a fantastic one right here with the recipe and a video to help.

As always, give us your own tips and tricks for eating OK without turning on the oven. Seriously, we want them.

Father’s Day Corner

Yup, Father's Day is coming up on Sunday June 17, and we here at The Fork are lucky enough to have a pretty cool dad even if he does live a million miles away and never calls on our birthday and tells particularly bad dad jokes (and we mean bad even within that particular milieu). But anyway, we won't be seeing him this year, which is kind of a drag, but we thought about what you might wanna do with yours … y'know, assuming you like him and everything.

For starters, the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi is offering up special pricing on beer and burgers this Sunday. The special comes with green chile cheeseburger sliders, fries and a beer for just $20. Not too shabby.

Meanwhile, and not that it's particularly food-related, but it's still worth knowing about, Meow Wolf is doing a deal on Sunday wherein 20 percent of the day's proceeds go to Fathers New Mexico, a nonprofit that helps young dudes become great dads through mentorships and job placement and the like. There are usually food trucks in the parking lot at MW, too, so you can do food if you want.

Setting aside how much we don't like the term "Man Crate," the company (*strained gulp) Man Crates has some pretty cool ideas that come in a box and help dad learn more about wine, BBQ, home-brewed beer and more. Hurry it up, though, if you're gonna order.

Food & Wine has a pretty cool piece on lessons chefs learned from their dads that's worth checking out.

Of course, there are bound to be a lot of other things to do with your dad. Y'know, like throwing a football or getting him a series of books on either World War II or the Civil War. It's really up to you, but we're always open to suggestions. As for us, we're trying to find a TaskRabbit willing to go kick our dad in the nuts … stay tuned.

Happy 50th, Santa Fe Farmers Market!

You know and love 'em, and now the Santa Fe Farmers Market is officially AARP-eligible (we don't actually know the age, it's a joke; relax). And how will the long-running group of fresh and delicious food purveyors celebrate? In a few ways:

From June 20-Sept. 20, they'll be handing out Birthday Boxes to lucky shoppers with cool books, fresh jam, garlic oil, lotions and more. All you have to do is spend $10 or more and you'll get a raffle ticket for entry.

On Aug. 5, they'll host a literal birthday party in the Railyard with cake, clowns, piñatas and more.

On Aug. 8, the Farmers Market partners with the Jean Cocteau Cinema for a screening of The Trip to Spain. That's Steve Coogan, y'all!

Congrats, all y'all farmers and market-goers. Here's to another 50 years!

More Tidbits

-The Fork was saddened to hear of the death of Anthony Bourdain. You're going to probably read a lot this week about the many cool things the man did, from the food world to the world of just trying to be a good person who learns and teaches and evolves and learns some more. If you can, try to catch some of his shows because, at the bottom of it all, there's a lesson about not fearing the unknown, and we think that's lovely.

-You know how shucking a cob of corn can be a nightmare job that takes forever and no matter how hard you try you still get those little hairs in your teeth? Word. Now click here to see epicurious.com's video about 50 different people shucking it the shuck up. There's also one about people cutting pineapples, which is also hard.

-Didja hear that IHOP changed it's name to IHOB? The B stands for Burger, which is fine, we guess, but the "hob" in there turns us off. Also, The Fork stood in the waiting room of an IHOP/HOB the other day for about two seconds before we entered the worst panic attack of our life. As far as burgers and pancakes go, try local.

-If you're thinking of hitting the road on some kind of food pilgrimage, eater.com has assembled a list of what they consider the 12 best new restaurants in America. Is New Mexico on the list? Nope! However, Eater did post a little video clip about chile filmed at SFR's neighbor, Palacio Café, and it's been making the rounds on Facebook this week (mostly posted by our friends who live elsewhere or have moved away, being sad about how they can't eat what we can eat any day).

-Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, SFR's sister paper Willamette Week reported that a food cart owner who hurled racist slurs (and Gatorade and Sriracha) at a potential customer (who was simply trying to pay with quarters, which is legal tender, btw) was arrested for assault. Sounds like you shouldn't be a racist, right? Right.

Finally