The Fork

We'd started out with a special Fork featuring songs about food. Partly this was because we've had the soundtrack to the Oliver musical stuck in our heads for literally 30 years—which we'd understand you might assume is a joke, but it's not—and because we're getting pretty pumped up on the upcoming Descendents show in Albuquerque next month (which relates to food peripherally, we promise), but we decided to check our privilege instead and not include a musical about poor orphans who don't get enough to eat in our admittedly bougie newsletter.

Instead, we're going to focus on a sort of roundup thing. We chose this direction for some other reasons, too, such as it skipped right over fall and went into winter, evolving our Autumnal Sadsies (TM) into a full-blown case of Winter-itis (TM) and sapping our energy.

We've tried to address that issue by creating a list of foods that imbue more energy, such as …

But we didn't want to just stop there. We didn't want to shake up our regular routine. We also added even more cups of …

And then we realized we were treading similar territory to last week's groundbreaking newsletter on foods that improve moods. But is it really such a crime to spend two weeks addressing mood AND energy? Heck, no, Fork readers. Heck no.

If we had a theme song…

Also

-The places to drink and check out murals trend continues in Santa Fe with Honeymoon Brewery—purveyors of fine kombucha who won the 2016 Miller Lite Tap the Future competition—inviting onetime Santa Fe University of Art and Design student Mauriah Creelman to go nuts on a mural this weekend. You'll find Creelman painting it up on Sunday Oct. 21 from 11 am to 2 pm at Honeymoon's Solana Center location (that's 907 W Alameda St. Unit B if you're curious or didn't think to click the link above).

-The Santa Fe Farmers Market handed out their Farmer All Star Awards recently, and the recipients represent a veritable cornucopia of locally minded food folk who know about sustainability. Winners include Mesa Ruiz from La Mesa Organic Farms, Jesus Guzman from Jesus Guzman Produce, the Wood Family from Second Bloom and Matt Yohalem, owner/chef of Il Piatto (which, of course, is Italian for The Piatto).

–Edible Santa Fe has a neat article about La Reina, the newly energized bar inside the El Rey Court. According to Edible, it's all about younger folk leaving a mark in Santa Fe. We agree that's cool, just like we did in April of this year when we said so.

-Reminder that SFR is accepting donations for The Food Depot—and since it's a bin in our front office, you don't even have to talk to us, you can just drop your donation and bolt out the door. We'll probably mention this a lot (the donating, not the not-talking-to-us) in the coming weeks just so we can all help people who aren't food-secure to have a nicer winter.

-This is an Albuquerque news item (SORRRRRRRRRRRY!), but the Texas Roadhouse (which is a chain since ABQ is all about them chains) caught fire last weekend. Sorry, ABQ citizens, but may this help you search out more local eateries while they're dealing with the damage. No one was hurt during the blaze.

-Lastly, do you know about SFR's Secret Supper? You should, and here's how it works. You buy tickets for a special dinner (we'll tell you that there are two dates, Tuesday Oct. 23 and Thursday Oct. 25—but we won't tell you the location), and on the day of, we email you where you need to be for a special menu designed by local chefs. They've proven so popular, in fact, that we've added additional seatings and surprises this year. Tickets are going fast (one seating's sold out already), so you should click right here and reserve your spot.

More Tidbits

-tumblr user sillyrivers (whose blog is called Hi, I Am An Art Hoe) has developed the definitive chart for pairing candy with wines. Perfect for the season? You bet. Will you feel bad about yourself for just a second while you sincerely weigh using the chart? Big time.

-Vegans rejoice, because there's apparently a new sushi roll made from watermelon that either resembles or tastes like tuna. Or maybe it's neither of those things? Whatever. We bet it's OK any way you slice it. Hahahahaha! SWISH!

-Meanwhile, in Italy, a Veneto winery lost 30 thousand litres (that's the European spelling and we'll fight you if you don't like it) of Prosecco recently during a fermentation-splosion. A faulty valve is reportedly the culprit, and we're betting you feel even worse now than you did about the candy chart thing.

-Do you know about stretchy ice cream? It's a thing, baby, and apparently it's been around quite awhile even though we just heard about it right this second. We'll file this in our brains someplace near Dippin' Dots, another kind of ice cream that we'll totally eat even if we don't fully understand why it exists.

-A waitress at a North Carolina Olive Garden took time out of her job to feed a kid so said kid's mom could eat a bazillion breadsticks and smirk in the face of real Italian food everywhere. Kudos to the waitress for being a good person, a pox upon the household of the mom for knowingly taking her kid to eat out at bed time. And we didn't make that up, the mom said as much. And look before you start writing The Fork letters about how people raise their kids and it's none of our business, just stop—we waited tables for basically way too long and your ire shall fall on deaf ears. Here's a tip: If it's your kid's bed time, don't go out to eat.

-You NEED TO KNOW about this recipe wherein Oreo cookies are transformed into acorn-shaped treats thanks to more chocolate and cream cheese and stuff. Oh. Em. Gee.

-Turns out small, decentralized farming is a good thing for sustainability and the planet and our bitchy demands about nutritious options and such. File that under "duh" and move on with your life (by which we mean support your local farmers market).

-Finally, in other annoying news, a USDA algorithm meant to track fraudulent practices with food assistance programs like SNAP wound up permanently expunging retailers even when they didn't do anything wrong. Yeesh.

Finally

You know in the Oliver musical when that one woman goes "Ripe strawberries—RIPE!"? We like that. And don't even get us started on the sweet red roses. Two blooms for a penny? Sold!
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A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork's Correspondence