The Fork

It’s hot. We can’t sleep well lately. The cats are listless. The birds barely touch the apricots we’ve gifted them from the tree leaning against the house. We wander aimlessly through the thick night, cool, wet washcloth tied around our head like a makeshift bandanna in a vain attempt to quell our internal furnace. In the distance, sirens blare. The dead will be the lucky ones. Just kidding. But yo, for real, we’re beat and we’re swamped and we just were kind of hoping we could all take it a little easy this week.

But it's not like we're gonna leave you high and dry all up in The Fork. We'd never. But rather than give you the incredible history of the apricot (because of that bird situation we were just describing), we're gonna give you a li'l video to watch.

For you see, we once had an intern named Cade Guerrero, and young Cade's fancy was within the world of miniature food documentary shorts. We've shared one or two before, we believe, and we wanted to share the final video, about Tune-Up Café and its owner/chef Jesus Rivera, made before COVID-19 swept the world (and with a cool appearance from SFR super-friend Zibby Wilder). Check it below, and next week we'll probably talk apricots. Probably.

Huge thanks to Cade and the crew for the sick vid!

Yeeeeeah, Tune-Up!

Also

-In case you hadn't heard, lots of restaurants are reopening in limited capacity, and SFR fave Vinaigrette is on that list. Also notable is Vinaigrette's elimination of tipping. Yes, this means you'll pay a little more, but it also means you don't have to worry about a tip, and we know that for some of you, that's, somehow, a really big deal. We're here if you'd like to calmly discuss what this all means.

-Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen is in the news this week as some of its employees say the restaurant didn't pay their overtime fairly—that allegation is called wage theft, and it's one that seemingly happens to a lot of Santa Fe foodservice workers. We'll wait to see how it shakes out, but The Fork believes people should be paid properly.

-Since y'all were soooooo into our cherries missive, you should know that celebrated peach/cherry salesperson Matt Hauser is back right now selling amazing fruit on Cerrillos Road. This link will take you to a slightly older story, but it's also where you'll find him now...in 2020.

-We thank everyone for their James Madison history lesson (except the people with the "Well, actually...." attitude. We do not thank the copy editor for not fact checking our bullshit.)

More Tidbits

-Sorry, people from New Jersey, but it looks like Dunkin' Donuts will close 450 locations by the end of the year. Might we recommend Whoos Donuts, right here in Santa Fe?

-CW: *This next item contains information about racist crap* Employees of a Georgia Jimmy John's sandwich biz have been fired after posting a video online that featured them making a noose out of dough and then playing with it like that's somehow funny in fucking 2020. The video is bound to make you furious. Save your comments unless they're of mystified horror.

-Good news for the lazy, terrible news for struggling restaurants—Uber has acquired delivery service Postmates. Merging that with Uber's already annoying Uber Eats app, and you're probably going to wind up single-handedly killing a mom 'n' pop by the end of the year. This is now the second-largest delivery app/service/platform/whatever inside your phone and on your streets.

-Starting this month, but, like, later, you'll be able to get your hands on Baby Yoda cereal from General Mills. What's Baby Yoda, some of you may be asking? Well, they're this thing from the totally-honestly-really-only-OK Disney+ show, The Mandalorian. It isn't actually Yoda himself, but since George Lucas never named whatever species the Frank Oz puppet came from, we have no real way of knowing. Anyway, it's a thing.

-Lastly this week, cheers to Food & Wine for firing their racist editor-in-chief recently, and more cheers for featuring Indigenous foods activist Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz. “If you live in the US, you live in an Indigenous community. Know where you’re standing. Find out whose land you’re on. Find out their names,” Ruiz says in the interview. Word.

Finally

In the print edition of SFR, not one—but two topics: The newly branded Marquez Deli and cake-in-a-jar from Coquette.

A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork's Correspondence

Number of Letters Received: 37 *Everybody loves James Madison

Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader): "Cherries are disgusting, you know." *Naw, dawg.

Actually Helpful Tip: Something about James Madison. *Seriously, what's with y'all and James Madison?

Having seen Hamilton, The Fork