Looking for cheap and mobile food in Santa Fe? Find it here.

Unfortunately, we at SFR can’t profile every single deserving restaurant in Santa Fe. Hence our list of classics—some of the best restaurants around at achieving excellence, year in and year out. We’re lucky to have such a vibrant food scene—not to mention one with staying power.

Bear with me through this metaphor: Editing SFR’s annual Restaurant Guide is torture.

Just imagine, for a moment, that you are a person who defines “lunch break” as a cup of coffee and some almonds, consumed as quickly as possible while frantically replying to emails and building campaign-finance spreadsheets. Imagine that, after said break, you must read pages upon pages of mouthwatering details about the pâtés, short ribs, chocolate mousses, bellinis, green chile cheeseburgers, breakfast burritos, seared scallops, fried pork bellies and vegan sandwiches that comprise Santa Fe’s rich, diverse, inventive food scene.

See? Torture.

Yes, it’s that time of year again—when we at SFR go out and research the foreign world of healthy living. Journalists are notorious for crouching nervously by their desks all day, overindulging in whiskey when the stress becomes too much. But, as we all learned during this issue, it needn’t be so! Santa Fe is full of fresh air, mountains, healers, teachers and general mindfulness—provided you know where to look. So, this year, we’ve expanded our fitness guide to include not only tips for the happy and healthy, but also some good ideas for those of us who aren’t quite so healthy—who, in fact, may need to heal before we even start the path to wholesome living. So here it is, Santa Fe: the road map to a whole new you. —Alexa Schirtzinger

This past winter, a homeless woman named Martha and her friend Mary, a caregiver at The Life Link—a nonprofit program that provides various types of assistance for homeless and low-income Santa Feans—came to SFR with a story. Martha had met Mary at The Life Link; each wanted to recount the story of Martha’s struggle to surmount homelessness. Now, eight months later, Martha plays an instrumental role in running Santa Fe Need and Deed, a program designed to match local homeless people with Santa Feans who want to help them. “It has been an enormous transition from self-pity and anger to discovery about my own inner workings,” Martha wrote me recently. “There is indeed a richness in poverty that most people are unaware of, and even those who are in poverty cannot embrace.” Although Martha is still “technically homeless”—she’s currently living in a small studio without indoor plumbing—she’s dedicated to helping others like her. “If I can’t use my time on the streets to help and to make a difference, I will not feel good about myself,” she writes. “I have learned empathy, the hard way.” —Alexa Schirtzinger

After the 2010 Census figures came out, revealing that close to 5,000 fewer people aged 25-34 lived in Santa Fe County in 2010 than did in 2000, I began to have this conversation with some regularity, and it always drove me crazy.

It's been an exciting year for Santa Fe's food scene. Exciting isn't always good, though. During the past year, SFR witnessed the closing of three of the best restaurants in town: Amavi, Max's and Real Food Nation. But the departure of some of our favorites also makes way for newcomers.

Either you've done this, or you know someone who has: You work three different jobs, at least one of which is in the service industry, while using your elusive "free time" to build art installations and perfect your telemark squat. Right? In Santa Fe, we do it all.

  There's a lot of buzz about shopping locally--how it creates a multiplier effect that stimulates the local economy, fosters relationships with the people who sell you gardening supplies and designer shoes, etc. But Santa Feans don't really need to be convinced: We're all about the local thing, and we're passionate about the shops and businesses that define our city.

Santa Fe may be a small town, but it was recently named the nation's "most artistic city"--a distinction it surely deserves, if we're to judge by the percentage of people who love/talk/make/buy/support art in any of its multitudinous forms. And while Santa Fe's visual arts have long enjoyed (or suffered from) a reputation for desert landscapes and the like, its current identity is growing and changing in exciting ways.