For me, the greatness of a city is measured not by infrastructure or employment levels, but by the quality of their hood Chinese food establishments. Luckily for Santa Fe, Chopstix Oriental Food To Go calls the place home.

Leading the way to the living room of her Sunlit Hills home, Victoria Brown is positively giddy. “Here she is,” she says, like a proud mom opening her brag book. “She” is a newly minted art dispenser made from a repurposed 1950s cigarette vending machine, which Brown had delivered just two days prior.

Be it down-home alphabet, Warholian tomato or perhaps sexy clam chowder, few things scream out comfort food quite like soup does. The fine folks at the Food Depot know this.

Idle No More, the international protest movement aimed at restoring the rights of indigenous peoples including Native Americans, staged a protests and silent round dance at the Roundhouse on opening day of the legislative session this Tuesday, Jan. 15.

We get it. Even though we put together the be-all/end-all guide to, well, the end, it never really came. But don’t let loose your trusty pet falcon just yet.

On the corner of Ninita Street and St. Francis Drive is CG Higgins Confections—a veritable Taj Mahal of sweets, of which proprietor and namesake Chuck Higgins is the maharaja.

It’s a nippy January morning and Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker, Jack of many trades, is standing by the Plaza obelisk giving away free hugs.

She’s accompanied by a man wielding a sign advertising the offer and another recording the events on an iPhone. “Free hugs, just for being alive!” the first one hollers at passersby.

Santa Fe-based installation artist Cheri Ibes is out to challenge your concept of ice sculpture. Just don’t expect any swans or woven baskets à la ritzy hotel

Edie Tsong appears to be a little frantic as she spreads out 10-inch-tall cutout letters transported inside an SFR back issue. The clock is ticking, and she has less than two hours to use them to stencil a poem—using canned spray snow as a medium—in the street-facing windows of the Teen Court building.

Being an art and culture authority (in a city that lives and breathes it) is no easy task. Especially when my personal definition of art goes far beyond a painting hung on a perfectly lit wall, or a poignant poem slammed on a stage.