Courtesy fieldroast.com
Field Roasts are Effing Disgusting!
Allow us to describe our Thanksgiving by saying it was pretty great. Everyone at The Fork's house managed to weasel out of seeing our families because we work hard, dammit, and we just wanted to watch dumb TV and eat too much. Which we did. But it wasn't all fun and games and dumb TV and no family—we had to contend with the Field Roast.
"What's a Field Roast, The Fork?" a lot of you non-vegans/vegetarians are probably asking right now, and the answer is, we don't rightly know. See, The Fork has grown accustomed to any number of meatless meat products (like the Beyond Burger), but this thing was … well, it was something else entirely. We think there was tofu, but we can't be sure, because it was very brown and kind of bread-like. We think they were attempting to emulate the taste of ham, but we also can't be sure on that, either. What we can be sure of, however, is the weird texture and bizarre, tangy taste of the Field Roast. If this thing is named after a field, it must have been a muddy field that, like, a bunch of barefoot people walked through for years on end.
And look, we get it if you love these things, and we can maybe see getting into them down the road once enough time has lapsed between us not eating meat, but, for now, we weren't into it so much.
But we do make killer mashed potatoes, and our partner made this pumpkin pie that involved roasting pumpkin guts and a homemade crust and it was this whole next-level pie situation about which we're still kinda misty.
So we're sincerely curious about what you got into, especially you vegans and vegetarians. If you like meat, you can tell us, too, especially since we're happy to help facilitate some kind of recipe swap. We know some of you think we look down on meat eaters, which we absolutely don't—eat whatever you want, we're not here to shit on that.
But yeah, drop us a line about your Thanksgiving.
Speaking of next-level pies, this video recipe came our way, and we wanna try this so badly it hurts.
Also
-We visited the Railyard Artisan Market last weekend, and were delightfully surprised, not just with the art, but with some of the snacks and such that they have. We also saw this kickass glass blower named Bob Hazletine. His stuff was a little pricy for us, but if you're looking for schmancy glasses to gift this year, this might be the way to do it. You'll find this thing in the Farmers Market Pavilion (1607 Paseo de Peralta) every Sunday from 10 am-4 pm.
-We also recently learned for you gifters that if you purchase $100 worth of gift bucks from Santa Fe Dining restaurants like Rooftop Pizzeria, Blue Corn Brewery, Rio Chama and others, you'll get a $10 card for yourself. You can use it at 35° North Coffee or something.
-Didja hear the fine folks at Santa Fe Brewing Co. are thinking of adding ciders to their already-stellar beer lineup? Well, they are. Turns out it's a different kind of license, but, knowing the SFBC crew, they'll get that license and start churning out some great stuff.
-We don't often like to direct readers to a competing publication, but Molly Boyle over at Pasatiempo penned a fantastic piece on being a conscientious meat eater. And we're not too petty to say you should probably follow Molly's work, because she slays a lot of the time.
-But we're helpful at SFR, too—just check out this week's food coverage for a few local options to eat gluten-free (TK LINK). Sorry if you furreal have Celiac's … and sorry to us for the people in our lives who say things like "If you give up gluten, your depression and anxiety will clear right up!"
-Finally, don't forget we're doing a Secret Brunch on Sunday Dec. 9. You buy the tickets, we give you the location just before the meal. It's fun.
More Tidbits
-We can never eat romaine lettuce ever again! Or at least for awhile. All we know is that something like 34 people ate romaine and contracted E. coli, so be mindful and careful and all those "-ful" words you can be when selecting lettuce. Ask at restaurants, too, because one here in Santa Fe that we won't name kept going with romaine and we had to throw away a salad because we weren't mindful.
-Netflix keeps rolling out the food shows, but we're hearing nothing but good things about The Final Table. The way we hear it, it's about master chefs cooking complicated dishes for discerning judges. We usually like our cooking shows to feature regular people, but we'll probably check this out at some point.
–USA Today is reporting that west coast fast food chain In-N-Out has taken home the title for America's favorite fast food joint for the second year running. The Fork is from California, so believe us when we tell you that In-N-Out is really only OK. Sigh. We're still bummed about Santa Fe Bite.
-File this one under we wish we'd read it when we had a chance, but popsugar.com has some great ideas for re-using your leftover mashed potatoes. That's a lot of recipes and should also be helpful not just at Thanksgiving.
-Speaking of Thanksgiving, check out this piece from Insider which rattles down the list of reasons it is a garbage holiday. Then you should probably write us angry letters about it. But before you do, think about how not everyone gets along great with their families, and how this is a tough time of the year for a lot of us.
-This-here article from Mic came out in June, but we just now stumbled across it and think everyone should read it. It's about the challenges of being queer and working in food. Hopefully it's eye-opening, hopefully we can all realize that if we're straight and/or cis, we should probably just be cool.
Finally
We're warning you now that we'll probably get into some Christmassy stuff soon. We know—it's hard, and we have struggled in dealing with it as well. But we're hoping some good info on food (and maybe some recipes) will help. In fact, let us put out a call right now for recipes. If you have something you'd like to share with other readers (there are thousands of them because The Fork is fun and cool), send them our way and we'll throw 'em in the newsletter. Please? Let's all support each other this year!
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A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork's Correspondence
Number of Letters Receieved
67
*In fairness, we took a week off for the holiday and about 54 of them were auto-replies about vacations and such.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (edited slightly for length)
“How do you get away with this?”
*Consistency.
Actually Helpful Tip (only slightly edited for content) That awesome-sounding mushroom gravy recipe that we can’t wait to trick our partner into making soon! *Oh, crap—our partner reads this! ____________________________________________________________
We already told you about the gluten-free bit in this week's print edition of SFR, but you'll also find mini-reviews of some of our favorite local haunts. And that's not even including the great news and arts coverage we're always pushing out!The Fork-ast calls for us loving you,
The Fork
PS: How many readers did we miss during the holiday?
PPS: We want to be sincere here for a moment and give a big shout-out to the readers who drop us a line to say we brightened your day. Not only do we appreciate that you understand we're a tongue-in-cheek newsletter, it brightens OUR day to know you're enjoying the content. We'll keep it coming during the busy holiday time and hopefully help you out here and there. Cheers!
