The Fork
T-Minus Less Than Two Weeks
We can read your mind. You just thought “But, The Fork—Mother’s Day is May 9, and thus still a couple-ish weeks away! I’ve got time!”
But what we’re saying is, though, buds, is that maybe you don’t?
Think about it. Think about it hard. Our next newsletter drops May 6, a mere three days before Mother’s Day, so...what? We’re going to give you three days’ notice? You think you’ll be able to get reservations with only three days notice? For Mother’s Day? In 2021? With restaurants across Santa Fe finally allowed to let people come inside and eat it up? That’s what you think? Can we answer your question with a question? How dare you?
But we digress.
Mother’s Day is coming—and soon. And it’s scary. So here’s some ideas for how to impress dear old mom in 2021.
Make sure mom’s vaccinated, for one thing. Y’know, if you’re gonna go out into public. We read the CDC is saying we can go into the world without masks again as long as it’s not in large groups, but not only does that make us nervous anyway, we’re pretty sure restaurants are big groups. Pretty sure.
Then think about what she wants, for another thing. Y’know, since it’s her day. Like, we’d happily eat burritos forever, but maybe our mom wants something different. Actually, knowing our mom she’s absolutely going to want something different from whatever we plan, so good luck, we guess, just make sure you call around. To restaurants, we mean. See, there’s no telling who is for sure doing a Mother’s Day thing.
For example, Rio Chama Steakhouse is doing a little prix fixe something for brunch from 11 am-2 pm. We’re talking a muffin basket, tempura shrimp, Thai peanut glazed pork belly chicken schnitzel, lobster-stuffed dover sole and a few other things that make it really hard to choose. At $75 per person, it’s maybe not the most affordable brunch of all time, but you can use it against your mom later in a pinch.
Meanwhile, Fork Fren Dianna K suggests choco-dipped strawberries for Mother’s Day after reading last week’s edition on how many freaking strawberries we can eat (it’s a lot, turns out). Dianna says she’s making her own at home, but you can always order them from a place like Edible Arrangements, we bet. Why not go a little fancier and hit up Sweet Santa Fe, where you can get choco-dipped bacon? It’s not for us, we don’t eat meat (in case we hadn’t reminded you this week), but we feel like there are plenty of you out there who just started salivating.
Anyway, The Compound’s doing Mother’s Day brunch, too, though it’s more of a regular “this-thing-costs-x” kind of thing. The special menu is pretty expansive, but the items we think sound the best to people are probably the Pacific swordfish ($26), the crabcake Benedict ($26) and the farmhouse pancakes with orange butter, spring berries and real, actual maple syrup ($16). Also, there’s onion rings.
We also bet if you hurry you could get some sweet treats sent via mail from The Art of Chocolate/Cacao Santa Fe. Our top pick would be literally any one of the craft choco bars, particularly the mini sampler ($65). You can also snag a special three-bar assortment for $30, and if you’ve never had the prickly pear/lime/hibiscus bar from these folks, you’ve never truly lived.
For thirdsies, we haven’t seen a menu yet, but Arroyo Vino is known to host special brunches, so we wouldn’t be surprised if they did a Mother’s Day thing. In case we’re mistaken, know that the wine shop out there is amazing and your mother will almost certainly love some wine.
According to Instagram, El Nido is also hosting a Mother’s Day brunch. We checked the site, but there’s no information on special menus just yet. Still, might be worth popping by online over the next few days to get a look at what’s what. We also know other spots WILL do something for the moms, so just think about the places you like (or the places that seem like they’d have those kinds of things) and drop them a line or a call. We were going to put a croissant list here because getting mom a brekkie c (hahahhahahaha!) is never a bad plan, but we’ve learned trying to play croissant favorites is a bad plan, too.
Regardless, you know what to do if you’re looking for mom stuff to do (and if anyone hears of any other cool brunches, hit us up and we’ll pop them in next week). Just know that it’s also OK to not have a great relationship with your mother or to feel sad about it for whatever reason. To those who’ve lost their mothers, too, we truly are sorry.
Everyone loves a punk rock mom.
Also
-If you, like us, don’t like getting up super early on the weekends because it’s your time and you work hard, dammit, you might be pumped to know the Santa Fe Farmers Market is kicking off its Tuesday markets starting May 4. These events run 8 am-1 pm, which, we know, is still a little early for some, but for folks who have to go to work anyway, there’s no getting in the way of the weekend.
-For the oenophiles out there (that’s wine lovers—learn a book!), the Gruet Winery’s downtown tasting room is kicking off its spring and summer hours right about now. You can be sipping the good stuff Sunday-Wednesday from 11 am-7 pm and/or Thursday-Saturday from 11 am-9 pm. You’ve been informed.
-OK, bear with us for one sec, and don’t get mad and yell until you read the whole dang thing, but we visited new-ish Santa Fe food hall CHOMP over last weekend, and we just have to say that we don’t think it’s quite there yet. Don’t get us wrong—it has all the potential in the world, smells great, has a bar, patio access and some of Santa Fe’s most enticing foodsmiths all up in there like Chef Nath!), but we really think that once it gets a couple more vendors and things chill out with the pandemic a bit, it’ll be amazing. Until then, we’re gonna stay patient.
-Regular readers know we have a food writing crush on the folks at Edible New Mexico, and this-here list of artisan bakeries from around New Mexico reminded us exactly why. Oh, Edible—y’all know how to make us want to actually leave the Forktress of Solitude. Note: We agree with Edible’s choice to highlight Santa Fe’s own Bread Shop, a place pretty much everyone in our office loves. If you’d like to know more, check out SFR’s piece about the bread masters here.
-OK OK OK OK OK OK OK—you heard it here first (maybe, we don’t actually know, but let’s all just agree we were first—there’s a new plant-based café in Santa Fe known aptly as the Plant Base Café. Its tagline “plant-based so good you won’t mind it’s healthy” feels auspicious to us and its menus look incredible. Y’know, buds, it’s a better time to be a vegetarian than it’s ever been.
-Lastly in local biz, we got a few good ideas for strawberries, but we’re gonna hold off another week on sharing with the class to see if anyone out there has any more ideas.
Very, VERY ’90s, but so what??!?! It’s one of the best songs for/about/to moms ever.
More Tidbits
-Goldfish crackers (which our mom says we can eat every day) announced a partnership with Frank’s Red Hot sauce this week. We like the cheddar ones. We don’t like when things are referred to as “flavor-blasted,” and we feel weird about change!!!!
-Chipotle, which is a place we couldn’t possibly want to visit less, is about to give out 250,000 burritos to healthcare workers. While we think this is nice and all, we’re not about to forget how the chain that’s out to ruin good burritos for the world also got slapped with over 13,000 (yes, you’re reading that right) child labor law violations just last year. Reeeeeeee-errrrrrrrr (that’s a foghorn sound).
-Here’s some more info on what the CDC is saying about dining with masks—particularly that those who’ll be eating outside can go totally mask-free. Ehhhhh....we dunno. Choose for yourself, but remember the health of the people is the highest law. One wonders what this means for servers, but if there’s one thing that folks who JUST NEED TO EAT IN RESTAURANTS have made clear, it’s that they don’t care about the servers.
-Oh, good...here come more hard seltzers. Seems numerous new versions from brands like Topo Chico (which is actually owned by Coke), Sonic (which is the restaurant chain that doesn’t understand why people don’t want to work for garbage pay/garbage tips) and Gordon Ramsay (who is actually three smaller angry British men in a chef’s coat) are getting in on the game. Now us? We don’t particularly like that stuff, but if we were going to have some, it would probably be from the Santa Fe Brewing Co.
-Lastly, in food stuff from not just here, click this link to go to a video tutorial about making Gilgeori—the Korean brekkie sandwich. Holy smokes, we want it. If you make one, will you tell us? Send us photos? We like when you tell us what you’re doing out there.
Finally
In the print edition of SFR, things went a little more artsy than foodie this week, but they’ll be back to your regularly scheduled food coverage before you know it.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
Number of Letters Received
49
*We’re glad you also like strawberries!
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“I don’t like strawberries at all. Did you have to do this?”
*Does anyone have to do anything?
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
”Strawberries? How about strawberry kiwi salsa? More strawberry than kiwi. Either with red chile dust or green canned chiles. Just a little onion. No cilantro unless you’re one of /those/ people. A little smoked paprika if you want to feel all European and fancy. Then just enough lime juice to make it right. Exactly how much depends on the kiwis you’re using.”
*Reader Dave P might have just figured out the most amazing thing in the world.
We didn’t want to share this, but we actually found out it’s the law.
