Explore Santa Fe: Lifestyle

During Holy Week, thousands of pilgrims will make the annual journey to Chimayó. Their goal - make it, most of them on foot, to the sacred Santuario de Chimayó by Good Friday. Local agencies are preparing the route to the shrine, about 25 miles north of Santa Fe, for a safe walk and drive.

As we celebrate the official founding of the city of Santa Fe in 1609, those of us who spend our days cooking, tasting, smelling and thinking about food cannot help but consider this milestone and our unique and famous food history. There are some major historical moments that shaped what we eat in Santa Fe. When we enjoy a local meal, we are tasting Ancient Mexico, Pueblo Indian and European flavors—sometimes all in a single bite! Spaniards arrived in Mexico in the early 1520’s, but what was the cuisine like in Mexico and New Mexico before the conquest?

The line that hit me between the eyes was a quote lifted from an article I read in the August 2009 issue of W Magazine. The article was about Naples, Italy. The quote was from Mario Codognato, the chief curator at the Museo D’Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Naples’ museum of contemporary art. “Naples,” he said, “is the most antiglobal, and therefore the most avant-garde, of cities.”

Every town has its raison d’être. Ours is Art. We live for it, we celebrate it, we welcome it into our world like the exquisite familiar it is. Creativity sparks and leaps out from every nook and cranny of Santa Fe’s soul, and nowhere is this more obvious than on Canyon Road, the Arts and Crafts Road.

He’s an easy figure to miss, sort of a blur, as he scurries from one event to another at the Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta — baseball cap cocked at a jaunty angle atop his head and courier bag slung over his shoulder. But when the curtain rises on the first wine seminar at this year’s 19th event, Joe Spellman will be at his accustomed place on the podium as panel moderator. That this is his twelfth appearance at the event gives you an idea of how popular and how valued he is.