H appy (almost) winter solstice, everyone! In The Fork this week, we honor the timeless miracle of beer and cheese as perfect partners, celebrate the arrival of a new coffee shop to the downtown area, salute a group of budding chefs who are putting their skills to the test to brighten up your holiday table and scratch our heads at some of the newest food-related trends around the globe. One of our New Year's resolutions is to bring you even more local food news and keep you informed about upcoming events. If you hear about something we just have to know, please send detailed information about it to The Fork at [email protected]. And please invite your friends to The Fork's table. The more the merrier!
Froth and Fromage
The fine folks at Cheesemongers of Santa Fe want to help you gear up for your New Year's Eve party with their "Happy Brew Year" class at 6 pm Tuesday, Dec. 29. Sascha Anderson, the shop's director of business development and dedicated cheese educator, teams up with Susan's Fine Wines and Spirits beer buyer and manager Matt Zehnder to pair about six large-format beers (read: bigger bottles) with a selection of cheeses. "We're focusing on beer alternatives to champagne on New Year's Eve," Anderson says, "including 750ml beers, special releases and beers with a flavor profile similar to champagne. That is: yeasty, biscuit-y, delicate fruitiness and the like. On the cheese end, we'll highlight special cheeses fit for a celebration: buttery triple creams, spruce-bound seasonal releases (we like to think of these as essentially bacon custard) and something with black truffle, for sure." You can grab a space in the $50 class here.
Boasting New Roasters
Welcome 35 North Coffee to the neighborhood! Opened on Dec. 14, the business is operated by restaurant group Santa Fe Dining. Currently open daily from 7 am to 6 pm, the spot is located downtown in the Santa Fe Arcade, just below one of the group's other properties, Rooftop Pizzeria. Beans are roasted in-house, and while the main attraction here may seem like coffee, a small and enticing food menu is also available. Manning the kitchen is Santa Fe Culinary Academy alum Suzanne Orrell, who offers up tasty sandwiches, salads, quiches, and (yes!) fresh beignets with berry coulis or chocolate sauce.
Last Chance to Treat Yourself
¡YouthWorks!, a Northern New Mexico nonprofit that engages young people and families in their communities through job training and placement programs, counseling, education and leadership development, is selling holiday goodies to raise money for its stellar culinary program, and Monday, Dec. 21, is your last chance to order.
No, Your Asian Tacos Did Not Disappear
The Bonsai Asian Tacos trailer has moved from its former Cerrillos Road location to a spot at 1599 South St. Francis Drive—you know, where that funky little coffee kiosk is between W San Mateo Road and Alta Vista Street. The trailer's paint job is hard to miss, and tacos aren't the only thing on the menu. Keep your eyes peeled for their lobster roll special. It's sublime.
What Are They Doing? (Probably NSFW)
It's bad enough that we live in a world where women are still sexualized by society to the point of idiocy, but why would you do it to yourself? And why with a hamburger (and no, it's not Carl's Jr.)? A Korean woman is the latest to add to the food-fetish conversation by dancing seductively with food on her YouTube channel, which, according to Rocket 24 News, is extremely popular. To each her own, but I hate to see perfectly good food wasted. Why can't she just rub her face in bread like a normal person?
