Ahh, a sure sign of spring in Northern New Mexico: The false comfort in thinking the last frost has passed. Home gardeners are eyeballing their starter plants anxiously, while the wise farmer working the open land keeps plastic tarps, opaque cloth webbing and an alternate heat source close at hand.

In the end, you can't control what kind of mood Mamma Nature will be in from week to week. For all our preparation, today's picnic could segue into tomorrow's piñon fire. Welcome to Northern New Mexico. If you hope to grow a garden green at your palace here, pair that optimism with an equal measure of caution and preparedness.

My first sign of hope for spring's arrival manifested itself in an impromptu stop at the Pecos Farmers Market two Sundays ago. I arrived at the market on opening day, and while pickings and shoppers were certainly slim, the growers and vendors in attendance were enthusiastic.

A bag of small, early-season bok choy leaves was my only edible catch (and it was darn good sautéed with some Chimayó red chile flakes and garlic), but I scored much heavier in the knowledge department after meeting Joyce DePow, a woman heavily involved with P.E.C.O.S.S. — Pecos Ethnobotany Club (coalition) of Students and Supporters, a project of Pecos Valley Sustainable Community Connections.

DePow's organization is dedicated to identifying wild and cultivated plants that grow in my neck of the woods (Pecos/Glorieta) and cataloguing their uses for culinary, medicinal and household purposes. At your request, DePow and her team can descend upon your yard and, after an interview, will scour your land for flora, assigning proper botanical names, common Spanish names and uses — including recipes — to their findings.

The organization meets every other weekend at the community center in Pecos for experimental cooking sessions and tastings that involve area plants. One product of those sessions is A Taste of Pecos Coffee, a cookbook and ingredient guide that re-imagines certain dirt-born goodies as America's favorite quicker-picker-upper. There is, for instance, a section on beet coffee with a adapted from an 1861 Greensboro, Ga. recipe — a remnant of necessity in the face of supply and demand left over from the Civil War — that requires the drying, frying and grinding of washed beets. You'll learn about burdock root coffee, corn coffee, dandelion root coffee, sunflower hull coffee and thistle root coffee, among others.

Tasting notes following each recipe reveal that some of these coffees taste better than others. My beet coffee was actually quite good, although the process takes patience and trial and error. For split pea coffee, the notes in the book state, "Nick smelled it. 'It smells like burnt bacon.' Georgia turned up her nose. 'This doesn't taste like coffee at all.' " But don't throw it out!

Following the coffee section are a number of coffee-drink recipes that beg trying. Page 18 of the book offers up "Brown Eye Piggy Sauce," a barbecue-slow-smoked sauce for pork that works well with baby-back and spare ribs (see recipe below). You can use your favorite Pecos coffee recipe, or, if running low on the burnt-bacony tasting split-pea blend (which seems plausible) you can substitute a medium-bodied brew of your choosing. If you're interested in A Taste of Pecos Coffee or the work of P.E.C.O.S.S., contact Joyce DePow at depowj@yahoo.com or call 505-757-8574. The Pecos Farmers Market runs each Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. next to Canela's restaurant.

To get to the market from Santa Fe, take I-25 North to Pecos exit 299, turn left over I-25 and take an immediate right onto N.M. 50. The market is a few miles down N.M. 50 on the left-hand-side of the road.


You know what goes great with barbecue? Whiskey! In moderation, of course. Santa Fe is now home to Santa Fe Spirits' Silver Coyote Western Whiskey, the first legally distilled whiskey in New Mexico (www.santafespirits.com). Recently, some of Santa Fe's best bartenders and mixologists competed in the Silver Coyote Western Whiskey Cocktail Contest at Rio Chama restaurant to launch the product, and La Casa Sena bar star Alexander Velez's invention was victorious among a stable of 19 stellarly crafted drinks with his "A Coyote in Lynchburg" cocktail (see recipe below).

Second place went to Inn of the Anasazi's James Reis for his "Spiced Biscochito" cocktail, and The Compound's Matias Guillen took third with his strawberry-basil whiskey drink. Silver Coyote is an un-aged, malted-barley whiskey. It's clear as water but packs a serious punch and is, as opposed to a straight-up barrel-aged sipper, a great mixed-cocktail base. Look for the 92-proof spirit at bars, restaurants, and retail outlets in and around Santa Fe. Santa Fe Apple Brandy and Glenkeegan Single Malt Whiskey are next on the release list for Santa Fe Spirits, with the brandy slated for a 2011 holiday-season release. However you celebrate that news, distillery owner Colin Keegan — and I — hope you do it responsibly.


1/3 cup brewed Pecos coffee or substitute, medium strength

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper

1 tablespoon chile powder (red)

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon garlic powder.

Preparation: Mix all ingredients well and apply to the pork (works well for one rack of spareribs). Rub into meat well before grilling or smoking using your preferred method. Don't be afraid to experiment with other ingredients like rosemary, ginger, cinnamon, or nutmeg.



2 oz Santa Fe Spirits Silver Coyote un-aged malted-barley whiskey

1 oz Citry Organic Orange Liqueur

11/2 oz kabosu/key lime fresh sour

1 oz Bangkok lemongrass infused agave nectar

2 oz organic lemon-lime soda

1 oz wlid hibiscus syrup

Preparation: Stir with ice in a cocktail shaker, strain into a chilled pint glass, and garnish with wild hibiscus flower stuffed with Amaro cherries.

Contact Rob DeWalt at rdewalt@sfnewmexican.com.