The Gift of Desert Abundance
I find things, and grow things and think things, and then make things with the things I find and grow and think. Maybe you will like to enjoy these gifts as well! Plant-based items are limited quantity and seasonal.
Prickly Pears
These lovely cacti can be eaten a few ways. The pads or nopals can be cooked as a vegetable when young (when the spikes are soft). Put in a smoothie, they work as a great colon cleanser. The fruits are a different matter. They can be eaten raw or juiced. I am personally crazy for fresh prickly pear juice, sweetened with agave syrup, and one fresh lime per cup of cactus juice. Some people say it has a raspberry or bubblegum flavor, but it’s pretty delicious AND deliciously pretty!
Prickly pear juice, seltzer, and ice.
Prickly Pear Syrup
This is the shelf-stable version of the juice, made with organic cane sugar and organic limes. It’s great mixed with the clear booze of your choice, or as the base for an extremely glamorous mocktail (as above). Honestly, a couple fingers mixed with seltzer is almost like soda. I am told it also makes great margaritas, but I have not gotten that far with my adventures. My objectively awesome mailcarrier says his dad likes it on pancakes.
Prickly Pear Jelly
Basically like the syrup only with pectin to make it jelly. This is great for jam kinds of things but it also makes very fancy fillings for little puff pastry kind of projects or what have you. Cactus sufganiyot? Why the heck not? Dazzle everyone at that office Hanukkah party!
Low Sugar Prickly Pear Jelly
Made with agave syrup, so the flavor is a little more cactus-y and it’s also much lower in sugar. It doesn’t have that gorgeous pink color, but the flavor is still spectacular.
4 oz jar
8 oz jar
Prickly Pear Pate de Fruit
These soft gumdrop candies are insanely toothsome and I’m not even a candy gobbler. Pate de fruit is vegan and kosher, made with whole fruit and organic ingredients.
Prickly Pear
Straight up prickly pear with lime. Sweet and sour and pink as Barbie.
10 pack
Prickly Pear and Jujube
Jujubes add the sweetness and texture of an apple to the candy. These were the favorites in the test kitchen.
4 pack
10 pack
Prickly Pear and Crabapple
Prickly pear is very neutral so the tartness of the crabapple makes both flavors pop like crazy! My daughter helped me find the yummiest of the crabapples, based on a childhood “eating ditch fruit.” I honestly didn’t know, so thanks, kid!
Cactus Candy - Agave & Prickly Pear
Agave syrup allows this candy to have a quarter of the sugar that the other candies have. In addition, agave (and prickly pear) get processed differently than other sugars, so are a little more diabetic friendly. I make these for a girlfriend who is a Pilates instructor and keeps to a keto diet but still likes her candy. They kind of look like poop. :-(
Chokecherries
Holy cow, chokecherries are so amazing. You find them up in the mountains and they’re like gorgeous jewels. Teeny, tiny, and mostly seed. I’ve been so blessed with my Taoseño friends, who alert me to ripening fruit and once even brought me two pickle buckets of fruit (!!). I like to make cordials with the chokecherries, which are excellent mixers, because just about a finger of cordial infuses the whole drink with flavor. This year I used Madagascar vanilla beans and whole cinnamon to flavor the chokecherries and it’s outrageously good.
Cordial
21 oz flip top bottle
Jam
8 oz jar
Chokecherry Pate de Fruit
4 pack
10 pack
Lavender
Lavender is not native to the New World, but it does flourish here! It’s an important plant in curanderismo to promote relaxation and healing after susto, or magical fright (some call it trauma). My auntie said it helps bring a wandering soul back into the body, and this native-grown French lavender is excellent for that purpose.
Sugar scrub
As a redhead I suffer from sun damage, quel dommage! The sugar scrub is great for gently exfoliating and moisturizing, while soothing my soul in preparation for whatever horrors each day holds.
Salt soak
In curanderismo, salt is used to open the pores so the skin can absorb the healing plant oils. I add a tablespoon to a hot bath and lie back with a glass of wine.
Lavender hard candy
Mmm this candy is so freaking good! You wouldn’t think so but it is.
12 pack
Mother tincture
If you’re doing the serious herbal route, this mother tincture is 80%/20% and ready for use in teas or sublingually.
2 oz dropper bottle
Gingko
Gingko does not grow in the desert normally, but it does grow here! Gingko supports mental function, so if you’re in a state with legal cannabis, it might help!
Mother tincture
2 oz dropper bottle
Wild Plum
The plums that grow in New Mexico are small and tart. Delicious! I’m fortunate enough to have a tree, but I also gather them from wild trees along the acequias.
Plum Pate de Fruit
- tart and mouthwatering plum and cardamom gumdrops.
4 pack
10 pack
Books
I wrote books about New Mexico! They’re funny! I have been told they are great toilet reading. I’ve also heard they are more like a bag of butterscotches than a box of chocolates.
Forgotten Tales of New Mexico
When I was working on a project for the Centennial of Statehood, I kept coming across stories that were too goofy to publish seriously. Read them here in all their lunatic glory. The best one is about the exhumation of Fray Geronimo. You will not believe the adventures that priest had after he died!
Wicked Taos
Why Taos? I couldn’t understand the place until I wrote about it, and then I fell in love. Wickedness takes an awful lot of forms, and I explore the supernatural to the political. What makes this book the best is the gorgeous woodcuts created by various Taos artists in the 30s, and recreated by my brilliant neighbor, Jane Abrams.