Musings
In Print
LOVE IN A CUP: A STORY OF BLUE CORN AND PLACE
Edible New Mexico,
Feb 7, 2023 | Foodshed, Late Winter 2023
By Cassidy A. Tawse-Garcia
My father dropped me off at her house each morning cocooned in a white bedspread with pink flowers she bought for me. Nana could still carry me then. I was small, and she was healthy. As her goddaughter, she claimed me as what she always wanted but never had: a girl. Most mornings, I uncurled my limbs, wiped the sleep from my eyes, and wandered through the small house toward her smells. Cinnamon pinched in coffee, tomatoes stewing in rice, and holy water. Most often I would find her standing at the stove, presiding over her kingdom—frijol her court, Jesus her advisor. After a kiss and the Lord’s Prayer, she would serve me a floral china mug filled with milky-warm atole—the blue corn porridge of her homeland… read more
Edible New Mexico, Mar 28, 2022 | Farms, Foodshed, Spring 2022
By Cassidy Tawse-Garcia
On a crisp, bright day in November, we convene at Chispas Farm, located off Saavedra Road, once part of the historic Atrisco Land Grant, a system of colonial land capture that established Albuquerque’s South Valley as an agricultural production area starting in 1692. Intersected by serpentine acequias, Chispas Farm is an inlet of agricultural land in an area quickly shifting under the pressures of gentrification. Under the tarp roof of the outdoor pack station, Carlos McCord of FarmShark Farm organizes us into jobs. I take the lettuce heads from Chavez Farms. Maya packs the apple butter (a new value-added product from Chispas Farm), and Liana and Zoey organize the carrot and beet bunches from Ashokra Farm. Ian Colburn of solarpunk farm adds dehydrated apple rings, a collaborative project of Dair’s Apple Orchard, located a bit farther south… read more
Edible New Mexico, Jan 9, 2022 | Foodshed, Late Winter 2022
By Cassidy Tawse-Garcia
I pull into the parking lot just past Cedar Crest Tire on Highway 14 and head for the front door, passing a sign cheerfully announcing, “Pigs Sold Here.” Above the door hangs the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union emblem, declaring that farmers call this place theirs. As I tuck my head into the cozy farm store just twenty minutes east of Albuquerque, the first thing I see is a smile… read more
Crested Butte Magazine Summer 2019
Our Foodshed Grows Up (Pages 62 - 69)
Crested Butte Magazine Summer 2020
Trailblazing With Flair! (Pages 58 - 61)
NY Times ModernLove Podcast Feature - ‘Love in Time of Corona Virus’
We asked you to send us voice memos telling us how this pandemic is changing your relationships. We heard from many of you, from all over the world.
A Eulogy for the Lonely
All of this — the heat, the warmth of the day’s sun on my face, the blood-red blooms — remind me that I am here. I am alive. Like the snake who warms herself on the red desert rocks by day to make it through the cool night, I am inextricably connected to all of this.
The Gospel of Brené: Facing the Deep Dark Hard and Embracing the ‘Newb’ in the Time of Corona
We as humans, do not often willingly take on activities in which we are sure to suck. No, we are indoctrinated to pad ourselves from hard things.