Not only has it been a great year for mesquite pods but there are a lot of pine nuts on the pinon trees in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.  I just got back from a week around Silver City and Glenwood, New Mexico.  The mesquites there are honey mesquites. We collected some pods for the Cascabel milling on November 15 that have less black mold and beetle damage.

In Silver  City we visited a former Bisbee Farmers Market vendor from Elfrida now renovating a house within walking distance of the historic section of the town.  Jean Eisenhower teaches classes in food drying, making affordable solar ovens with cardboard and aluminum foil and solar water heaters.  Her directions for building a solar dyer are simple: on top of a sheet of corrugated iron over two saw horses, form shallow trays of hardware cloth and line and cover them with fiber glass screening and hold everything in place with clothespins.  Preserving foods by drying them is very energy efficient as it utilizes the sun’s limitless heat.  Dried foods can also be stored without power or taking up freezer space.  Slice tomatoes and other vegetables and fruits to lay out and cover in the dryer.  Turn them when dry on the bottom. Native peoples and Hispanic settlers dried many fruits and vegetables for winter even pumpkins and winter squash which they quartered, seeded and stuck on posts.

The Southwest Women’s Fiber Arts Collective connects fiber artists in rural southwest New Mexico with one another and with opportunities to sell their work, learn or teach skills and secure materials.  While in Silver City, we visited The Common Thread, an attractive stores full of its members’ creations.  Pick up a copy of New Mexico’s Fiber Arts Trails (or download it from www.nmfiberarts.org) which is a guide to 200 fiber artists at 71 destinations throughout the state including a southern loop of rural studios, galleries and farms.  

In Gila we picked vitex berries and jujubes from the grounds of the former Seeds of Change farm that is now owned by the Nature Conservancy with herbalist Monica Rude. She sells her Desert Woman Botanical products made with ingredients raised on her herb farm on her web site, www.desertwoman.net and at the Silver City Farmers Market.  Monica offers herbal education classes such as Planting Garlic and Echinacea Cultivation.

After a hike on the Catwalk, a suspended metal walk way above Whitewater Creek outside of Glenwood, we spent the weekend in the ghost town of Mogollon staying at the Silver Creek Inn. There proprietor Stan King caters to visitors in the historic J. P. Holland building that he lovingly restored on main street. Friday night we were treated to an apple pie made for us.  On Saturday after a green chile omelet, a day spent hiking around the historic town and mine, picking pinons and a bag lunch with leftover pie, he prepared a gourmet dinner and another pie made with local blackberries. Stan and his partner Kathy Knapp also run the Pie-o-Neer pie shop in Pie Town (open on the weekends, www.pie-o-neer.com) where one of her specialties is New Mexico apple pie which includes local roasted green chiles and pinons.

Sierra  Vista Farmers Market

Reserve a local pasture-raised turkey from the San Ysidro Farm booth for Thanksgiving this year.  You can truly taste the difference as pastured turkey is firmer, leaner and more flavorful. San Ysidro also offers lots of sausage, either of pork (breakfast, Italian, red and green chorizo and bratwurst) or lamb (Italian, chorizo, and South African blend.) All cuts of lamb, nitrite-free and regular bacon and beef steaks also available.  (Also at BFM.)

Lots of produce will be available from Grammie’s Garden (apples, pears, winter squash, potatoes, bell peppers, beans and lettuce), Leo Dunaetz (tomatoes and pumpkins) and back yard growers (lettuce, chard, tomatoes, basil, pomegranates, Thai vegetables and herbs.

Try making an apple pie with honey from Simmons Honey which will bring mesquite and other desert honeys from the last harvest of the season as well as honey comb, creamed honey and bee pollen. The Simmons family also makes many jams, jellies, relishes, pickles, and preserves. Pomegranate jelly and tomato preserves with lemon are fresh this week. Its honey granola is made with organic rolled oats and desert wildflower honey. Gifts from the hive include beeswax candles in votives, tapers, and an assortment of figurines.

Get to the market early for home made tamales from Esperanza Arevalo. Try her mesquite tortillas, mesquite cookies, mesquite corn bread, mesquite apple bread or regular flour or corn tortillas and corn chips fried in olive oil.

Circle T Emu Ranch will return to market with very lean ground yak and emu meats and fillets as well as health promoting emu oil products including lip balm, pure emu oil, joint and bruise creams.

KNR Good Foods will offer local lettuce, various greens and fresh herbs, English cucumbers, Pink Lady apples, Bartlett pears, green and red tomatoes, roasted and seasoned pistachios, walnuts, Ochoa’s red chile powder and Mexican winter squash. (Also at BFM.)

Retired Alaskan fisherman Max McCarty will bring frozen red & king salmon, black cod, halibut, ocean perch prawns, scallops, razor clams as well as salmon jerky and smoked salmon.

Dragoon Marketplace will offer local organic fruit (Pink Lady apples and Bartlett pears), red and green tomatoes, baby heirloom lettuce and sweet onions.  Look for its new batch of Mango Chutney and Apple-Prickly Sauce along with locally made Hot Sauce, Prickly Pear & Mesquite Bean Syrups, pinto beans, pistachios, assorted Barb’s Jams & Jellies and fair-trade basketry.

Little River Nursery in Hereford will bring butterfly magnets such as M. Lemon Marigold, Blue Mistflower, Autumn Sage and a variety of other native plants.

Next Door Kitchen will have Meat Loaf, Roast Turkey in Gravy, Bread Stuffing, Real Mashed Potatoes, Pickled Beets, Pumpkin w/Raisins & Pecans, Banana, Zucchini Pineapple Breads, Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Raisin Craisin, Chocolate Chip Cookies as well as iced tea, water & sodas.

The Sierra Vista (Co-op) Market info booth will have children's activities on seed gathering and gardening coloring pages.  This will be the last chance until the first week in December to become a member and help bring this natural foods store to town.

Also at the market:  Buzz Breads (bagels, artisan and sweet breads, cinnamon rolls), Dr Hummus (4 kinds of hummus, tabouli, stuffed grape leaves, pita chips), Adventure Coffee (fair-trade coffees from around the world.)

Bisbee Farmers Market

Market Season Extended! By popular demand from customers and vendors, the Bisbee Farmers Market will stay open through December 13 with a slight change in its hours to 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  More growers extend their produce with greenhouses and row covers for cold season growing.  The market also includes many unique arts and crafts vendors for very affordable holiday shopping. The cooler temperatures and sunny weather also make lingering at the market more enjoyable. Sample Elvia’s home-style Mexican food for breakfast and lunch, listen to live music from talented local bands (such as Vince Robel & Friends this Saturday) and visit with friends and family.

Red chile ristras and pumpkins are still available from Vernon Smith along with red and green tomatoes, chia, agave nectar and local red chile powder.

Cooler weather and holiday season mean lots of family gatherings, a great time to offer a roasts and stews.  Grass-finished roasts (top and bottom round, rump, chuck and sirloin tip) and stew meat are on offer from the 47 Ranch. Look for the best beef jerky, goat meat and freshly ground peanut butter. (Also at SVFM.)

Spadefoot Nursery will make its last appearance of the season before retiring to its home in the grassland near the Chiricahua Mountains to work on next year's crop of regional native plants. This is the last chance until May to get an Emory oak seedling or a beautiful Apache pine or pick through numerous unusual shrubs and perennials. Petey Mesquitey fans will be happy to know that he will return to the Cochise County Master Gardener's High On The Desert Conference on February 13th. In the meantime he says to “Grow Native!”

Elfrida Community Garden will bring fresh farm eggs, Willcox apples and pears and tomatoes, bags of baby lettuce and spicy greens and a mixture of the two, pok choi, chard, mustard greens, Easter egg radishes, fresh dill and cilantro.  Look for pumpkins, Mexican winter squash, sea salt and rosemary seasoning.

Beatty’s Apple Orchard will offer Ida-Red, Chieftain, Yellow Delicious, Red Delicious, Fuji, Granny Smith, Pippins and Red Rome apples for both markets along with winter squash (butternut, carnival and Moore Gold, a richer, orange fleshed acorn type squash and carrots. (Also at SVFM.)

Pick up a bag of locally roasted Just Coffee from a coffee farmers cooperative in Mexico sold by Roy Goodman.  Fresh brewed cups of hot coffee made from Just Coffee beans is available from the market’s booth under the music tree along with whole wheat donuts.

Rocky Road Chocolate confection is a pot luck or party pleaser made in Bisbee by Bonne de Blas and available in custom gift or party wrapping for any occasion.

Helen Hayes of Azmira Holistic Animal Products has new products at both markets formulated by Planet Earth Remedies: "Pita's Hot Spot - Itch Balm" and Pita's Special Body Balm with Castor Oil.

Also at the market:  High Grade Rubs for meats and poultry, the Montoya family with onions, garlic and shallots and Gabe’s custom wooden cutting boards, mesquite flour from Alice Coleman and Susie Culp (Anaheim and Big Jim green chile and other peppers, cherry and yellow pear tomatoes, beets, carrots and herbs.)