Besides Georgia O’Keeffe? I bet nobody comes to mind. However, the architect who built the Mosque up on the mesa near Plaza Blanca, at Dar-al-Islam, was actually very well known beyond the borders of his country, Egypt. His name was Hassan Fathy, famous for incorporating sustainable architecture and traditional concepts and materials into his designs. 

He was born in Alexandria/Egypt in 1900 and graduated in 1926 from what is now Cairo University, with a focus on architecture and engineering. He soon gained a reputation for creating sustainable and affordable buildings. His designs were concerned with the problems of the poor and tried to improve their standard of living. He became known as the Architect for the Poor and actually published a book by that name. Besides working in Egypt, he also completed major projects in Greece, Iraq, and Pakistan. In 1976 he participated in the U.N.Habitat conference in Vancouver, Canada. He held several international positions and was given a number of prestigious awards. For example, in 1980 he received the Right Livelihood Award, which honors courageous change-makers.
 
When he died in 1989 he left behind a legacy of about 160 building projects which ranged from New Gourna, a housing project near Luxor which used traditional techniques such as adobe bricks and offered shelter for 3,200 displaced families, to elegant private residences in different cities in Egypt,  to the Dar-al-Islam Mosque and Educational Center right here in Abiquiú. Construction began in 1980.

​On one of the most blusterous days of this unusually wintery March, I met with Fatima van Hattum, a soon-to-be PhD graduate and program director at New Mexico’s statewide women’s foundation,  who had actually gone to school at Dar-al-Islam and currently serves on the board. She kindly took some time off her busy schedule to show me all around the premises. We entered the compound from the back, and while I admired the beautiful lattice windows and carved wooden doors of the classroom we were in, Fatima told me a bit about the history of Dar-al-Islam.

An American couple, and other community members, many of  whom had converted to Islam, conceived the idea of founding a Muslim community, a religious and educational center where  people from all over the world could live and study and worship together. Princess Moudi, a daughter of  the late King Khalid of Saudi Arabia, provided some of the original funding. The original founders bought a 5,000-acre area  in Abiquiú because they were attracted to the cultural diversity of the land:  Native Americans, Hispanics, and Anglos all live next to each other.

It was a very ambitious project. They had meetings, studied Islam, read books, and then they started this building. It is all made with adobe, although some of it was finished later, after the school closed.
​
When I admired the doors, I remembered that Fatima’s father, Benyamin  van Hattum, is a master woodworker, and I asked whether he made them?  “Yes, my father made all the doors”,  she replied. “He is a master carpenter, and when they were looking for a carpenter in the community, they asked him, and he did all the woodwork. Some doors have specific verses, often about knowledge, carved into them.”

When Hassan Fathy came to Abiquiú to build the mosque and the other parts of the complex, he  brought two master masons from Upper Egypt who showed the local builders how to construct the domes and vaults with adobe bricks. Although  adobe is also used in New Mexico, the pueblo people use different techniques, Fatima tells me.
​
We’re entering a  dorm now. I admire the style of the window lattices and doors: they’re Nubian, from Upper Egypt, Fatima explains. The window style using triangles is Northern African. Adobe is an Arabic word! It means clay brick. I certainly didn’t know that.

Fatima continues: “At its peak time,  30 to 40 families lived here, when the school was running. It went up to the 6th grade. That’s where my older siblings and I went to school. I was in Kindergarden. Some families lived right here on the mesa.”

“In the early 90s they lost the funding from Saudi Arabia and the  school closed. Dar-al-Islam became more of a retreat center, and its most consistent program has been a Teachers’ Institute. Teachers from all over the country come to learn how to teach about Islam. And in the summer it’s rented out for retreats and camps to folks from all over the country.”
​
“The school employed a lot of people. Dar-al-Islam also owned the Abiquiú Inn, and all the land around it. There was a mechanic, a laundromat; many different businesses employed many people. When the school closed, a lot of people moved away. At its best time, it was a very diverse and lively  community,” 

We next enter a recent addition, built in the last five years maybe. It’s a retreat space, rented out to groups and  workshops, to larger groups from different programs, all related to Islam. The governance of the organization has changed over time after the school closed, it was managed more from afar. But this is changing again: there is a new board since last year, and Fatima and other locals who grew up in Abiquiú are members. The  consensus is that it’s a space for Muslims and Non-Muslims, a space for contemplation, prayer, and reflection for community and friends.

Fatima takes me to the  library: “They put a lot of effort into the collection. There are Arabic books, English books, all about Islam. Also books about the different regions of North Africa and the Middle East. There are sections for Fine Arts, Education, Language and Literature – sections related to a broad range of subjects. Ideally, in the future, everyone in the community could use the library”.

We enter two other courtyards. “During recess, this is where we kids would play. Some of the classrooms opened onto these courtyards”.

The big building  had  classrooms for all the different grades. It leads to the new part, and then to the mosque.

“The mosque was the first building that was built, everything else was subsequently built. It is ALL adobe – the entire compound. This is an incredible feat. The architect gave lectures and workshops. People came from all over to learn”. Fatima explains the building process some more:  “It’s similar to New Mexico adobe, the way the bricks are made is similar, but the domes, squinches, and the vaults are different.” We are in an adobe dome, and Fatima tells me to stand in one corner and  put my face in that corner. She then stood  in the opposite corner and whispered something – it came across loud and clear, out of MY corner, loud enough  so that I could hear it! These interesting acoustics are also in the Mosque.

(To see lots of photographs from the construction of the adobe buildings, click here).
We take our shoes off so we can enter the Mosque. The beauty of the space combines New Mexican and Middle Eastern art. The latillas and vigas are so New Mexican, and the windows are North African.
​
We enter the room where people wash before going to pray. And now we see the front door – we had come in through the back door, the school. During the summer, people pray here every week. We look at the walls: they’re incredibly thick,  four to five  feet.

Fatima had just defended her PhD dissertation, so now she has more time to dedicate herself to a project about the local history – documenting the oral history of people here,  with stories of people who have lived here. She feels that the lessons of the past are so important, that we need  to preserve and learn from its wisdom.
​
Once outside, we reach the  playground. On a bright day, one can see the Pueblo de Abiquiú, the valley, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, but today everything is grey.  Dark grey, light grey, almost white – it swallowed up everything that is more than 100 yards away. But the interesting journey that Fatima took me on, into the past, into different cultures and continents, made me forget the bleak weather. I enjoyed her knowledge and commitment.

I don’t often read the Sun newspaper, but I picked up a copy while grabbing some sinful and embarrassing snacks from the dollar store the other day. I do sometimes follow the articles about local government and events (for example the ongoing NCSWA trash debacle). And, this paper has the most outlandish and plentiful police reports I have ever seen. Anyway, deep in the classified section, I saw a small ad announcing an “experimental pop up eatery near Espanola.” It only had a phone number and was pretty vague and cryptic. I love a good mystery and was intrigued, though also on guard to it being a scam. I called the number and was answered by an even more cryptic outgoing message, asking me to leave my contact so, warily, I left my number.  I was called back on the same day by a pleasant and young sounding man who asked me some questions, mostly pertaining to my interest and experience with food and unusual places that I’ve dined at. He then invited me and one guest to the Espanola Airport on Saturday at 5pm (wait, Espanola has an airport?). He gave me a code word and told me to recite it to the staff that would meet us and, presumably, other people who saw the ad and were deemed worthy of this clandestine invite.
​
Hoping we had nothing to lose by showing up, we drove to the airport the next Saturday with excitement and trepidation. There was a huge white circus-like tent, the biggest I’d ever seen, out in an open field near the runway. It looked brand new and we couldn't see what was inside from the parking area, as it was completely walled to the ground with only a small opening visible from our distance. Weirdly, there were a few horses and, I think, a llama, kind of blocking the entrance.  I’m thinking, ok, a catered feast at the airport with maybe a cowboy theme?  Strange, not super exciting, but we were game. We were met by a large shuttle, asked for the code word by the driver, then taken to the tent. I counted 30 people, so I assumed at least 15 had responded to the ad.

​We were told to walk into the small doorway, single file. It was very dark inside. Once through a short, near blackout, tunnel-like hallway, we entered a larger space. There was a dim glowing blue light and it was barely light enough to see my wife’s or anyone else’s face. Once my eyes adjusted somewhat, I saw a surprisingly small oval room, probably about 40 feet long and 25 feet wide. There were 15 very nicely set and plated tables, each with only two chairs and all on the outermost edges of the room against the wall. In the middle, on large round tables, were colorful, pyramid shaped stacks of food, maybe fruit and cakes and an array of silver pans with sterno flames? Too many to name and too dim to really understand what I was looking at. But, it was all very inviting and comfortable and strange.

​We were each guided to a table with our respective partners and asked if we preferred red or white. This could only mean wine, so we opted for red. It turned out to be a 2013 Malbec from St. Helena, one of my favorite towns in the wine region of California, and a very good year! When the wine arrived we were asked to hand over our phones and told that we would be given them back at the end of the evening. Ok then…

Pleasant, taciturn and efficient waiters brought several small plates to our table filled with very eclectic and very delicious tapas. There were succulent bbq ribs, bacon wrapped dates and small spicy deep fried jalapeños filled with a rich, creamy cheese and some sort of nut, pecans, I think. We were eating up all this mystery, wondering what the catch was and how much was this going to cost when the room started to vibrate and hum, but quietly and smoothly. Then it felt like we were thrust up, crazy fast, but again very smoothly, and the room was filled with blue, sunny light. Each table had a curved window twice as large as the table and floor to ceiling in height. It was brain twisting to try to make sense of what we were seeing. It looked like the sky, the sky at 30,000 feet, like high up in a jet, but we weren’t moving, we were, uh, hovering. What is happening here!!? We all looked at each other in disbelief. The floor started to pulsate with warm, inviting light, and then gradually louder music filled the room with a rhythmic beat. The calm waiters kept bringing out food, now on bigger plates filled with sophisticated concoctions seemingly from all parts of the world. There was Baingan Bharta, one of my favorite eggplant dishes from India and a Chicken Cacciatore, rivaling any I’ve tried in central Italy. All this amazing food and the never ending flights of wine and music and now, dancing, took me to another place. A dreamlike place where we all happily embraced the intoxication with relaxed joy. Were we drugged? During a hypnotic spin on the dance floor, my wife looked at me with the same awe and wonder we shared way back when we were falling in love for the first time. It was a beautiful moment and I can still feel like it just only happened a moment ago. Then the music softened and the floor lights started to fade, and we all seemed to come back to reality and I noticed that the windows were now dark. The waiters had cleared all of the tables, our wine glasses had disappeared and that same dim, blue light was back. Abruptly, the small door opened in the “tent” and we were all gently herded towards it, handed back our phones in the now dark, open night and put back on the shuttle.

The entire evening is blurry and distant now, like maybe the whole thing was a dream. But the memories of it my wife and I share to the tee. I’ve driven back out to that exact location where the tent was. There is no sign of it ever being there and it seems impossible that it ever could be. But I’m thankful I was able to snatch these few photos before they took our phones away. It was a truly mind blowing dining experience I doubt I’ll ever top. And, we never did get a bill…
​

`Jessica Rath​
 
Maybe you remember that the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Espanola had a Discovery Day on  Saturday, March 11th. The Center is such a fantastic source of research and exploration in our area, and their work with injured wildlife is so much appreciated, that we wanted to follow up with a deeper look. So, we reached out to Ambassador Animal Specialist Raelynn Archuleta who kindly agreed to an interview with me. 

It was a pleasure to meet with a young person who is enthusiastic about her job. Clearly, Raelynn’s dedication to the animals she cares for is 100%. She grew up in El Rito and got a Bachelor's in Wildlife Fisheries Conservation Ecology from New Mexico State University’s main campus in Las Cruces.

“When I graduated in 2021, I started as a volunteer here at the New Mexico Wildlife Center, mostly while I was looking for jobs. Then I decided to do the internship that was offered. After that, I got hired as part time staff and finally full time staff as this is what I really wanted to do,”  she told me. “I've always been interested in wildlife, ever since I was little.”

I asked her about the animals at the Center; are there any endangered species? “The walkabout path that we will visit shortly hosts our ambassador animals. They are non-releasable, mostly due to human impact, human imprints, and because of really bad injuries that they had. Some of our injury ambassador animals cannot be released because it can be fatal. Our hospital site can rehabilitate and release animals whenever that’s possible and is closed to the public. Manchado ( a Mexican Spotted Owl) came to us in 1998. He was found on a highway in the mountains of south central New Mexico, most likely hit by a car. He had a serious head injury. Then, during care, one of the rehabilitators noticed that cataracts had developed in one of his eyes from the injury, rendering him unreleasable. There are less than 2500 Mexican Spotted Owls in the United States and they are listed federally as a Threatened Species. This makes  Manchado a rare and unique Ambassador Animal for his imperiled species."

J.R.: What exactly is a human imprint?

R.A.: Unfortunately, once a bird imprints on whoever feeds it first, this becomes irreversible. We have a couple of new human imprint animals here. People think that they're doing the right thing but actually they are doing the bad thing. When you see an injured animal, you should not talk to it or feed it. You should call the nearest wildlife rehabilitation center as soon as you can. Once an animal gets imprinted, it can’t be reversed. If you feed it from when it’s a baby, it will imprint you and think that you're its mom. It won't try and feed by itself. Because we’re  humans and not birds, we can't really teach them their natural behavior like their actual mother would.
​
J.R. That's good to point out. We tend to think we’re doing the right thing – there's a sick bird and you feel like you can help it. But that's a bad thing.

​R.A. That's also why there are a lot of signs, like, don't feed the wildlife. Once one person feeds it, more people are going to feed it. And that's when the animal is going to associate people with food. And that's when human and animal conflicts start happening.

J.R.:Let me ask you about Dyami: How did he become an ambassador here? What is his history?

R.A.: “Dyami” is Native American for “Eagle”. He came to us from Virginia in 2015, where he had fallen out of a nest as an eaglet. The previous vets who took care of him found out that he had developed cataracts at a young age. They thought it might have been a genetic thing. He also had a wing injury, probably from falling out of the nest.  After several surgeries and physical therapy it was determined that his flight capabilities were permanently limited.That’s why he was deemed non-releasable. He was placed with the New Mexico Wildlife Center as an Ambassador Animal in 2017. And after he got transferred to us, after about a year and a half, he got beat up by a rat! We don’t know exactly how it happened, but the rat did some serious damage to him. He went back to the hospital, and when I started volunteering, he was doing recovery there, and that’s how we first met.

When I became an intern he was released from the hospital and put into a new enclosure. I let him recuperate and settle in a bit. The previous coordinator had let me do some animal care, and she saw a connection that we had.  I was soft-talking him, I had never been the “bad” person, so I started with him learning to re-trust humans. He took small baby steps, but we both learned from each other. To be able to present him on this last Discovery Day it took almost a year of trusting and bonding with him. When I was here as an intern I came at least three times a week for eight hours. When I became a seasonal worker, I was here five days a week for eight  hours. Same thing with full-time, working 40 hours a week. I mostly spend an hour at a time training with him, associate him with choice base training, positive reinforcement, and to gain his trust.

He is about eight  years old. That’s still pretty young. Bald eagles normally don’t get their white heads until their fifth to seventh year. He’s not really “bald” – this comes from an Old English word “bala”, which means "white patch, blaze".

J.R.:How old can Bald Eagles get?

R.A.: Bald eagles’ lifespan in human care is 40+ years. In the wild, it is 20 – 30 years if that, because they lead a dangerous life, fighting for food and shelter, finding a mate. Also, Bald Eagles were endangered due to lead poisoning and pesticides.

J.R.:What is your relationship with him? Is there a loving connection?

R.A.: We don’t use the word “love”; they’re not domesticated, not like pets. It’s more like a trust-bond. He doesn’t necessarily love me but he trusts me. He recognizes me. It’s the first big animal I care for as a trainer, and we passed several milestones that have been recognized – this made me very emotional! More than him! [She chuckles].

J.R.: This must feel very special, to have a wild animal trust you – must make you feel good.

R.A.: Yes, especially in our training: when he does something I know he can do, that’s really great. He does have his bad days too, when he just doesn’t want to do anything. Like today, when it’s cold and wet. So then we’ll do some positive choice base training, for example: if he comes and sits down on my glove and takes some treat from me I’ll call that a win for today.

J.R.: Is the training  for stimulation, to give him exercise?

R.A.: Food is his main motivator, he’s a wild animal: he knows that if I do this, I’ll get a reward. We don’t use any negative reinforcement. We use LRS – Least Reinforcement Scenario. Training is also for educational purposes, and for outreach. And to get him physically moving. For if they just sit there, their health and QOL (Qhality of Life) begins to decrease.

J.R.: What does he eat?

None of our animals get live prey. We mimic what he would eat in the wild. Mice, voles, quails, chicks, and rabbits – cut up. But bald eagles mostly eat fish, they will steal the fish an osprey has caught! They’re scavengers too, if it’s already dead – they eat it because it saves them work.

J.R.: What are your future plans?
​
R.A.: This job is a door-opener, eventually I’d like to work with bigger exotics, but I want to get as much experience from here as I can. I envision zoos, aquariums;  somewhat bigger facilities.

​We continued our conversation at the eagle enclosure.

Interview with Leandro and Vangie Valdez
​~ Jessica Rath

“Everything has changed so much since I was young! We had no cars, but horses and horse buggies. My Dad did all the farming with horses, he had no tractors.” This is what long-time Coyote resident Leandro Valdez told me when I visited him and his wife recently. I wanted to find out more about Coyote’s past, and they graciously agreed to an interview.

When I entered their kitchen, I noticed a prominently placed photo on the wall: It was from Leandro’s 80th-birthday bash at the high school in Gallina, which I had attended too. Hundreds of guests were there! Leandro and his wife Vangie are the third couple from the right; the other six couples are his three daughters and three sons with their spouses.
 
I soon learned that a lot more had changed since the time of horse-buggies. Coyote used to have a highschool – the Charles Lathrop Pack School! Arthur Pack, then-owner of Ghost Ranch, donated the funds to build the school, and he named  the school in honor of his father. He sold Ghost Ranch to the Presbyterian Church in 1955 and, together with his wife Phoebe, was the original donor for the Presbyterian Hospital in Espanola.
 
When Leandro graduated from highschool in 1956, there were lots of children attending the school, some of them were bussed from grade schools in Youngsville and Cañones. “Every Sunday we had baseball games. There was a team in Coyote, a team in Gallina, one in Cañones; and they even had rodeos in Gallina”, Vangie told me. “There used to be over 100 kids just  here! Now, kids come from Lindrith, Cañones, Youngsville, etc. to go to the high school in Gallina, but altogether there are less than one hundred. People don’t want to have kids any more. Plus, people moved away because there’s no work here.”
 
Before, people were working for the lumber companies, and there was lots of logging in this area. There used to be a lumber mill in Gallina, and another one between Coyote and Youngsville; a lot of people would go to work there.
​
“When I went to school in Gallina, there were lots of students – black students, white students. The parents would move to Gallina from all over the States, there was so much work because of the lumber mills”, Vangie said.

​Also, there were six stores in the area, not counting the two in Youngsville. Two in Coyote, two in Arroyo del Agua, two in Mesa Poleo. And across from the post office there used to be a restaurant.
 
I asked Leandro why the work stopped: “Because of environmental protection – there were endangered species such as the spotted owl and salamanders, things like that. So they stopped the Forest Service from cutting timber. Now, they can cut only a small amount, to thin the forest out. At that time, the lumber industry, the Forest Service, and the schools were the main employers here.”
 
Leandro worked for the Forest Service some 25 years, until he retired. Before that, he also worked in the logging industry for several years. And before that, after he graduated from highschool,  he joined the military and was sent to Korea. The US Army was stationed there to protect South Korea and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He was 17 years old and stayed for ten months. A tragic accident which killed his brother who was 15 at the time forced him to get a hardship discharge and return home. His brother went on a school picnic at the Chama River near where the dam is now (which hadn’t been built yet). The river was about 12 feet below the road; the river itself was about 4 feet deep but had risen all the way to the road – 16 feet deep. The bus went around a corner, and the road had already been swept away – his brother drowned.
 
Leandro returned to Coyote in 1958 and finished his tour with the military as a National Guard, even after he and Vangie got married in 1961;  every summer he had to go for several weeks. He started working for the Forest Service, and he learned to work the pumper unit; there was no Fire Department in Coyote yet. He  had a crew of fire fighters, and they would travel all over the US for the Forest Service, wherever  there were fires. Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Arizona, Tennessee, Kentucky – he was the crew boss. In 1974 he became Fire Manager Officer, because he had experience with the administrative part. He had taken a correspondence course about computers; that helped him when he worked for the Forest Service. “At first, they said: we won’t have any computers here! But two years later, they had them” Leandro told me.  Everybody had to learn for themselves how to operate them. The correspondence course helped him.

​I was curious to know how the two had met! It happened at a wedding dance in Gallina; Leandro and Vangie’s brother had already been close friends. Leandro  asked her for a dance, and after that, they knew they’d be together. Vangie said that her Mom was very strict; for example, when Leandro wanted to take her to a drive-in movie in Regina, she was allowed to go only if her brother would come along too – as chaperone. Yes, there was a drive-in movie theater in Regina! There used to be a lot of entertainment here!
​
 After many people moved away, the stores would close, one after another. The store across from the post office (the only store that was still open when I moved here in 2009) used to have a laundromat. But then people bought their own washers and dryers; people didn’t use the laundromat any more and this store also  closed eventually. 

Recently somebody bought the store again. But to make the gas station work  would require a lot of money – new tanks and new pumps, because what’s there is outdated. If it would be a 24-hours gas station, it may work. Right now, people have to drive to Abiquiú or to Regina to buy gas. It may be convenient to be able to get gas in Coyote; however, if it’s a lot more expensive, people might think twice.

In 2001, the New Mexico Magazine published a lovely article about Leandro and his way of life, written by Alice McSweeney. I didn’t ask how she knew about him, we had already chatted for almost two hours. But there’s no question that he and Vangie can look back at a rich, fascinating, fulfilled life. I’m glad that their memories and the history of this region is being preserved in different ways. 

For the first time in my long, poultry tending life, I ran out of chicken food and didn’t even notice. So, the wife and I jumped into the car and bee-lined to Country Farm Supply on Riverside Dr. in Espanola. I love going to this store! It smells like fresh straw and sunny dust. I’m always greeted by denim wearing young men who address me with old-timey respect from days long gone. I looked, again, for a 1” x 12” tractor pin to keep my backhoe from slowly dropping to the ground, but they only had every other size on the planet. Do I have a weird backhoe?
​
Going to this store is always a little dangerous for my bank account. I try to avoid going into the huge back two rooms filled with sexy cowboy clothes. Think, “Dancing with Wolves”…Floor length, split sided, slung back coats and Carharts in every cut and color. Boots, Stetsons, wood stoves, Acequia gate valves, lawn equipment, flower seeds and, wait, I came for chicken feed! I finally made it out of there with just four bags of layer pellets and a Big Hunk, my favorite candy bar.

It was getting too late to go home and cook dinner, so we decided to cross the road and try the Center Bar in the Santa Claran Resort and Casino. We rarely gamble, but sometimes, I don’t mind the flashing lights, and the clamor of bells, whistles, dings, chimes, etc. that creates that unique slot gambling soundtrack. We chose a cozy booth and were quickly addressed by a pleasant young woman with water and menus in hand. She asked us if we wanted a straw.
Finally, a server asked, instead of assuming! We always carry our own reusable straws, in hopes to help save the ocean from becoming one huge straw glump.

We ordered the Nachos con Pollo and Guacamole, and substituted green for the listed red chile. We also ordered the Chicken Fried Steak and a half rack of BBQ Ribs. Clearly our intention for a small dinner had morphed into a table filling feast!

The nachos were gigantic and hot and slathered with, dare I say, too much cheese? The pintos, shredded chicken, sour cream and guacamole were aplenty. Had we made it even close to finishing this bountiful mountain of yumminess, we’d definitely need more chips to scoop up all of the melty richness. We stopped ourselves and turned our forks, and focus, to the other two huge plates of food on our table. My one bite of the chicken fried steak was all that I hoped for.

A crispy, well pounded cut of beef slathered in loads of creamy, white gravy. “Meh” on the side of peas and carrots, but I loved the creamy mashed potatoes literally hidden under the huge steak.
We each cut off a chunky rib from the (thank goodness!) only half rack, and were very pleased with the smoky, red chile and brown sugar glaze. The fries were coated with a crunchy mystery and fried to crispy perfection. Slaw is not my thing and was not a shining standout to this smorgasbord filling our table.

We quickly realized that we were not going to get anywhere close to eating any more of this feast, so we loaded up our large to-go boxes with enough food for several lunches and dinners and even breakfast, as we live by the credo that anything is breakfast if you fry it up and put a fresh egg on it!

All in all, a very fulfilling meal and easy on the pocketbook for tapping out at just over $60.00, tax, tip and all.

On a clear, cold day last week, my wife and I set out to pick up our new puppy, Buttercup, from
the Stray Hearts Animal Shelter in Taos. She’s a chubby ball of shy, cuddly, beauty and we are thrilled to have her join our family.

Always looking for a warm, inviting place to eat delicious food, we opted for Socorro’s Restaurant on Highway 84. The parking lot is almost always full as I drive by, and seems very popular with our local law enforcement, as there are often police vehicles lined up at the front of the lot. I’ve been nabbed by one of those guys, so watch out!

We were greeted by a young woman and told to choose any seat. The dining room is surprisingly
small during the winter. There are several outside dining areas that look quite inviting during the warmer seasons. There were only 2 tables available at 1:30 pm, so maybe it’s always full?
We ordered the Stuffed Sopapilla with chicken and green chile and a Taco Salad with ground
beef. Once the plates came out, we dove into it so quickly that I forgot to take a picture of it before we messed it all up!

The taco salad looked small at first, but proved to be very fulfilling. The house made tortilla shell bowl was crispy, flavorful and complimentary to the nicely seasoned ground beef, fresh veggies, avocado and a small side of un-spicy house salsa. I’m a huge fan of blue cheese and ranch dressing on anything. As they don’t have blue cheese dressing, I opted for the ranch, which was delicious and upped the decadence of this “salad.”

The winner here is the chicken in the stuffed sopapilla. The shredded, bite sized pieces of tender meat were grilled to a perfect subtle crunch. Throw in some melty cheese, pintos, green chile and Yum! My only nitpick here was the bits of ground beef in the green chile. Note to self and vegetarian compadres for next time.

I ordered a small side of carne adovada to go. It was perfectly smoky and spicy in my quesadilla
the next morning. All in all, it was a satisfying meal and I would return when seeking a low key eatery with true New Mexican flavors. My girls got to enjoy some of the leftover salad shell bowl. They gobbled it right up!

~ Jessica Rath

​Did you notice the acute accent over the second “u”? Some websites and printed articles use this spelling, while others do not. Maybe it’s because I was born and grew up in Germany, but for as long as I can remember, I was a stickler for correct spelling and pronunciation. Therefore, I found it puzzling that there were two ways to spell the name but only one (as far as I could hear) to pronounce: I had always heard it with the stress on the first A, or ['æ-bɪ-kjuʷ]. The Spanish language uses accent marks to indicate which vowel or syllable should be stressed, and Abiquiú should be pronounced with the stress on the second U, or [a-βi-'kju] (with thanks  to Len Beké, doctoral candidate at UNM who specializes in New Mexico place names, for the correct phonetic spelling). ​

​So – I concluded that Abiquiú must be wrong, I had only ever heard Abiquiu, even from Spanish-speaking people. But where did this come from? Why would there be an accent mark on the last “U”, when the stress was on the “A”? I realized I had to look deeper, and soon found out that the current village was the site of a much older Tewa settlement. In fact, Native peoples had populated the area of the lower Chama River for more than 10,000 years! 
 
Ancestral Tewa Pueblo people had lived along the Rio Chama from around 1300 AD to the early 1600s. Poshuowingeh, 2.5 miles south of Abiquiu, was occupied from around 1375 to 1475. The Tsama Pueblo, an address-restricted area near Abiquiu, was occupied from around 1250 until around 1500, and Sapawe (or Sepawe) Pueblo, near El Rito, another ancestral Tewa site, was occupied from around 1350 until around 1550.

It’s fascinating, if difficult, to imagine life in these villages or cities before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the southwest. Chaco Canyon, for example, was an urban center of impressive proportions, with “suburbs” reaching as far away as 155 miles. Some 30,000 to 40,000 people are supposed to have inhabited the whole region, with a few thousand residing in the great houses in the center. These were impressive multi-storied structures, up to four stories high, some with balconies, and some with 600 and 800 rooms. ​

​Other pueblos closer to Abiquiu were smaller, with Poshuowingeh (“Village Above the Muddy River''), for example, consisting of about 700 ground floor rooms, each being two or three stories high. Two plazas and a large kiwa completed the town. They  were growing their  traditional crops in fields on the east side of their pueblo.

​Closer to the Pedernal is another Tewa village, Tsi-p’in-owinge', or "Village at Flaking Stone Mountain".  The pueblo was built around 1275 A.D. At its peak, more than one thousand people lived there. The pueblo was abandoned by 1450, long before the Spanish arrived in the mid-1500s. The multi-story pueblo was constructed of stone blocks quarried from the volcanic tuff (a welded ash material). Piñon nuts, juniper berries, ferns, willow reeds, and the fruits of the cholla and prickly pear cactus were some of the useful plants collected from the streams and woodlands. The people hunted in the mountains and along the Chama River to the north. They grew corn, beans, and squash in gardens located on the mesa and along the streams below.

​When I researched  the question of the pronunciation of Abiquiu, I came across an article on the website for  New Mexico's History and State Records Center which claimed that the word “Abiquiu” had its origins in Tewa language. But what does it mean and how would it be pronounced? I sent an email to the current State Historian, Rob Martinez, and Deputy State Historian Nicolasa Chávez , and explained my predicament concerning the pronunciation. Mr. Martinez’s terse answer made complete sense and I felt like an idiot for not having thought of it: “When I say it in English, I accent the A. When I say it in Spanish, I accent the U.” Yes, sure, but…  Ms Chávez  was more explicit: “I  think the pronunciation with the emphasis on the first A is most likely the anglicized version of the spelling and pronunciation with the accent mark over the U. That said, the accent mark was probably a Spanish addition and the spelling a Spanish version of a Tewa word.”  Now I can see better what happened: the Tewa word stressed the last U. When the Spanish wrote the word, they added the acute accent to the U to indicate where the emphasis should be. And when the Anglos read the word they ignored the accent and stressed the A. Now I just had to learn something about the original Tewa word!

Luckily, I found Dr. Melissa Axelrod, Linguistics Professor Emerita at UNM, who specializes in Native American languages. She forwarded my email to UNM doctoral candidate Len Beké, who wrote back: “Pronunciation in Spanish is [a-βi-'kju] with final stress;  English pronunciation is ['æ-bɪ-kjuʷ] with initial stress. No idea about Tewa. Initialization of stress in borrowed place names seems common for English generally, e.g. Amsterdam has final stress in Dutch but initial stress in English”. Well, I didn’t know this about Amsterdam, but I really wanted to find out about the Tewa word, so I asked Dr. Axelrod for help once again. She contacted Andrés Sabogal, a linguist who works on Tewa, and he sent me the last puzzle piece: “In Tewa it has final stress and like Len said the initial accent is the English pronunciation.  In Tewa this is a compound word meaning chokecherry path, Ávé-shú' and the stress always falls on the second member of the compound, its head, in this case shú'.”

When I researched  the question of the pronunciation of Abiquiu, I came across an article on the website for  New Mexico's History and State Records Center which claimed that the word  
Chokecherry Path! What a lovely name. I bet the current citizens of Abiquiu still collect them to make jam and other preserves, just as they still harvest watercress, purslane, chimajá (spring parsley), piñon nuts, and many other wild berries, nuts, and herbs. I was thrilled to find wild raspberries one early summer in the Santa Fe National Forest – nothing tastes better than foraged edibles!

Back to my original question. I’ve decided that Abiquiú is indeed the correct spelling AND pronunciation, based on the original Tewa word Ávé-shú'. Writing in English while leaving the accent mark out means you misspell the word. It’s a bit of a bother with an English keyboard, but it’s worth the effort – what do you think?

Today we went to Espanola to run a few errands and grab lunch. First stop was JC’s Auto and Tire Shop at 711 N Paseo De Onate, Espanola. We called the day before to see if they could fix a flat tractor tire and arrived at 10am, but no one was there. After knocking and peeking through the glass door, we were quickly answered by a series of beeps coming from above our heads. We looked up and heard a friendly voice say through the VivintⓇ security camera “We’ll be there in 15 minutes.” So, we did some nearby errands and came back to a bustling, open shop. We were met by JC himself, a super friendly, handsome man that both my wife and I left with a small crush on. He was not able to repair our tire because it needed an unusual inner tube. Too bad because it would have only cost $25.00. But we did make an appointment to get our car detailed next week (He quoted $65). See future review for the outcome.

We then found ourselves at a welcome addition to Espanola called El Pilar Restaurante at 107 S. Riverside Drive. You may recognize the name as it has been a local favorite food truck for the last 7 years parked near Wells Fargo. We’ve never tried the food and were hungrily eager to do so. We walked in from the chilly day to a nice warm dining room and a very pleasant aroma of good eats wafting from the kitchen. Mia, the only server on duty, told us to seat ourselves and was very kind and attentive throughout the meal.

We ordered the Tostada con Pollo as an appetizer. A heavenly concoction of creamy chipotle sauce drizzled over a hefty pile of roasted chicken, lettuce, tomato and refried beans, on a perfectly crispy, yet delicate tortilla. It came with a side of habanero salsa (house-made) with a nice tongue tingling bite to it. Two of these priced at $5 each would make a satiating, affordable lunch in itself.
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We also ordered the BBQ Rib plate and the Chile Relleno plate with Christmas. The BBQ Ribs came with crunchy fries and coleslaw. The ribs didn't quite fall off the bone, but were well cooked to a chewy, soft texture and slathered in a homemade tangy yet sweet bbq sauce. The fries, ordered crispy, were indeed crunchy and paired wonderfully with the spice of the ribs. The only downside to this plate was the coleslaw as it was too sweet and overdressed. Still, the ribs and fries were well worth it!

The Chile Relleno plate was served with one large chile and sides of beans, rice, posole and a lettuce/tomato garnish. The clear winner here was the Pozole, some of the best I’ve ever had. The pork pieces were cooked to a delicious texture and flavor. The hominy was plump and fresh and the balanced broth was richly pork-y, but not fatty. The Chile Relleno was ok, but I would add a punchier cheese to it like Cotija. Also a little salt in the batter with a longer time in the frying pan would jump it up. The green Chile was nice, the red a bit bland. I like me a smoky red, personally. The Spanish Rice was excellent, perfectly al dente with a light tomato-y taste, as it should. The Pinto beans needed a little salt if I were to be extra picky.

All of this left us full, warm and satisfied with still half of the food to take home. The prices were reasonable too, the entire lunch was just under $50 including two sodas, tax and tip.

I highly recommend this place and am looking forward to the next visit.

PRO TIPS: Keep clean plastic containers in the car for leftovers and if you order the Rib Plate, ask for extra napkins or Bring Your Own Bib.