There’s nothing quite like talking about Fred in Santa Fe–it feels, in many ways, like a Harvey homecoming. Santa Fe is the first place in the Southwest that Black Bart and I ever visited, nearly twenty years ago, and it was our growing fascination with all the things we saw, ate and hooked in northern New Mexico that originally fueled the whole Appetite for America project. We felt like tourists (or “dudes” as they were always called) here for so long, but have met so many people in the past couple years that we almost feel, dare I say it, like locals. (You know you’re a local when you have a dry cleaner you know not to go back to.)

So we were thrilled to be invited back, courtesy of historic La Fonda hotel and Collected Works bookshop, and spoke to a large and very engaged crowd in La Terrazza, the airy terrace auditorium overlooking the city, followed by a signing and a lovely wine reception. The hotel also put us up in a wonderful room on the Terrace level, which was built on top of the original hotel (the rooms have a connected balcony, ours overlooking Loretto Chapel) and has its own concierge (although we still rely on Steve downstairs, since Fred is with him.)

We met lots of former Harvey employees at the talk, as well as newbie Santa Feans who were using the book as their primer on the Southwest, other locals who couldn’t make it to the talk I gave in April (which we did without slides when the lights went out in town) and one fascinating scientist from China who was attending a fossil fuel convention at the hotel and thought people in China should know the story of Fred Harvey and the American West.

We got a chance to spend some time with our cousin Peggy, who lives in town, as well as our local Fred pals Annadru Lampert from La Fonda and Fran Levine from the New Mexico History Museum (who are already cooking up a return in April for Mary Colter’s birthday, stay posted), and we met dynamic La Fonda Chairman Jenny Kimball (a soon-to-be Fredhead, I predict, who claims that somewhere in the office she inherited from late owner Sam Ballen is a sheaf of old La Fonda recipes I’m dying to see.)

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