A little family-owned store that's been around since the 1920's, the El Potrero Trading Post in Chimayó offers provisions both 'spiritual' and 'temporal'--Catholic and Zuni carvings, popsicles and chile peppers...

Get here by taking the "high road" from Santa Fe to Taos, which links several villages dating back to the earliest Spanish settlements in New Mexico. Chimayó has two major claims to fame: its chile peppers and its Santuario--an adobe church that has become a destination for pilgrimmages...

The day I stopped here, Raymond Bal, grandson of the store's founder, gave me a thorough tasting of the various powdered and crushed chiles for sale. I walked away with a healthy supply of both red AND green peppers...AND recipes--potent reminders of the flavors of New Mexico...

(Plenty of cold drinks are available--you'll be thirsty after sampling the chile powders!)