Thanks for the Calories--I've gained eight pounds this year. Bad for my vanity, but a very good indication of the gastronomical happenings in our humble burg in 2006. Here are some of Albuquerque's other "big" trends of the year.

Digestible nuggets of 2006’s most nutritious info

Kids On Their Way to Outweighing Parents

Yes, we know, Americans are fat. However, in 2006 the focus has gone from the entire population to just our kids. In an effort to put the damper on the "epidemic" of childhood obesity, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation managed to convince the country's top three soft drink companies to remove all sweetened drinks--such as Coke, Pepsi and flavored iced teas--from school vending machines and replace them with bottled water, nonfat milk and 100 percent fruit juices. If that weren't enough, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services jumped in by urging food companies to make products that were more nutritious and to also change the way they market foods targeted toward kids. Lastly, they tried to instate minimum nutrition standards for those foods to ensure kids were getting all the stuff they need.

Tabatha Roybal

A change of seasons

Hibernation is a beautiful thing. I love nothing more than to spend snowy winter months eating meat and soup (meat soup kills two birds with one stone) and holing up in my house. Last week was one of those rare times I've encountered since moving to Albuquerque five years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night with the vague realization it was cold, and I went to turn on my rarely touched heater. On my way back to bed, I glanced out through my window: Huge clumps of snow were pelting the glass. I was so shocked I opened my front door to have a look, only to find half my neighbors staring up into the sky like aliens had landed.