Tucked into the back corner of The Village Shops at Los Ranchos is this pleasingly retro mercantile store. If you’re looking to cowboy up, Wagon Mound is the place to go. The shop specializes in ranch-style cookware—from Dutch ovens to cast-iron skillets. The skillets range in size from tiny four-inchers ($5.50) to pizza-sized stove-crushers ($59.95). Pair them up with a cookbook ( Field Guild to Dutch Oven Cooking or The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook , perhaps) and you’ve got yourself a Christmas gift. Beyond the plentiful cookware is a colorful array of enameled tin dinnerware, from teapots to plates to those ubiquitous tin cups you see in every cowboy movie. Need more cowbell? Wagon Mound has got you covered from small ($5) to large ($66.95). Deerskin gloves, silk handkerchiefs, CDs and jewelry add to the stocking stuffer list for the old-fashioned cowboy or cowgirl in your life.
Alumenart Gallery & Gifts
Metals of all shapes, sizes, sheens and electrostatic interactions are represented inside and out of this well-welded sculpture gallery. Outside are attention-grabbing outdoor installations—yard-sized bells, spinners and static geometric displays. Smaller figural pieces like steel cats, dogs and peacocks fill the inside. The highlight, though, has to be the sturdy metal flower stalks made of rebar and pipe fittings. Accented with bright colors, these everlasting metallic blooms ($19 to $39) are just the thing to enliven the yard of your favorite gardener without a green thumb. In the market for something even smaller? Alumenart features plenty of candleholders, votives and jewelry. Silver bracelets in sleek, contemporary Southwest designs are a particular specialty and start at just $20.
New Mexico Food & Gift Showcase
This small storefront is crammed with more than 300 New Mexico-made products from more than 80 companies. The emphasis is on food, so your salsa, spice, honey, beef jerky, popcorn and jam needs are covered. This place has everything from Carrizozo apple cider to Alamogordo pistachios. The salsa aisle overflows with 505 favorites from Garcia’s, Hurricane’s, Los Cuates, Pedro’s, Cervantes and dozens more. Gifts under $10 abound. Store owner Barbara Mangum specializes in sending care packages to N.M. troops stationed overseas. (Check out the “Chile for Troops” link on her website.) What better way to remind your favorite soldier of home than with a basket full of local delicacies?
