A Recipe for Community

LOS LUNAS   — Tommy Madrid III will admit, with a bit of shame, that he doesn’t cook.

But that didn’t keep him from finding a way to fight community division and bring people together with a simple, universal language — food.

The result is Valencia County Cooking, a cookbook that compiles the generational recipes of the county’s residents and also tells the stories behind the dishes. The book’s first edition has been available for sale at the Los Lunas Public Library since September.

“I wanted to come up with a fun initiative for our community to bring everyone together,” said Madrid, who works as a library technician at the Los Lunas Library. “You know, how times have been recently, where there’s a lot of division within our community. I felt like the best way to bring our communities together was with cooking and food.”

Madrid, 21, who works in nonfiction and orders many cookbooks, said when he sat to think about a project, he realized he’d never seen a community cookbook.

“I thought that’d be kind of cool for our county to have one,” he said.

A call for entries garnered a lot of interest, Madrid said. Ultimately, 10 area folks submitted recipes. Beyond simply providing instructions, each submission is paired with a personal story, giving the dish context and significance. One example is Megan Sanchez’s “Birthing Cake” submission, a recipe traditionally made during a pregnancy, or the recipe for biscochitos, which every New Mexican knows is a Christmas tradition.

This focus on cultural identity is particularly resonant in the Rio Abajo. The cookbook’s first edition highlights the community’s diverse cultural fabric. While it features mostly Hispanic dishes, it also includes a few German recipes – a “German Inn Potato Salad” entry from Erick Sorensen, and a recipe from Ruth Mandernach for “Pfeffernusse,” traditional, small, round German Christmas spice cookies.

Madrid said these entries show that the county has “people (who) come from all different places.” He also said the project has another powerful motivation — to protect heritage and family history, explaining that the cookbook offers a way for families to share something their loved ones handed down.

“It’s like, if you wanted to share something your grandmother has been making for years and you would love to share it with the world, this is a way to do that,” he said. “The cookbook is something that you can look back at in 30 years and be like ‘Here’s my family’s recipe.’ Or, ‘Here’s a great-grandma’s recipe.’ It’s also good for people who don’t have that heritage.”

With the first edition out, Madrid, who designed the book cover to cover with editing help from library technician Manuel Mora, said he is already thinking about expanding the second edition; however, that’s down the road a bit.

To expand the project and gather more submissions, the library has big plans for 2026, aiming to transform the community cookbook into an annual tradition.

Madrid said a cooking competition is already planned for March 13 at the library, focusing on appetizers. More competitions are planned throughout the year, he added.

“We’re hoping for some sort of prize for first, second, third and then obviously anyone that submits a recipe will be put into the cookbook,” he said. “Throughout all of 2026, we’re going to have these different competitions that go through different categories like appetizers, entrees and desserts.

“Our goal is that by the end, we’ll have an actual full-fledged cookbook that we’ll be able to sell with the Friends of the Library,” Madrid said.