A Stone Fruit Tea Party at El Zaguán in New Mexico

Stone fruits signal it’s summer in New Mexico with the much anticipated arrival of juicy apricots, plums, peaches, or cherries. The season is short so it’s a time to savor, and what better way to celebrate the season than with an al fresco tea party at historic El Zaguán.

A group of people sit outside at El Zaguan, enjoying stone fruit desserts from a white table.

Savoring Summer at El Zaguán With a Stone Fruit Tea Party

If you’ve ever meandered up Canyon Road on a hot August day, you might yearn to stop and rest on a wicker chair on the back porch of historic El Zaguán and sip a cool drink under the shade of a century-old horse chestnut tree. And you might think that American novelist Henry James was imagining that exact back porch and garden when he said that the two most beautiful words in the English language are “summer afternoon”.

A person pours tea from a white tea pot into a white tea cup on a black wicker table at El Zaguan.

El Zaguán was a small adobe house located next to farmlands when it was purchased in 1854 by Santa Fe Trail merchant, James L. Johnson – a rural site that was then outside Santa Fe. Today, El Zaguán (zaguán means a passageway or entry hall in a house that leads from the front door to a courtyard or patio), houses the office for the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to preserve, protect and promote historic properties, and the diverse cultural heritage of Santa Fe. As well as a gallery and gift shop, the foundation provides artist’s spaces to rent for a select few to live, work and pursue their art.

A man holds a piece of cherry pie as he leans against a white wall.

The Relationship Between El Zaguán and Stone Fruits

The back porch of El Zaguán, overlooking its historic garden full of fresh blooms and stone fruit trees, provided the perfect setting for a summer tea party, hosted by the foundation in honor of the artist community of El Zaguán. Santa Fe artist and illustrator Jone Hallmark’s Garden Lady, painted on a page from an antique book purchased in a Paris flea market, was the invitation to an afternoon tea party that celebrated not only the artists but also the seasonal harvest of stone fruits in New Mexico.

Stone fruits, or drupes, are fleshy fruits with a single seed and a hard shell. Apricots may be the harbinger of spring in northern New Mexico but other drupes such as peaches, plums, and cherries also thrive at 7000 feet. They tend to fare better than apricots since they blossom later.

A two tier cake stand holds various stone fruit bites on white plates.

When the first warm days of spring arrive, apricot trees erupt into bright white blooms like freshly popped popcorn. But northern New Mexico’s mercurial spring weather means that a late snowstorm and freeze could mean a season without any apricots. When the weather cooperates, stone fruit season arrives slowly and then seemingly all at once. This abundance of fruit needs to be picked and transformed into jams, jellies, preserves and yes, of course, delicious baked goods.

A stack of stone fruit scones sit on a plate with a bowl of honey and a bowl of stone fruit nearby.

Using Stone Fruits in Baking

It’s no surprise that culinary skill and an artist’s sensibility pair well. When painter Anna Booth arrived with homemade cherry cream scones, they were a happy addition to the stone fruit splendor laid out on the table, joining ranks with a freshly baked plum kuchen and a luscious cherry pie from Harry’s Roadhouse which you can even bake up at home.

A whole Cherry Pie sits on a white table with a serving knife below the dish and two cherries in the right corner.

Anna Booth remembers her time at El Zaguán as deeply grounding, when she reset her course in life, and as an artist. The fixtures in her apartment were the same as the ones in the old farmhouse she grew up in. It felt familiar and immediately like home. She feels as though she packed many years into only two, making lots of work and giving birth to her son, Kai, who she says, “undoubtedly heard my staple gun while in the womb”.

A man in a straw hat looks down at a table full of stone fruit food as a women smiles at him from down the table.

El Zaguán is a Creative Force for Artist Residents

Many of the artists who attended the tea also recalled their time at El Zaguán as deeply nourishing and productive. Ceramic artist Mary Olson fell in love with El Zaguán’s beautiful setting, gardens, and back porch with its picket fence. Having spent decades as an arts educator providing instruction for grades K-6, she was delighted to spot a former student, Liza Hale Doyle, at the tea. Liza, she remembered, was already an accomplished artist in grade school. Liza – now a full time artist – was joined by her mother, writer Sarah Stark, who spent her residence at El Zaguán re-learning how to draw in order to illustrate the graphic novel she had just finished writing.

A man in a blue button up holds up a small drawing on a piece of paper with colored pencils.

Summer Pairings Beyond Stone Fruits

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Guests bite into open-faced savory tea sandwiches including a purée of edamame beans, olive oil, and lemon zest spread on rounds of baguette and garnished with cucumber slices and dill sprigs. Bread studded with cherries was thinly sliced and topped with creamy goat cheese, fresh sliced peaches, a drizzle of chile honey, and a sprinkle of chopped pistachios. Santa Fe’s Artful Tea continued the stone fruit theme with the makings for freshly brewed pitchers of their iced organic Peachy Keen herbal tea and steaming teapots of Apricot Brandy black tea.

Various colored glasses sit on a silver serving tray as someone pours water into the glasses.

Poet Diane Ackerman described eating an apricot, with its intoxicating scent of honeysuckle and vanilla, as “somewhere between a peach and a prayer”. Apricots and other stone fruits are all the more sacred for their sunny but short-lived season, a taste and scent one wistfully remembers on a grey winter day. In high summer, on the back porch of El Zaguán, a gathering of artists savored stone fruit treats, the magic of a perfect summer afternoon, as well as each other’s company.

A woman bites into a piece of cherry pie at the El Zaguan stone fruit tea party.

The Guest List

Anna Booth

Anna’s paintings are inspired by New Mexico’s open landscape, quality of light, and rich history. Anna moved from Brooklyn, New York to northern New Mexico in 2010.

Ice cubes with little purple flowers and leaves sit in an ice bucket with a silver grabber.

A silver tea pot holds a bouquet of white flowers on a table setting.

Kai Mott

Anna’s five year old son, Kai was in utero for the first year of her residency, and an infant for her second year.

A little boy hugs his mother wearing a long blue dress and sunhat.

Mary Olson

An arts educator and ceramic artist who draws inspiration from nature and the joy of creative expression, Mary’s wit as well as her whimsy infuse everything she does.

Bites of stone fruit peaches on top of goat cheese and rye bites on a white plate.

Sarah Stark

A writer, teacher, illustrator, and political scientist, Sarah believes in the redemptive necessity of art. Her early writing about nuclear nonproliferation, international security, and peacekeeping continues to inform her fiction work, as does her teaching of world literature.

Liza Hale Doyle

Engaged in a multidisciplinary exploration of the human body and the physical, imagined, and energetic landscapes it interacts with, Liza is a multimedia artist and teacher born and raised in Santa Fe.

Bites of tomatoes in orange and red on pieces of bread all on a wood table.

Jesse Wood

Trained in traditional intaglio and relief printmaking, Jesse Woods is both a painter and lithographer. He was born in California and now lives in Santa Fe. He received a Certificate in Professional Printer Training from the Tamarind Institute, the renowned center for fine art lithography.

Paul Baxendale

Paul Baxendale is a multidisciplinary artist who finds inspiration in Santa Fe’s unique architecture. His work includes photography, painting, and sculpture.

A blue and white tea cup full of tea sits beside a bucket of paint brushes.

David Sloan

David Sloan is a recognized Diné (Navajo) member as well as an artist working in printmaking and silversmithing.

Jacob Sisneros

Jacob Sisneros is a designer and artist and Preservation Projects and Programs Manager at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

Bites of cucumber on rye bites sit arranged on a white plate.

Hanna Churchwell

Hanna Churchwell is Education Programs and Publications Manager at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

Giulia Caporuscio

Giulia Caporuscio is Education Manager and Historian at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

Story by Cyndy Tanner
Photography by Tira Howard
Production and Styling by Parasol Productions
Shot On Location at El Zaguán
Flowers by Feral Farm, Taos, NM
Tea by Artful Tea
Pie by Harry’s Roadhouse
Scones by Anna Booth

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