Desert Companion

06/23/2026

What's cooking in the valley? ☀️⁠
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The latest edition of Vegas Dish is officially served! Here are a few picks from Lorraine Blanco Moss for what the summer has to offer the Vegas dish!⁠
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Not to Be Confused with ‘Brasserie’. Foodies have been waiting for EDO Hospitality Group’s Braseria for a long time, and now it’s here. I was blown away by the golden tartare, a spectacularly balanced beet appetizer topped with a Savora mustard sorbet. Inside, the space soars with 24-foot-high ceilings, intricate chandeliers, and a sultry Latin-inspired mural overhead. This Spanish-French mashup sparkles at The Collective on Paradise.⁠
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Hendo Hails Hayworth. Chef Alex Reznik honors heritage and hospitality in every corner and every dish at his new Horizon Ridge Parkway spot, Hayworth. From the nod to his Jewish roots in the warm challah knot served with chicken schmaltz to the best charred cabbage… yes, cabbage… that has ever crossed my lips, this is a Henderson restaurant you can’t miss.⁠
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Steak that Steals Hearts. One bite of the zabuton steak at Butcher & Thief and you know this is a hidden gem. At the southwest spot near Sunset and Durango, chef Cory Harwell favors a buttery, beefy cut — like anyone who knows their meat. Order the peanut butter bacon with jalapeño cucumber jelly, and finish with the banana cream pie. It has a pb caramel that’s still got me all shook up.⁠
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✍️ Lorraine Blanco Moss⁠
🔗 Read the full roundup here: https://tinyurl.com/yey8je3e

06/15/2026

A word keeps coming up in conversations about the Las Vegas Men’s Chorus: love. It’s implied by the six guiding principles of the group, founded in 1993: community, harmony, opportunity, respect, unity, and service.⁠
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The chorus’ concerts are full of energy and effervescence — but are also emotionally powerful. “You’re going to walk away feeling something. The love is palpable,” LVMC Artistic Director Ryan Duff says. In his 13 years as AD, Duff has cultivated the organization’s growth from about 10 members to more than 100.⁠
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He’s proud that the LVMC “takes people as they are.” The group walks the walk in inclusivity, fostering an environment where everyone is welcome, from those who have autism to the unhoused to those coming to terms with their authentic selves. Members range from present and former Strip performers to people with quality voices who just love to sing. Over his time, Duff has witnessed an organizational sea change. “For the longest time, (LVMC) struggled with an identity crisis in this entertainment-saturated city,” he says. There was also a problem with Vegas’ transience — people would join, then move on.⁠
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Today, he says, the major problem is that LVMC has outgrown most of the performance spaces available to it. UNLV’s Ham Concert Hall and The Smith Center are two of the few places that can accommodate 100 performers onstage.⁠
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His dream is twofold: their own rehearsal space and an organizational budget allowing him to transition to full time and hire an executive director. The board of directors is working on these challenges.⁠
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✍️ Janis Hashe⁠
📸 Courtesy Las Vegas Men's Chorus
🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/4rjuw4f8

06/10/2026

It’s early evening on a crisp fall Friday night in the Carson Valley, and the patio is already buzzing at Nevada’s oldest saloon, Genoa Bar.

Deeply rooted at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, less than an hour from Reno, the bar and its red brick building opened in 1853, two years after Genoa was founded. A fire destroyed many of the small town’s buildings in 1910, but the bar on the cozy corner of Main and Mill streets continued thriving.

Beyond the front door, booze is flowing, barstools are full, and history hangs like smoke in the air. Walls are slathered in 19th-century paintings and ephemera, the ceiling is stained with ketchup, and iconic s*x symbol Raquel Welch’s bra dangles from the right antler of a mounted deer head.

The bar has hosted famous folks, including Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Rob Lowe, and every inch of the room tells a story.

✍️ Aleza Freeman
📸 Courtesy Travel Nevada
🔗 Read the full story in Desert Companion's newest photo issue or visit

06/04/2026

Going from boom to bust in about a century might be a tall ask for some places. But not Goldfield, a “living ghost town” just three hours north of Las Vegas.

Now a burg of about 225 residents, it used to be among the most prosperous towns in Nevada, vying for prominence with the state’s capital. A stock exchange, a hospital, three newspapers, a major railroad, and the “finest hotel between San Francisco and Denver” served some 20-30,000 people at the town’s height.

A series of unfortunate events, bad breaks, and poorly parked dynamite cars slowly eroded the town’s population and prestige over the century-plus between the first gold strike and where it sits today. If you’re looking to speedrun your own ghost town creation, we have five tricks to get you started.

✍️ Anne Davis
🎨 Ryan Vellinga
🔗 Learn how to get your ghost town going in five easy steps: https://tinyurl.com/839dp4t5

06/02/2026

Birding has become a popular way to get outside and connect to nature. But newcomers to the hobby might have a skewed baseline of what to consider normal as climate change disrupts the typical progression of seasons. So, what are some of the patterns that longtime birders are noticing in the Las Vegas Valley?⁠
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Nature is dynamic, not a still life. As climate change and other pressures, such as urban development, affect our world, it’s difficult to attribute one reason to changes in bird abundance and behavior. One example is migration.⁠
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Typically, in the springtime, hormonal cues triggered by increasing day length spark the urge for many birds to migrate north, beginning with the males racing to secure the best breeding territory. “It doesn’t take much to disrupt the vital flyway that birds have to go through twice a year,” says Tim Almond, a local who’s been birding here since 2000. “And we’re seeing earlier migrations.”⁠
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✍️ Morrigan DeVito⁠
📸 Ronda Churchill⁠
🔗 Read the full story in Desert Companion's newest summer issue, or see it here: https://tinyurl.com/4t8apt2e

05/27/2026

The moment we saw Grand Prize winner Jarrod Ames’s () image, we knew it was something special.⁠
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We spoke with Ames about how a sudden change of plans turned into an unexpected photo opportunity, and how a small shift in perspective can alter the story of an image entirely.⁠
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🔗 Dive into the full gallery of winners in the new summer issue of Desert Companion here: https://tinyurl.com/jdzs42a

05/20/2026

“The Decisive Moment,” popularized by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, describes capturing the fleeting intersection of story, composition and emotion as the essence of a strong photo, an idea more than evident in the work of this photographer.

We spoke with this year’s Black & White category winner, Jose Antonio Gomez (), about his process and how he always seems to find himself in the right place at the right time.

🔗 Dive into the full gallery of winners in the new summer issue of Desert Companion or at KNPR.org!

05/19/2026

I’m on a guided hike at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, and no one is talking. Even though our group has more than 20 people, we remain mute as we crunch up the gravelly trail. A woman ahead of me stops and steps out of the way, gesturing at me to go around her. ⁠
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I nod, grab my 5-year-old daughter’s hand, and hurry to close the gap in the line that snakes up to a lookout point. In any other circumstance, this wordless exchange might feel awkward. But on this Saturday morning, the quiet is by design. We’re on a silent hike.⁠
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✍️ Reannon Muth⁠
🎨 Noemi Fabra for Desert Companion⁠

🔗 Read the full story here: https://tinyurl.com/sztvz73s or in Desert Companion's newest photo issue

05/14/2026

Is this really Nevada?

We sat down with Storyteller runner-up Irene Yee to talk about her mind-bending winning shot from this year’s Focus on Nevada showcase. It’s an image and story that proves there is always more to the Silver State!🌵

🔗 Dive into the full gallery of winners in the new summer issue of Desert Companion or visit KNPR.org!

05/12/2026

Fifty-first.

That’s Nevada’s ranking in Mental Health America’s latest annual report, published last year. For years the state’s prevalence of mental illness has run up against, and created friction with, a dearth of accessible services.

Measures of Nevada’s continued struggle toward more ubiquitous, better funded, and attainable mental health programs are disconcerting. UNR’s Nevada Health Workforce Research Center estimates that more than 91 percent of the state’s population lives in a federally designated mental health professional shortage area.

Though only 7 percent of Nevadans with mental illness are uninsured, almost 33 percent of residents with significant mental health burdens report being unable to see a doctor because of prohibitive costs — even with insurance.

Now, providers are expressing concern that federal-level funding cuts combined with Medicaid changes, which mandate that all able-bodied adults log 80 hours of work monthly, could create even more suffering for Nevadans seeking mental health care.

🔗 Read the full story here: https://tinyurl.com/bt46cey7
✍️ Anne Davis | Desert Companion
🎨 Ryan Vellinga | Desert Companion

Providers of mental health support and families of patients fear the dire consequences that will come from changes to insurance coverage