Falling Into Winter

The top of Bridger lift, hiked before opening day

Despite the fact that it is only December 12, my new home in Bozeman has about a foot of snow with more inches added daily. (Just one of the amazing new factors living in Montana entails.) You quickly become used to wearing long underwear under every pair of pants and your car’s daily struggle to start, but these are merely factors reminding us of one of the primary reasons we live here: to ski. Only 16 miles from town lies Bridger Bowl, a little ski hill with a ton of snow, awesome terrain, and where my two crazy housemates and I have season passes. Although the mountain has only been open for 13 days, we’ve managed to put in 7 on the slopes. We each have our own goals for how many days skied this season, my number being a moderate 30-40 in comparison to the boys’.

When we are not skiing, we’re setting up our lovely new home. A brick ranch-style home awkwardly located between two condo buildings, but with tons of space, a wood burning fireplace, and a room we lovingly call “da paarty room” in a thick German accent (pool table included). With a new article of furniture daily and some art on the wall, we are quickly turning the Snowshed into a home.

In the realm of baking I successfully landed two jobs within the first week I was here! One I absolutely love at Over The Tapas, a little Spanish restaurant right downtown and actually one of our favorite spots to eat this past summer. We make a delicious flan, lavender crème brulee, chocolate mousse cake, seasonal ice cream cakes, a chocolate angel food cake with Heath bar, and a weekly special. My first day I was assigned to the special and pulled out a bread pudding with a whisky sauce, using some of the day old rolls laying around as inspiration. Its interesting how after only working in a professional kitchen for six months, I feel incredibly comfortable stepping into a new place, looking at a list of ingredients and knowing exactly what I need to do to getter done. And of course I have been having a lot of fun learning some new recipes and working in a new environment.


Yummy flan

While I love working at Over The Tapas I unfortunately only get 15 hours a week there and so had to look elsewhere to fill my schedule and pay my rent. And so I found myself at Bequet Confections, an extremely successful and delightfully tasty, gourmet caramel factory. I quite literally feel like an elf. While I do get to participate in parts of making the caramel (pouring, scrapping, and salting), most of my nine-hour day consists of packaging. I tie red and green bows on bags I have stuffed with soft, chewy, Celtic sea salt, chocolate, chipotle, pomegranate, butterscotch, espresso, black licorice, and salt chocolate caramels. We make 37,000 caramels a day and still cannot fill every order that comes in. I work with about 15 middle age women and find myself being legitimately interested in if their daughters made the volleyball team and what they’re going to get their sons for Christmas. Although a tad bit boring, the day goes by fast and the social aspect keeps you engaged.



On the home front we had our first potluck last night and a shocking 20 or so people showed up, resulting in a happy dance after they all left between my housemates and I, largely involving the phrase, “We have friends!” Always a feat in a new place! All in all, I’m settling into my new life in Bozeman quite nicely and am in no hurry to leave.


The Christmas Stroll in Bozeman

My foray into hot food and Jewish Montana

It’s already the middle of September, which means family season is over and it’s back to the relaxing shoulder season. No more screaming children, no more jam-packed dinning rooms or bars, and no more ten hour days! Only a third of the staff is still here, making the Mountain Sky family feel even more intimate. Over three months ago my friends and I were sitting in staff dining trying to imagine what it was going to be like to have 75 staff eat in the same 20 square foot space and now it seems eerily quite with only the 25 shoulder season staff members. Family season was a blast and I miss a lot of my friends that only work during the summer months, but I am also very thankful to finally have a moment to breathe.

My mom and Duane came out for a brief, but wonderful visit to the ranch. We even got to have dinner at the ranch!

We already had our first snow at the ranch, albeit brief on our property, the mountains maintain a light dusting of what promises to be an amazing ski season. The colder temperatures and the fewer guests have driven everyone indoors for more movies and cups of hot chocolate. It’s hard to imagine it was 90 degrees just two weeks ago up here. I’m perfectly content, however, to be wearing my reindeer sweater and jeans again!

Blair and I were feeling adventurous a few days ago and decided to go on an epic run in the pouring rain. We drove down into the valley and found the old Yellowstone highway, a narrow muddy old road no one uses anymore. On the trek out we couldn’t stop talking, the rain and biting cold couldn’t penetrate our excitement to be running in some place so beautiful and new. We even ran alongside a herd of pronghorn antelope for a bit. As soon as we reached our four-mile mark and turned to run back to the car we realized we had been running WITH the wind. Suddenly talking seemed like the last thing we both wanted to do and in the seriously biting cold, wind, and at this point, sleet we hustled back up the mini-mountain we had ran down and just took it all in. One thing we did talk about was how so many different paths can fit for one person, but that right now, despite the rain and cold, we were exactly where we both wanted to be – here in Montana. Never have I lived some place so beautiful and yet so comfortable. I feel like I finally can relax into my own skin out here, even when soaking wet.


With the switchover to shoulder season my schedule has also changed a bit and instead of working five AM shifts every once and a while I’ll end up working dinner, which come to find out, is drastically different from the AM shifts. It’s actually a blast. It was go-go-go to get out each of the seven courses, which included my first foray into plating – whether it was drawing circles of balsamic reduction around the salad or putting mushrooms and sauce on the lamb, it really felt very creative and yet very concise. There was an exact way the chef wanted the lamb to lay and where the beans should be and how many. It kind of made me want to explore working in a restaurant where plating desserts was actually part of my job, whereas right now I merely make all the desserts and breads and the line cooks throw the plates together at crunch time. In addition to working, the PM cooks like to play a card game which determines who has to mop and sweep or clean the grill. This usually includes dressing up in a funny costume and acting ridiculous. Of course I lost every time and ended up cleaning the grill, sweeping and mopping dressed up in a five year olds dragon costume and only answering questions with “ARRGHHH because I’m a dragon!”

One of my desserts - warm apple tart with cognac ice cream and a caramel sauce.

Despite living out in Montana, there are two synagogues in Bozeman! And seeing as it’s the high holidays I attached myself to one of the masseuses up here and headed to Rosh Hashanah services yesterday at Montana’s very own Chabad House (Hasidic Jews… think Crown Heights, Brooklyn, big beards and black jackets). Pulling up to the synagogue no one would ever guess it was exactly that. It’s sort of hidden away in a residential neighborhood and has literally no signage – unfortunately this is to avoid vandalism. But as soon as you walk into the house it really does look like a temple and it was packed! Being a small place there were probably only 60 people there, but still, who knew that Bozeman, Montana had a bunch of Jews! And even odder there were four Israelis there. I had to remind myself where I was a few times after listening to them chat and then hearing the service in Hebrew. It was kind of awesome and I’m really looking forward to hanging out there more this winter.

In other news, J.L. Powell, the clothing company that held their photo shoot out at the ranch in May has come out with their new catalogue and even a really beautiful video, both of which include some pretty beautiful shots of the ranch. Its funny watching the video and seeing how serene all of the photos make things look and knowing how crude of jokes these guys were telling and how much bickering they all did during the shoots. Check it out at: http://www.jlpowellusa.com/

One of the photo shoots I got to help set up for.

Life in the Kitchen

I have officially been at the ranch for three months. Its crazy to think that so much time has passed, but even crazier to think that I’m only half-way through my first season here. I have become unbelievably comfortable up at this isolated mountain resort. The little dramas and moments of stress caused by close quarters and a new job could easily be the next best-selling grocery store paperback or even a late-night sitcom, but when I sit down and think about how amazing my life is these days its hard to think that I’ve been anything but lucky. For example, I have had a classic Montana summer, which includes: participating in a cattle branding, climbing three mountains, hiking in Yellowstone, going to a rodeo and a professional bull-riding competition, watching the National Folk Festival, going crazy with family in Helena, visiting Katie in Wyoming, learning how to rope and two-step, and of course mastering a 70 foot slip and slide. Not to mention becoming very comfortable in a professional kitchen and working as the sole pastry chef three days a week for a gourmet, five star guest ranch. Things are good. So good in fact that I have been invited back for next season! Now all I have to do is find a job for the winter…


My adorable little cabin


Talking with All-Around employees, those who do the kids program and lead hikes, etc, the kitchen is a very intimidating place up here at Mountain Sky. It’s sort of the center of everything, literally and mentally. Located in the heart of the lodge, to walk anywhere across the ranch you pass by the kitchen and because we are so oriented around a strict schedule, the three very square meals a day become the starting point for everything else you do up here. Breakfast at 7 am, lunch at 11:30 am and dinner at 5. Truly though, the kitchen scared the crap out of me for the first two months of working here. While most of the day is all teasing and inappropriate jokes, mistakes are not tolerated. People are paying a lot of money to come out here and get their Chilean Sea Bass or Bison Tenderloin, and we can’t afford to mess it up. So while my friends who don’t work in the kitchen have panic-attacks if they have to work dish pit or serve, I finally have found my niche. Those once not quite good enough birthday cakes are now up to par, my chocolate decadence is perfect, my tarts are solid, I can make any ice cream of your choosing and I’m feeling really good about all of it. I used to work an hour over my scheduled shift and now I work 30 minutes under. At any given moment I could have pastry cream on the stove, tarts in the oven, chocolate melting in a baine-maire, ice cream churning, all while I’m shaping 120 dinner rolls. Organization is key.


In Livingston at the Professional Bull-Riding Competition

Being more on top of my kitchen duties makes it a lot more enjoyable to participate in the constant banter of my coworkers. For example, today was one of the cook’s girlfriend’s birthday so we all dressed up in costume – head chef wore a pink cowgirl hat, the sous wore a lifejacket, I wore floaties, and somehow a purple tutu was involved (the red Clifford the dog suit went recently missing). And no one can ever be called by his or her actual name. No, I’m never plain old Brennan, but cornstalk, little baker, little Pam (my boss), scotchies (a cookie I always make), bun baker, etc. Basically we have a lot of fun, although the heat threatens to kill us all. When I walk to work at 5:30 am every morning it’s almost below freezing its so cold, but come 11 am in the kitchen, despite the air conditioning, standing next to one of my ovens (which in most cases I have to be doing) its closer to 100! Then when I get off work the walk back to my cabin feels like I’m walking all the way across the Sahara it’s so dry and hot. But that’s Montana for you. In a month and half we’ll have snow!


Hiking up Pine Creek

Also in the last week I hiked another awesome mountain, Black Mountain, up Pine Creek here in the valley. It was my day off, but Blair and I took the owner’s awesome wife Stephanie and then the Hiltons and a plastic surgeon from Vegas. It was like getting a glimpse into their lives of wealth and craziness. The way they so nonchalantly talk about huge sums of money is pure madness. And yet, they are all so genuine and kind-hearted. It was a great hike and another cool accomplishment! 10,000 feet! Woot! (And I was tipped with a 90 minute massage…. Double woot!)

Mountains, Music and Cowboys

Looking pretty for the Roundup.

The Fourth of July in Montana proved to be the most patriotic event of my life. Eighty guests and staff from Mountain Sky headed down to the Livingston Roundup, one of the largest rodeos in Montana, to watch some cowboys wrestle some calves and be thrown from bulls. It was great to be in Livingston surrounded by a huge group of people I knew, it felt like home to walk around and say hi to everyone. The patriotism was intense and awesome. First of all, merely being in Montana, a very land-devoted, ranch-heavy state, makes a person appreciate the US in a new way, but the fourth of July was a completely new level. The cowgirls running around the arena on their horses with American flags and practically every American themed country song playing in the background, followed by the announcer going on about America being the shinning light of freedom for the rest of the world, and the semi-constant shouts from spectators saying “Aaamerricaa,” made it abundantly clear I was not in the Pacific Northwest. And it was FUN. It was really fun to be surrounded by 5,000 people all stoked for the rodeo and the Fourth.


Emigrant Peak from the ranch.

In addition, we sat four people over from Dennis Quaid, one of many celebrities who own property in the valley. We then saw Rebecca Romijn Stamos at the after-rodeo-dance, which also proved to be a blast. Every person between the ages 18 and 35 from the valley seemed to be at this barn dance. A band played, drinks were served, and the Mountain Sky staff went crazy on the dance floor. I’m becoming pro at the Two Step and am slowly starting to blend with the other Montana ladies. Katie Rouse came up for the holiday and got to see the shenanigans for herself, which of course was amazing. It was quite possibly the best Fourth of July ever.


Standing on the peak!

For my days off this weekend I set my alarm 15 minutes earlier than my usual 5:15am to head off the ranch with three of my fellow staff members to tame the mountain we look at every day, Emigrant Peak. At 11,000 feet we gained 6,000 in three hours – straight up hill. Apparently when the trail was formed switchbacks were not in fashion. After two miles of this we entered a meadow so steep we had to either go onto all fours or create our own switchbacks. At this point we thought we were getting pretty close to the summit, but alas, we still had another hour and a half hike over loose rock and deceiving peaks. Thankfully the sun wasn’t on our backs until we reached the summit, where we took an amazing nap in the sun. It was a tough hike, but its pretty cool to be able to look over at Emigrant everyday and know that we stood at the top.


Emigrant is the highest mountain in the Beartooth range.

On Saturday I headed with my pal Alyssa up to Butte, Montana for the National Folk Festival. While Butte is quite possibly the ugliest and most dangerous town in Montana (they have an acidic lake where a man’s sole job is to scare off birds with a shotgun). The festival was awesome! There were over 50,000 people there, four stages and music from all over the place. We saw a straight bluegrass band, an Irish band, and a Cuban band. When we got back from the festival we walked into the lodge to find our little gang of rowdy friends dancing to Bruce Springsteen and drinking some mystery concoction called “Bruce Juice” provided by the Al-Sharifs. The Al-Sharifs are composed of an older English woman and her daughter who come for 11 weeks to the ranch from Bahrain, where her husband owns the largest oil transport company in the world. They are completely prim and proper on the exterior, but they love to hang out with the crazy staff and buy us drinks. Leslie, the mother, even got up to do a lap around the bar dancing. It proved to be a super fun night.


Hiking back down in 85 degree weather - it was too steep to not run.

As of late the ranch has had some exciting guests. Last week was very much government week; we had the U.S. Secretary under the Clinton here and a few bigwigs from the Pentagon. And this week is Hollywood week; with the President of HBO and her husband a writer for The Simpsons, Comedy Central, and SNL, along with a half dozen other producers and writers. Its fun because we are so isolated out here they can have a really relaxing vacation without anyone bothering them... except for staff obviously. Dana Gould, the writer/actor/producer man, said, “showbiz is all just a carnival. My job is no different than. what the guy running the tilt-a-whirl does.”

Mountain Sky: continuing to provide endless entertainment.

July... already?

Guest: “Boy, it’s really nice to get up here and away from reality for a bit.”
Chef Brian: “It’s only bad when you start to think this is reality.”
Guest: “Oh, I’m not that far gone yet.”
Chef Brian: “Have you met my staff.”

Too true Bri Bri. Too true. For example, a Police report for Livingston, Montana:
“A moose was sited on E Finch St around 7:30 am yesterday, apparently trapped in a man’s backyard. The police were unable to find the moose.”

The last couple of weeks have been awesome. There have definitely been highs and lows, but on the whole Mountain Sky has been really good to me. Family season is in full swing and next week we are at capacity with over 80 guests! That’s a lot of tarts! It’s amazing how much more satisfying it is to hear 25 six to ten year olds tell me that the Dirt (chocolate pudding, oreo crumbs and gummy worms) I made them for dessert is the best dessert they have ever had than having the coach of the Chicago Bears tell me my Basque cake, which took me two hours to make, was pretty good. If I’m ever having a bad day, I know to go look in on the kid’s program eating my cookies. I now only work AM shifts, so I now have every afternoon off to do as I please. Which usually involves hiking, running, sitting by the pool, and long naps. We only go into town about once a week, either to get dinner at the Rib & Chop House (local steak restaurant where they serve fish bowl margaritas) or peruse Padmina, a store worse than K-mart that sells awesome American themed clothing and carhartts.
Dance night shenanigans.

My days off for the past two weeks have been fantastic. I headed up to Helena, which really felt like going home, to see my cousin and all of her crazy friends. We stayed up late, hung out with some good people, drank a lot of beer, and went to an extremely sketchy bar where a bunch of hicks were rapping, woke up and went to the farmer’s market and had an amazing breakfast. Helena is about two and a half hours northwest of Emigrant, which in Montana is next door. My cousin is crazy and fun and Helena was a blast. I’m so happy to have family so close!

This last weekend I headed down to Pinedale, Wyoming to see Miss Katie Rouse in her little trailer. We went to some music, went on a hike, tried harassing some East Coasters on the phone and just got to hang out. Living out at the ranch is awesome and I love all of the staff and my friends up here, but it was definitely a relief to see someone who knows and loves you completely. And now this weekend Miss Rouse is heading up to me for the Livingston Roundup and some good ole’ Montana fun.
Katie in her wee trailer.

Back at the ranch this week Sous Chef Jeff, the fishing guide Bistis and I headed down to the Yellowstone River to do some fishing. Well, I sat in the back of the drift boat, while they fished, but it turned into quite the evening. Jeff got off work around 7, so we headed down to the river to do an 8-mile float, totally doable in the remaining three hours of light. We’re about a mile into the float and Bear, Jeff’s dog, jumps from the boat and swims to the shore. We were just coming around a bend so we had no idea what he was after, but we get around the corner and boom, two skunks are just hanging out. The three of us look at each other with just looks of total dread. So we’re yelling at Bear to get away from them, but of course he’s ready to eat them and could care less about our yelling. So of course he’s sprayed… three times! And then we were next to the bank trying to get Bear back into the boat, but the skunk is chasing Bear down toward the river, so I start screaming for Jeff to move his boat. Fortunately Bear outruns the skunk and is back in the boat. Back in the boat with us for another 7 miles. Now, this smell is unbelievable. When you smell a skunk on the side of the road, it is NOTHING in comparison to how horrible freshly sprayed skunk smells. All three of us were on the verge of vomiting and of course Bear is totally freaked out and trying to get away from the smell, so he’s running around the boat, rubbing up next to us and getting it everywhere! The wind was blowing the smell right into our faces the entire tim so that Jeff would turn the boat backwards for a stretch just so we could breathe. But at that point all we wanted to do was get to the take out. Bistis tried to fish for a bit, but the smell was so incredibly horrible Jeff just pushed the boat for the next hour and half. Thankfully Bistis and I didn’t have to ride with Jeff and Bear back to the ranch, but I still get whiffs of the skunk every once and awhile. A hilarious story, but not a good night fishing.
The dog who ruined it all.
At least it was pretty.

An Old One...

Yesterday afternoon 56 of the most interesting people showed up at the ranch. The rumors were flying before their arrival – Russian or Danish royalty, European aristocracy, etc. After their staff of 15 arrived, including lighting directors, party planners, florists, personal assistants and all of the necessary entourage members arrived, the truth was out. Andrew Ipkendanz, a very very wealthy Australian businessman, who can literally say, “money is no object,” has rented out the entire ranch for his 50th birthday. After three days in the MGM sky suites in Las Vegas, where one night the men (all 25 of them) were given full Elvis impersonator suits and the women (another 31 of them) were given Marlin Monroe dresses and wigs, the “Ippy” party flew on a private jet to Mountain Sky. Andrew or Ippy, has footed the bill for everything. The base expenses come to around 2.2 million dollars, but he has also opened the gift store here at the ranch and they made a stop at Murdoch’s, a high-end western wear store in Bozeman, where every guest bought wranglers, cowboy boots, some pearl snaps and cowboy hats. The guests are from all over the world – Brazil, Hong Kong, Sydney, London, as well as a smattering of European countries. There is a Russian prince in the mix and plenty of old aristocracy.

The ranch was transformed yesterday into a party planner’s dream. We moved all of the dinning room tables so they could put in their own, custom made tables in for the welcome dinner. Gas lanterns were put up everywhere; fresh fruit was strewn across the tables, which had burlap runners and slate placemats. I spent an hour tying new linen napkins with leather cord and a sprig of wheat. A canvas tent was put up on the front lawn for an outdoor bar where $150 bottle champagne was being served alongside vats of mojitos and, hilariously, Coors Light. Every night there was a new party, each more crazy and ridiculous than the last.

The ranch’s biggest event was the Bachelor and Spinster Ball they held out at one of our satellite cabins. It was a “white trash” party, we had a mechanical bull, candle holders were largely 40 oz bottles of beer (which we had to dump out… err… or into water bottles) and the guests wore boas and sequences and blue tuxes and tuxedo shirts, etc. I started work that day at 1 pm and ended around 2 am, only to wake up three hours later for another 9-hour shift. I think I died a little. While an awesome idea, it was raining so hard that the entire cabin area turned into a giant mud pit. We couldn’t get the van out with all of the kitchen equipment, not to mention the kitchen staff. Another Cook and I were left by the sous and executive chefs around 10 because they thought we would be done by 11… which we weren’t obviously. I had to make Pavlova (a meringue cake with fruit that’s very popular in Australia), which of course couldn’t be assembled until right before it was served. So I was in this little tiny kitchen assembling a three-tiered showpiece Pavlova along with 70 individual plated servings. There were plates of meringue everywhere! All over the couch and the bunk beds and the stove. Josh and I just shuffled around the room with raspberry sauce and fruit, literally throwing blueberries onto the cakes. I started doing this around 9, because everything was supposed to be served by 10:30… but they ended up not wanting the cake until 12. By that time almost all of the staff had left the party, leaving about 5 of us to break everything down in the rain and mud at 1 in the morning. It was ridiculous! Looking back it was pretty hilarious in a lot of ways… but I am very glad the crazies have left. As are the rest of the staff. Almost everyone worked 13-hour days, every day, for the entire week they were here. I’m still recovering and they left two days ago!
Making good use of the 40s.

It was pretty awesome to see the ranch transform so much and for all of the staff to rally around this party, but family season is a relief! And family season it now is! We are on to our bread and butter, the heart of the ranch’s season and supposedly the most hectic. Although it was nice for two wonderful days (I even laid out next to the pool), I’m currently listening to a hailstorm destroy the tin roof of my cabin. These are literally golf ball sized. I fear for my car.

Also exciting! I moved into a cabin! No more upstairs in the staff lodge next to crazy old lady (one of the AM cooks who is slightly scary)! So now I have my very own, very cozy cabin, which I love dearly. Yeah Montana!

Another trip into Yellowstone!

Yellowstone National Park

On my day off this week I had the opportunity to tag along with a group of guests on a tour of Yellowstone National Park. Mountain Sky is holding a special program called “Visions of Yellowstone” where everyday the group goes down into Yellowstone with different guides and different focuses. The first guide was Jim Evanoff, the Environmental Sustainability Coordinator for the park. Although I wasn’t able to go on his tour, I was able to listen to his presentation the night before. Jim is a bigwig with green initiatives and quite possibly the most informed person on Yellowstone. He was the guy to initiate the reintroduction of the wolves to Yellowstone, a very successful and highly controversial issue for Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. He has introduced a massive composting program for the waste created by the park’s annual 3.3 million visitors, which in turn has diverted 75% of the waste away from landfills. He spoke about the history of Yellowstone and hopefully where the future is headed. Yellowstone is the United State’s first national park and this initially meant that the Calvary was charged with the task of protecting the natural resources, with no regard for visitor enjoyment. With the creation of the park service in the early 1900s the focus radically shifted to the visitor’s experience, largely at the expense of the natural resources. There was a golf course at the northern entrance, bath houses diverted the geyser ’s hot water into shallow pools, open dumps encouraged wild animals such as bears to become habituated to humans for show, and the most shockingly, all animals considered predators were killed off. Thus the distinction of the wolf from the park. Only animals that could be petted or habituated were tolerated. Even the pelican was killed off because they were eating too many trout and taking away from visitor’s fishing experience. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the park service again shifted the balance to focusing more on the preservation and defense of the wilderness area, something the park still struggles with today.
Mammoth Hot Springs... this square mile of springs creates over 50 tons of new rock every day!

My guide for Wednesday, however, was Tom Murphy, a renowned and world-class nature photographer. He’s on the books for National Geographic, Time, and Life, to name a few. In his mid-60s, graying hair, tall and wiry from his daily hikes and ski trips into the parks, Tom was the perfect guide for my first trip to Yellowstone. He repeatedly spoke about the importance of the history and of the story behind each photograph he takes. With no short answer, Tom explained the geothermal features in just as much detail as he explained bison behavior and photographic tips. He moved to Livingston over 30 years ago and has made a point of spending at least 100 days out of every year in the park.
Tom and I becoming best friends.

An Elk (right next to the road) in velvet.

Yellowstone is spectacular. You travel from valley to valley, go over and follow raging rivers, and summit mountains – and this is only 20 miles into the park! Although Yellowstone is unique as a national park because it has four entrances and more roadways than most parks, you can only see 6% of the park if you stick to the pavement. Which I really like actually, its nice to think that 94% of the park has maintained a truly wild nature. On our trip we saw practically every animal one associates with Yellowstone. Right off we saw a black bear mother and cub, being approached by a very curious bull bison (the bison are about three times the size of the bears). Followed by three buck elks right next to the road way and in velvet, the stage right before they shed their winter coat (their antlers look soft and fuzzy for example). Not to mention the antelope, the big horn sheep, and the endless number of bison and elk with their calves and colts. The most exciting animal sighting, however, were two wolves feeding on a bison carcass, either their own kill or one they took over. These dogs are huge! And dangerous and so beautiful – basically wolves are badass.

Click to enlarge and see the wolf!

In 1995 there were no more wolves in Yellowstone or even in the regions surrounding the park. Now there are over 340. The elk population is back under control, which means vegetation in flatlands has been able to thrive again and the wolf is being seriously considered for delisting as an endangered animal. Cattle ranchers, however, now have to worry about the wolves as predators to their herds and complain that the elk population has been compromised for hunting. (Which isn’t necessarily true; the elk population has largely been re-balanced.) Between 1930 and 1996, the elk really didn’t have any major predators other than bears. The reintroduction of the wolf has forced the elk to revert to defense tactics forgotten by many generations and has reestablished a natural food chain. Ironically, those who used to complain that there were too many elk (so they could hunt more of them) are now the ones on the other side of the fence who complain there aren’t enough of elk so they should be allowed to hunt wolves. It’s a complicated issue.

Big Horn Sheep!

My first trip into Yellowstone was perfect. Tom was probably one of the coolest people I have ever met and we already have a hiking date in July! A week later a few of us were able to return to Yellowstone and do some hiking, truly the best way to see the park. I can’t believe I live so close to such a cool place.

I've decided I really like awkward animals... sheep (big or little), bison, moose, etc.

P.S. The nicer photos are curtesy of RC, the activities director, and his fancy pancy camera.

Graduation and The Real World

The Watershed Boys and Girl

“Welcome to the real world,” they tell me. And truly, Mountain Sky is starting to feel more and more real. The reality of living here in this gorgeous landscape, having to work my butt off in the kitchen, and living away from my closest friends, feels all too real. Bittersweet graduation.

Three of my crazy and wonderful friends

Last weekend I headed back to Walla Walla to see my wonderful friends, clean up my house, and walk in graduation. Graduation from college! How did that already happen? The last 17 years of my life have been dedicated to academics and a clear plan for my life. And now what? I think this is a question every single one of us from the class of 2010 is asking. Do I go on to grad school? Do I try to find my dream job? Can I find my dream job? Or do I ski bum and finally take a breather?

Duncan came for a brief visit at the ranch

Right now my answer is at Mountain Sky, but come October I can do anything. Or try to at least. All very exciting and frightening. The kitchen is proving to be a challenge. I make a lot of errors, or rather, the things that I think should work and that I feel like I do completely right - fail. My cake decorating skills don’t look professional enough, my cheesecakes didn’t rise and then they deflated, I used the wrong pan on my first go for my Basque cake, etc. “Oh la vasche,” as one French cook once told me. On the other hand, my chocolate decadence was great; as were my second try Basque cakes, chocolate peanut butter tortes, and blackberry mousse cakes. So it’s a learning process and a semi-stressful one at that. The kitchen is composed of a good team, fun personalities and hard workers. They’ve largely been here for years and years and have a pretty set way of doing things and while at times I exceed expectations, I still have a lot to learn.

Jordan the wrangler and our guide for the evening

In other news, the staff on a whole seems to be getting really close. Granted there are only 30 of us now and in four days 40 more people are coming, but for now we have become quite the community. Whether it’s sitting in the hot tub or next to the fire outside the bar, hiking, riding, or just having breakfast, we spend a lot of time together and have a pretty good time doing so. Yesterday I not only went on a hike, I even went on my first horseback ride since, well, many years. Although I am definitely very allergic to horses, and broke out in hives despite my pre-medicating, I still managed to have a lot of fun. My horse Brutus did not care what speed I wanted him to go because he was either going to stroll or run, with very little in between. So my first time on a horse meant I had very little control in a few cases. But man is it fun to lope or run.


Until next time, love you all and miss you dearly.

Where I Live

My new running route, where I carry bear spray and yell every 30 seconds... but you can't beat the view!

I’m currently sitting in front of the staff lodge with my computer and six deer are walking across the pathway, obviously not realizing or caring I’m sitting two feet from them. Yeah Montana.


The staff lodge, where I am currently sitting and where my lovely room is.

Another week down! And yet, my week has really just begun. My weekend is Wednesday –Thursday right now so the order of the week has lost some of its meaning. Today was another day alone in the bakeshop, I never know what to expect!


The main lodge and location of the kitchen

The usual order of things is as follows: 5:30 am set up for the day (get butter, eggs out, turn on oven, etc.) by 6:45 I need to have made a dozen muffins for the continental breakfast. By 7:45 two pastries, today was croissants and blueberry turnovers. Of course my croissants went haywire in the proofer (large humidifier) and I had to start over right before time. So that was how my day started, rushed. I spent the rest of the morning making the bread for dinner, challah again, beautiful and easy, ten loaves of banana bread, two types of cookies for lunch, and some sauces and a strawberry coulis for the Marjoline (pistachio meringe, with vanilla, coffee, and chocolate buttercreams) dessert tonight. It’s a crazy feeling to look up at the clock and see that its only 10:30 am, but you’ve been working for five hours already. Although I hit some roadblocks (my crème anglaise got all foamy the first run through) I often found myself smiling today. I loved bringing out a plate of hot banana bread and peanut butter cookies for the staff today, just because I could. And I loved braiding six loaves of challah and watching the breadbaskets come back empty from the dining room. I love the act of baking and the rewards it incurs.


My domain: the bakeshop.

The ranch is putting in a three-hole golf course and driving range, so the owner was out here this past week with some golfing bigwigs. I have no idea who Johnny Miller and Something Macavoy are… but they’re walking around looking very official. This weekend is another Wild West Women group, much younger and much more down-to-earth it seems. I now have an invitation out to North Carolina to bake for a lovely lady named Dottie this winter. I think, however, that I’ll be using Pam’s connection at Bridger Bowl (local ski hill) to slide in as one of the resort’s bakers. Perfect seasonal work!


The hiking is unbelievable... the ranch is just down in that little gulch on Big Creek.

It has finally warmed up here. No more snow at the ranch and big blue skies. Everyone seems to be in good spirits. There’s even a dance tonight up in Whilsal to celebrate the end of branding season. The hiking remains wonderful and the people are great. I’ve finally started to really feel at home here and everyone has really come together, new staff and old alike. So here are some pictures of where I live! Don’t you just want to visit? Please do!


Bear warnings are everywhere and for good reason.


East to the Absaroka Mountains


West to Big Sky

FYI: you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them!

Conde Nast Article

Here's a link to a recent Conde Nast article about the ranch! Very exciting, lots of great pictures of some of the staff and of the beautiful valley!

http://www.cntraveller.com/photos/photo-galleries/ranch-holidays-in-montana

Just copy and paste!

Cattle Branding and Other Things

Warning: Not for the vegetarian minded

The Shields River Valley

Yesterday I had a ridiculous Montana experience. Three of us from the ranch headed up to Whitsal, Montana, about an hour north of the ranch to help out, that’s right we participated, in a cattle branding. We were out on the Lazy S ranch, where they have thousands of head of cattle, including around 800 calves, which needed to be branded. So we drive out to the Shields River Valley and have to hop in this old cowboy’s truck to get up to the corral where all of the calves are being held. There were probably 25 people standing around, wrestling calves, branding calves, roping calves, injecting calves with vaccines, and drinking a whole ton of beer. Everyone other than the three of us was dressed in chaps, cowboy hats, and pearl snap button downs. These were real cowboys, working ranch hands and horse trainers. Working dogs were running all over the place, including an old blue heeler with three legs who was never far from his weathered and wrinkly owner with a big old gray handlebar mustache, wranglers, and even spurs on his boots.

Basically what happens is as follows: about eight people herd all of the calves on horseback from the pasture into the corral. Once in the corral a couple people on horseback go in and rope the calves, that is to say, they try to slip a rope underneath their back legs so that they can be dragged out of the corral towards the lines of people waiting to do the dirty. The bigger guys grabbed the calf’s upper body, while smaller folks like myself grab their back legs. So I had to hold the bottom leg down with my leg, untie the rope and then hold the upper leg out so the guy with the red-hot brand could come over. The brand itself made a horrible smelling smoke, but after maybe my tenth wrestle it didn’t seem all that bad. I feel like I got an inordinately large amount of feisty calves, no runts for me, just big over-fed calves that loved to try, and sometimes succeeded, to kick me. So that was cool. And it actually was. It was really interesting to watch and really fun to participate and I got to hold and feed a lamb called Winona, further strengthening my love of sheep.

The hiking around Mountain Sky is epic. Wednesday was my first day off, so I set out with an all-around staffer Blair and a guest for what turned out to be a four-hour hike. You could hike all the way into Yellowstone or over to Big Sky from the ranch, plus Emigrant Peak is right across the old highway. The wildlife out here while frightening to think about is also pretty cool. For example, on our hike we saw about seven deer right off the bat, wolf tracks, fox tracks, and moose skeet. There are fairly constant grizzly and black bear sightings and I definitely need to invest in some bear spray.

After my hike and chowed down on some guest leftovers, Parmesan, sundried tomato, and spinach stuffed and breaded chicken – we eat pretty well out here. And headed into the town of Livingston, where I was able to get cell phone service, go to a coffee shop and pick up some essentials. I definitely felt pretty out of place there, it’s only a town of 7,000 and people seemed to be staring a lot, but there are a lot of good (and semi-famous) restaurants, coffee shops, and little kitchy western stores. Back at the ranch I ate a quick dinner and then, shortly after I made the comment that it had not snowed all day, it started to snow, hard. But that didn’t stop Barrett, the maintenance guy and me from going on yet another hike around the horse pasture – which was even more beautiful in the snow.

It was the general managers birthday on Wednesday and so we ended up having a little staff shindig in the Saloon. I feel like dirty hip-hop, strong margaritas (cinco de mayo you know) and after full days of work with at times, needy, guests resulted in some serious bonding. The wranglers and the all-around staff don’t get to spend a huge amount of time together in the season, so it was good to have everyone together for a bit.

After work a few of us went on another hike around the ranch (so many trails!) and it was quite possibly the most beautiful hike I have ever been on. I really need to get a charger for my camera! We could see the whole Absorka Mountain range, still covered in snow, the beautiful Paradise Valley and about fifteen miles in the other direction the largest downhill ski area in the West, Big Sky. Right after we started the hike we saw huge grizzly tracks in the snow and they were really fresh, it was awesome and also scared the crap out of us!

Getting Settled

Sunday in the kitchen Pam and I still were working together and we really didn’t have that much to do. We still found 8 hours worth of baking, but a lot of it was prep for the next day, etc. I love not having a ton of guests here! I made blueberry turnovers all on my own and some poppy seed muffins. We plated the raspberry mousse cake, which I decorated with a rosette of whipped cream and chocolate shavings, as well as raspberry and chocolate sauces. We also made pizza dough, onion bread, pate fermente (a French bread), chocolate chip cookies, apple crisp, lemon olive oil sorbet, and Basque cake. Basque cake is really interesting because it’s a Spanish cake with very bready crust and a pastry cream filling. It’s a very very rich cake and apparently a favorite of ranch guests. I already feel like I’m learning a lot and am hopefully getting quicker on my feet.
Another shot of the ranch covered in snow

It’s been interesting trying to fill my afternoons, during which every other staff member is still working, but the nights are so far a lot of fun. A bit of pool is played in the very classic billiards room and many drinks are consumed – helpful for my 9’o’clock bedtime. Things are slow up here these days, but every day more staff members show up. Right now we’re about 20 at most, but at the height of the season we’re over 60! I better enjoy this relaxed atmosphere while I can. Pam took me on my first hike around Mountain Sky, up around Big Creek, which is in fact a big ole’ creek – perfect for floating when there aren’t a few inches of snow on the ground. This whole area is so beautiful and it seems like the hiking trails are endless. Its nice to finally be sitting down!

Nights at Mountain Sky vary. A couple days ago I went sledding for an hour with the general managers five year old son and Sunday night after a brief hiatus in my cabin to recuperate after 8 hours of baking I meet a bunch of the staff in the ranch bar, where the staff are spoiled by unbelievably cheap drinks, country music plays consistently, and guests and staff alike do line dances. Then last night it got pretty raucous when the DJ started playing Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas. Its Wild Women of the West week here at Mountain Sky, and these ladies like to party. (It’s pretty hilarious.) The wranglers are in high demand as dance partners – its like Dirty Dancing, but better.

In fact, I recently watched Dirty Dancing, one of many wonderful VHS tapes here at the staff lodge – (others include Michael and Grease… somebody obviously has a John Travolta inclination). Anyways… Dirty Dancing is about a summer resort, although in Maine and not in Montana, many things are very similar, including the fact that both states start with M. There are areas with large signs that read Staff Only, which of course Baby ignores. There are charades in the west lobby. We both have talent shows with dance numbers. The owner is a very wealthy man and the guests are very wealthy too, while the staff works seasonally to just get by. We have staff parties and dances and apparently all sorts of relationships, which everyone is aware of within two hours. Instead of dance teachers with sexy bods and black muscle tees, we have wranglers with sexy bods and five-gallon hats – who I am told frequently have flings with older lady guests. So as you can see, if you need a clearer picture of where I am living you should probably rent Dirty Dancing.

EQUALS...

Today was my first day alone in the bake shop, because Pam leads the all day hike once a week and today was that day. So I came in a little early and made muffins, some pastries, and the bread for dinner, which was, hilariously, challah, a bread I only make every Friday. So when I whipped out the six braider they were all so impressed... bwhahaha. It was a good day, I was nervous at first but then actually enjoyed being in the little space by myself and sort of in charge of when I do things and how I do them. I even stayed an extra hour to make some extra breakfast goodies, its nice to finally have a kitchen stocked with everything you need to play with ingredients. I freakin' love this job. After work I went on my first 6000 feet of elevation run, which was an experience. One I had to watch out for grizzlies, which were apparently spotted on the same trail I ran on, just yesterday and it was at 6000 feet! So a bit of nausea resulted, but dang is it beautiful out here.

Tomorrow is my first day off and I'm going to head 20 miles up the road to the grand ole' town of Livingston, population 5,000, to get some basics and maybe sit in a coffee shop with a different group of people. Woohoo! Love you all!