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.