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