Rocky Mountain “Hi!”

August has been mountain month for me.  I’ve covered lots of rocky terrain and seen more than my fair share of rugged snow capped peaks, cascading rivers and breathtaking scenery.  First stop was the Grand Tetons near Jackson Hole, WY, then Black Mountain, NC and the Blue Ridge mountains.  My hike today is in the Rocky Mountains -- Aspen, CO.  Let me just say that the view from 12,000 feet is absolutely spectacular.

Six years ago, I joined my two closest friends for our first Aspen adventure and we’ve happily upheld the tradition ever since. It’s a lively gathering at the home of one of our band of sisters who has the good fortune of living in Aspen and has the even better fortune of being married to a man who embraces our friendship and our annual presence.  Having three high-spirited women underfoot can test the patience of even the most generous-spirited man, but he simply joins in the merriment or graciously tunes us out.

Breakfast at the Aspen house is a casual, welcoming, come-and-go, and come-as-you-are affair.  Donna, our friend and host, sets the standard in my book for creating a simple, colorful breakfast assortment and happy morning atmosphere for her guests.  And many a guest – family and friends – greets the Rocky Mountain morning in her kitchen.

Through the years, Donna has learned what her houseguests like and what fits with her style of easy and effortless entertaining.  With a few seasonal adjustments she pretty much sticks with her tried and true breakfast. Donna’s morning meal pays homage to my mother’s favorite saying, “breakfast is a personal meal”.  There’s a little something for everyone, and if it’s not on the kitchen counter, there’s a good chance that it’s in the refrigerator or pantry, at the ready – just in case.  In Donna’s kitchen, guests feel free to find their favorite % milk in the refrigerator, make their preferred cup of tea, or grind coffee beans for the next pot of coffee.

Beckoning from the kitchen island is a dramatic glass-domed platter that holds tempting treats from a local artisan bakery.  The muffins are robust with uneven tops and shapes that announce to the diner that these are something special.  Even those among us who normally shun sweets for breakfast can justify having “just a half.”

A panoply of glass bowls, in various shapes and sizes, hold granola, yogurt, and as many fruits as Donna can find at the local farmers’ market.   This week’s buffet held plump raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and sliced peaches.  There are cereals on hand from the most health-minded to the most child-friendly. Fresh baked  breads and English muffins stand ready for the toaster, accompanied by local jams and honey. Of course, there’s a carton of eggs and a rasher of bacon in the refrigerator “just in case.”

Greeting the day with a view of the magnificent mountains is an awe inspiring experience that never fails to fill my heart with gratitude; greeting my best friends around Donna’s kitchen island .....well, that's even better.

Orange Yogurt

by Ina Garten

from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

MAKES 3 CUPS

With just a little bit of planning, this yogurt takes only a few minutes to make.  Some of the liquid is drained out of the plain yogurt and replaced with fresh orange juice to add more flavor.  I love the chunkiness of all the additions.  Use this recipe as a base and make up new flavors, such as cranberry orange or maple walnut.  Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa

1 quart plain low-fat yogurt

¼ cup raisins

¼ cup chopped walnuts

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup good honey

Grated zest of one orange

½ to 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

Line a sieve  with cheesecloth or paper towels and suspend it over a bowl.  Pour the yogurt into the sieve and allow it to drain, refrigerated for 3 hours or over night.  Place the thickened yogurt into a medium bowl and add the raisins, walnuts, vanilla, honey, and orange zest to taste.  Thin with orange juice until it is a desirable consistency.  Garnish with sections of orange, extra orange zest, raisins or walnuts and serve.

Note from Carol:  I prefer low-fat to nonfat yogurt for this recipe.

Postcard from Wyoming - The Cowboy Chocolatier

Real cowboys eat chocolate…and at least one cowboy makes it too.  That’s the late breaking news from our Thelma and Louise road trip. 

Driving through Wyoming this past week, my intrepid travel companion, Connie Gibbons, and I have charted miles, hiked the Tetons, trout-fished the Snake River, gushed over Old Faithful, been up close and personal with moose, elk, bison and a young grizzly bear and experienced the newest wonder of the Wild West.  Chocolate.

Somewhere south of the lively rodeo town of Cody, we sped past a marker that read Meeteetse, population 347, when a storefront caught my eye and caused me to hit the brakes and throw the rental into reverse. And there we were, peering through the window of The Meeteetse Chocolatier.   The chocolate shop was the very picture of the old West and occupied a building that appeared to have housed a saloon where Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty may have held forth in a former life.  The rustic furnishings were an invitation to “sit a spell” and have a beverage or two topped off with a brownie or a few truffles and catch up on the local news.  The freestanding wood burning furnace, farm chairs and comfortable wagon-wheel motif couch are a reminder that we’re in the wilds of Wyoming.

In 2004, Tim Kellogg was a rodeo rider in need of a new bronc saddle.  His mom suggested he sell some of his chocolates and brownies at the Cody Stampede Rodeo, an annual 4^th of July celebration that brings thousands to the area.  He balked; she talked.  And she won.  Soon Tim had the new saddle as well as a thriving business.  Cowboy by day and chocolatier by night, he walks the barbwire fence line between two worlds, the rugged and refined.

During his student days studying business and environmental economics at the University of Colorado he worked on a small horse ranch and performed in rodeos.  After graduation, he had two goals on his mind.  One was to work on a big cattle ranch and the other to live somewhere he could pursue a professional rodeo career.  The job took him to a large ranch outside of Meeteetse, Wyoming that raised natural Angus beef.  And Meeteetse was conveniently located just 30 miles south of Cody, the “Rodeo Capital of the World.”

The work of a modern cowboy is physical and outdoors much like our cowboy heroes of television and movies.  Kellogg works the tough part of the cowboy myth, mending fences, moving cattle, irrigating alfalfa and oats for feed and maintaining the ranch.  By day his environment is expansive and physically demanding.  At night his work shrinks to a tiny kitchen and a fanatically precise art.

He learned to make truffles at the apron strings of his grandmother, Anna Hunchar. who lived back east.  Both grandmother and grandfather were remarkable cooks and enforced a “no one else in the kitchen” rule, the very same one he practices in his own business.   When his grandmother developed Parkinson’s Disease, Kellogg feared that her recipes and treats would disappear, so about ten years ago he began making holiday chocolates for the family.

As Kellogg tells it, the chocolates were amateur and not very good, although his family would disagree.  Making chocolate only once a year, he had little opportunity to refine his grandmother’s recipes or his skills and he worked in a home kitchen. That’s when his mother stepped in and suggested he sell his chocolates to help pay for the much-needed saddle. 

It wasn’t long before Kellogg gave up riding rodeo and started selling chocolates at rodeos instead.  Next came a store front and a professional kitchen where he could practice his craft.  

His chocolates and packaging sing Wyoming.  Truffle boxes are lined with red bandana patterned tissue paper and tied with baling twine .

While the packaging is all cowboys and culture, the truffles are all about the landscape.  Truffles with sage, huckleberry, jalapeno – even Coors beer - share the wood-framed case with the more traditional mocha, Champagne, raspberry and Grand Marnier.

Aside from a local ice cream, everything is made in-house and made by the cowboy chocolatier.  And everything is made from the best.  Consider, as an example, his hot chocolate drink.  Kellogg uses organic milk and melted chocolate to create something remarkable in this world of instant everything. Seasonal chocolates enhance the core assortment and customers clamor for the release of the Valentine, Easter and holiday chocolates.   He stubbornly refuses to “rush the season” and for the Meeteetse Chocolatier this means no holiday chocolates appear before the calendar permits.  You won’t find Easter candies right after Valentine’s Day and Christmas chocolates don’t appear in the case till the actual Christmas season – not the artificially contrived seasons of the modern retail world.

His shop is open every day except during January when it is closed altogether.  After the holidays, Kellogg rides off to a culinary school in London where he studies technique and has time to experiment.  “There no time to play in my chocolate kitchen,” he says, “I have to go away for that.”

His life is always about balance.  “When I’m tired of working with chocolate, I go work with cattle.”  “When I’m tired of cattle, I can retreat to my kitchen.”  “It’s the best of both worlds. I come home to my dog smelling of either manure or chocolate.”

Connie and I headed down the road with sage and huckleberry truffles melting in our mouths, a carefully packed box of chocolates nestled in the glove box and another Wyoming tale to tell.  As she tuned the radio to “Outlaw Country", our favorite XM road music, she mused, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could hear Willie sing ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys’?”

Postcard from Wyoming - Tasty Trail Food

Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here…but if you were, you’d be really tired.  That’s because this vacation is all about hiking…and lots of it.  Even the trails the friendly natives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming tell us are “moderate” feel like climbing Kilamanjaro.  The payoff for aching muscles and blistered feet is the privilege of being in some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.  The Grand Tetons are awe inspiring and magic abounds around every bend of the trails we’ve traversed over the last few days.   Glacial lakes, alpine meadows with thousands of wild flowers, waterfalls, roaring streams tumbling over boulders set in place by the ice age some 500 million years ago.  When your heart is filled with reverence, awe and gratitude a blister or two can be easily overlooked.

Our hikes are normally six to eight miles and last anywhere from four to five hours so what to do for food is always at the top of our list. Hiking on a full stomach is a really bad idea and packing food on the trail is a big no-no since grizzly bears can smell from 30 miles away.  Warnings of bear sightings are posted on several trails we’ve hiked and we found a couple of trails closed all together because of bear activity.  Although we came equipped with bear bells and bear spray as a last resort, my hiking buddy Connie and I make it a practice of never unnecessarily tempting a hungry people-eating bear.  There’s good reason that trail mix tucked away in a zip-lock bag is a hiker’s best friend.

A good mix should provide lots of calories, a steady energy source and be easy to eat on the move.  This is not the time to go low fat, low carb, low calorie…low anything. Connie is a master at creating the perfect trail mix, blending just the right ingredients to make it tasty AND interesting.  Her variations are as diverse as the trails we’ve hiked but always hit the perfect note.

Do you remember hearing people referring to “GORP”?  I used that term for trail mix for years thinking it was a name one of my crazy college hiking friends made up.  It simply means “Good Old Raisins and Peanuts” which are the foundation for many a trail mix.  You can start from there, like Connie, and then make it interesting.  Salted nuts are important because your body loses salt as it perspires.   Nuts are packed with nutrition – especially protein – which aids in building and repairing muscle.  She likes to use a variety of nuts to add flavor and texture along with high energy sunflower kernels (not in the shells!). Raisins round out the flavor by adding sweetness and whether you choose light raisins or dark, I can’t imagine a trail mix without them or other dried fruits. Pretzels and cereals like Chex and Cheerios can add texture, crunch and flavor but don’t overdo it as they don’t provide the energy kick you need.   The variations are endless…but the important thing is to have it YOUR way – power packed with flavors and textures that make you happy.   And being happy and healthy is what its all about.       Happy Trails!  Carol

Connie’s Grand Teton Trail Mix

Connie Gibbons is executive director of the Nicolaysen Museum in Casper, WY, a very cool museum dedicated to contemporary art.  We became friends when she headed up the famous B.B. King Museum in Indianola, MS.  Her eclectic resume also includes a stint at the Buddy Holly Museum in Lubbock, TX so you can see that she is a multi-faceted woman who enjoys geographic and cultural diversity as well as some really fine music.  An avid sportswoman – long distance runner, hiker, and cyclist - Connie knows how to keep herself fueled and fed for her active lifestyle.

Basic Mix - Knock yourself out making it your own! 

Makes about 5 cups

3 cups dried fruit (I like raisins, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, dried cranberries)

1 cup mixed nuts (I like raw almonds, cashews and walnuts– but any old nut will do)

Handful of pumpkin seed kernels (no shells!)

1 cup good granola

Combine all in a large bowl.  To store trail mix, place in an airtight container – preferably glass.  Keep container in a cool dry place for up to a month.

Postcard from Wyoming - Do Cowboys Eat Pie?

Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here!

The only way to beat the Mississippi heat and humidity is to get out of town.  Way out of town.  In my case that would be wilds of Wyoming.  It was only 7:30 a.m. -- already a hot and steamy Mississippi morning-- as I frantically called Samantha the cat who inconveniently escaped when I put my suitcase in the car.  Tuning the radio en route to the airport the morning DJ lamented that it was going to be another scorcher with the thermometer crossing the 100° mark.  Only five short hours after backing out of my driveway, Mississippi was but a muggy memory and the Cheyenne airport was in the rear view mirror of my shiny blue rental car. I was looking for adventure under the cool, dry and brilliant Wyoming sky.  I had gone from 80% humidity to 23%. How’s that for time travel?

I headed north to Casper to meet my friend and travel companion for the next few days.  Connie Gibbons is the Thelma to my Louise (or is it the other way around?). She’s always up for adventure whether its hiking (like this trip), cycling, museum hopping, a rock concert, wine tasting…or any fun activity that takes us out of our structured lives, if only for a few hours or days. We headed for the Tetons. Destination – Jackson Hole.  After a few hours of barreling across the vast, sparsely populated Wyoming landscape, the road between Casper and Jackson Hole makes a hard left in the small town of Dubois placing the unsuspecting traveler in the middle of a downtown that could be a Western movie set. As we soon learned, the motto of Dubois (pronounced Doo-Boys…not the Frenchified Du-Bwa) is “Where Real Cowboys Work and Play.” The rustic log buildings lining the main street make it look much like it did when the town was first settled in the late 1800’s. One of the buildings we passed just happened to be the Cowboy Café…so we slammed on the brakes and shifted into reverse.   We had kept a sharp but unsuccessful lookout for cowboys on our journey but, alas, they must have been at the state rodeo or rounding up cattle.  So the Cowboy Café was the closest we were probably going to get to a cowboy on our road trip across Wyoming.

Whether you’re riding the range or just passing through town, Cowboy Café is a local legend and a “must stop”.  A Wyoming tradition since 1939, the café has been owned by the Murdoch family for the past 20 years. Although the café serves three meals a day, breakfast is the really big deal and can be had until around 2:00 p.m.  You’ll find any kind of eggs you can imagine and an ample selection of the café’s trademark “skillets”.  Each skillet starts with cowboy potatoes and a variety of veggies topped with two eggs and toast.  Cowboys probably go straight for a side order of elk sausage or the highly touted buffalo burger but I had my eyes on pies. And I was not alone; most every table was festooned with a scrumptious looking piece of pie. Bourbon Chocolate Pecan, Cherry Crunch, Boysenberry, Apple Caramel Crunch, Turtle Pie, Blueberry Crunch – and these are just a few of the homemade wonders filling the case.

After a delightful lunch at a sidewalk table where the street life of Dubois was as fascinating as the food, we reluctantly left the Cowboy Café, Dubois and the pie-eating cowboys. The lure of the open road sometimes trumps even the most enjoyable dining experience and the delights of a charming town.  It was time to move on. There were miles of open road to be traveled, adventures to be had and sites to see before the sun set over the majestic landscape of western Wyoming.

The Cowboy Café, 115 East Ramshorn Street, Dubois, WY 82513. (307-455-2595).