Stray 01.3 Culinary

Special Culinary Edition

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design adventure food wilderness

01.3

Th ere’s a fresh buz z of en erg y in the kitchen of the green o.

Montana has a special magic when it’s blanketed in snow, but as a chef, it’s a particular thrill for me when the land bursts into green and the warm-weather bounty finally arrives in our kitchen. At the Social Haus, we’re eager to share the hallmarks of the changing seasons—first tender new asparagus shoots, then sweet peas and lettuces hinting at the wealth of summer produce soon to come.

It’s that excitement that led us to make this issue of Stray a tribute to all things culinary. In the pages ahead, we’re celebrating people and places that inspire, all with a gastronomic bent. You’ll meet a Montana butcher who’s working to reconnect home cooks with the land, discover independent artists who are using food as muse (and sometimes medium) and encounter intrepid folks across the country who are taking mead to sophisticated new heights.

We’ll take you from Los Angeles, where a Montanaborn designer uses her homegrown appreciation for the natural world to inspire the look of game-changing restaurants, to the furthest edge of Nova Scotia, where one writer’s lingering memory of a humble family-run inn reveals that the most meaningful travel experiences sometimes come in unassuming packages.

Right here on property, you’ll meet the exceedingly talented (and a two-time James Beard Award semifinalist) Krystle Swenson, who shares a go-to springtime dessert ritual inspired by her childhood in Hawaii. And you’ll take a bite of the culinary fun at the Social Haus, where playful riffs on familiar favorites keep even a multicourse tasting menu from feeling fussy.

We hope the stories in this issue of Stray give you a taste of the green o ethos—and above all, that they whet your appetite for all the adventures this spring and summer have in store.

Brandon Cunningham Executive Chef, the green o

QUEEN OF

COOL Krystle Swenson, green o pastry chef and newly minted James B e a r d F o u n d a t i o n Aw a r d semifinalist, weighs in on a seasonal kitchen ritual that reminds her of home.

As Told to Lila Harron Battis

Across Big Sky Country, talented and passionate distillers are churning out a vast variety of locally made spirits. But their bottles aren’t limited to the basics— today’s distillers are going beyond whiskey and vodka with unique beverages that celebrate local ingredients and producers. Ahead, five standout spirits to snag on your next visit to Montana.

S P I R I T S

By Shea Swenson

of the W E S T

Mountain Mint SPOTTED BEAR SPIRITS Whitefish, Montana

Nestled near the base of Whitefish Mountain, Spotted Bear Spirits is distilling local mint into their Mountain Mint peppermint schnapps. The distillery sources the mint from a third-generation farmer in the Flathead Valley to craft the bright, icy spirit. $30, spottedbearspirits.com.

I think of sorrel and rhubarb as the first springtime desserts, especially sorrel. I like to treat it fresh and use it in a shaved ice form—it’s like you’re tasting the feeling of rolling around in grass. I use it when we do tasting menus as a pre-dessert or an interlude right after the very last savory course. It’s really nice—bright and refreshing. I grew up in Hawaii, so it’s very nostalgic for me. I have fond memories of eating shaved ice after school.

One of the machines I have for shaved ice is a hand crank. I think it’s actually a child’s toy, and it’s pretty nice because you can freeze a block of ice, move it around this blade and create shaved ice on the spot. Or you can just do the old-school way—freeze it in a shallow container and then fluff it with a fork.

Sorrel is really bright and refreshing, and I try to just keep it raw. We usually use a French lemon sorrel. Put that in a blender with a little bit of ice—this helps preserve that fresh, bright green color and flavor. So I’ll blend that with a little bit of water and sugar, then strain and season that. Sorrel can be acidic, so I like balancing it with a little water and sugar and salt. Then I freeze that and use it for shaved ice.

A lot of times I’ll pair it with Greek yogurt panna cotta, but even just taking your favorite Greek yogurt, adding a little vanilla and sugar to it, whisking it and using it as a substitution for a whipped topping is totally viable as well. I like the juxtaposition of a creamy, refreshing, tangy element with the ice—it’s very reminiscent of vanilla ice cream with shaved ice, and when they combine, it’s a really refreshing dessert that I gravitate toward a lot.

Nite Owl Coffee Liqueur MONTGOMERY DISTILLERY

Sweet Sting Honey Spirit WESTSLOPE DISTILLERY

Missoula, Montana

Hamilton, Montana

The Nite Owl coffee liqueur from Montgomery Distillery in Missoula is crafted with sun-dried Oaxacan coffee beans from the local Black Coffee Roasting Company. It’s a smooth, roasty beverage that doubles as a pick-me-up—and makes a mean White Russian. $32, montgomerydistillery.com.

Westslope’s Sweet Sting Honey Spirit starts with dark mead from Hidden Legend Winery in Victor. The beverage still tastes of the local honey that makes the mead—minus the sweetness—resulting in a versatile spirit that can sub in for bourbon or rum in cocktails, or be sipped solo. $38, westslopedist.com.

Apple Pie WILDRYE DISTILLING

Burrone Fernet GULCH DISTILLERS

Bozeman, Montana

Helena, Montana

Don’t be fooled by the name: the Apple Pie liquor from Wildrye Distilling in Bozeman isn’t a sweet sipper. Taking inspiration from Tennessee apple-pie moonshine, the spirit starts with a bourbon base that shines through notes of apple and spice from the addition of handpressed cider. $28, wildryedistilling.com.

In Helena, Gulch Distillers is crafting its own rendition of a European classic amaro—fernet. An herbaceous, bitter liquor, the distillery’s Burrone Fernet starts with a base made from Montana grains and gets its unique flavor from aromatics such as chamomile, rhubarb, saffron, myrrh and mint. $39, gulchdistillers.com.

WI

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HE AR T

Wi t h a c u l i n a r y wor k s h op p rog ra m, on e Mon t a n a butcher hopes to empower people with fundamental, ce n t u r i es - ol d food p rep a rat i on s k i l l s — a n d a p a ss i on fo r b u i l d i n g more s u st a i n a b l e food systems .

By Shelby Vittek

Photo credit: Justine Jane Photography

Photos: Justine Jane Photography

Photos: Justine Jane Photography

But for Borgman, it was a natural continuation of her longtime interest in agriculture, first sparked by her childhood in smalltown Oregon. While her culinary school classmates dreamed of opening restaurants, Borgman was growing fascinated with whole-animal butchery. She developed a deep reverence for what farmers, ranchers and nature could provide, one that only intensified in graduate school. “I got really interested in the intersection of wild food and the industrial food system,” she says.

When Anna B orgman , now a B ozeman -based butcher and

When Borgman moved to Montana three years ago, Big Sky Country and its abundance of edible resources ignited new passions. She took up foraging and taught herself how to hunt. “When I went out hunting for the first time, it was like ‘Oh man, I talk about butchery a lot but I’ve never actually killed anything before. Can I do this?’”

the founder of the food-focused workshop program Forage Fed , first set tled on a culinar y c areer path , her parent s were quick to express their concerns . “ What are you going to do in culinar y school? ” they said .

“ Yo u can’t even

After hunting her first deer, something shifted. “Watching the process of death made me think so much harder about where my meat comes from,” she says. Inspired by the experience, Borgman launched Forage Fed (forage-fed.com), a line of classes on butchery, bread making, natural wine and fermentation. She aims to not only teach attendees practical skills, but prompt them to consider history, sourcing, ecosystems—the bigger picture. The pandemic put Forage Fed classes on hold, but Borgman plans to launch them once again this spring.

In the meantime, Borgman took a butchery job at Amsterdam Meat Shop in Manhattan, outside Bozeman. There, she’s developed an even deeper appreciation for the ranchers whose livelihoods come from raising animals and stewarding public lands. It’s an experience Borgman hopes to share with the masses. “Some people have never seen anything die, especially something that’s going to become food,” she says. “You watch their whole world explode and open up. The conversations that come from it—that’s where I want to go with Forage Fed.”

scramble eggs!”

For Borgman, helping people understand where food comes from—and encouraging them to invest in those sources—brings a cascade of benefits. “We should be putting money back into our local communities,” says Borgman. “One of the best ways to do that is to support local agriculture. That’s going to help habitat for wildlife and it’s going to keep the fields from being eaten up with condos.” It’s her hope to help others reevaluate their own role in the food system, whether it be through a corkscrew, a knife, a shovel or a gun.

A FEAST FOR THE EYES Savor the everyday with food-focused art from these f o u r c r e a t o r s.

By Lila Harron Battis

Kitchen Staples A lifelong love of food and cooking inspired Maine-based printmaker Anastasia Inciardi to delve into linocuts with a culinary bent—think cabbage, Maldon sea salt and Luxardo cherries. inciardiprints.com

Forbidden Fruit The mind behind Devon Made Glass, Auckland-based Devyn Ormsby creates ethereal crystal fruit sculptures that harken back to midcentury blown-glass fruits. instagram.com/devonmade.glass

An Italian Job

A trained chemist and chef, David Rivillo uses pasta as his medium, creating intricately patterned linguini and ravioli, among others, in a kaleidoscope of colors. instagram.com/david_rivillo

In Good Taste Paper artist Ann Wood sculpts fruit and vegetables in their wildest state, from pears still clinging to the branch to beets dusted with soil. woodlucker.com Photo credits: (glass pear) Vetri Glass, (paper fruit) Ann Wood

Oxford, Mississippi may be synonymous with football and Faulkner, but the town and surrounding region have emerged as a center of gravity in the Southern food scene.

By Siobhan Reid

There’s nothing new or unexpected about Oxford, Mississippi’s emergence as a world-class dining destination. Since 1999, the city has been home to the influential Southern Foodways Alliance, which documents and studies the region’s food cultures. And around these parts, there are many: immigrants from Italy, China and Lebanon have all left their culinary mark in Mississippi over the past century, and more recently, Oxford has welcomed a wave of rising-star chefs who reinterpret Southern cooking through a global lens. While you could easily spend an entire weekend discovering Oxford’s food stops, it’s worth venturing beyond the city limits to get a taste of the region’s diverse table. Here’s where to go when you only have a weekend to explore—and an appetite for everything.

Oxford’s main square fans outward from the historic courthouse, an imposing Greco-Italianate structure shaded by elm trees and surrounded by colorful storefronts. Stroll the quaint streets and stop for lunch at Ajax Diner, an Oxford staple for 20 years, where the thing to order is the creamy casserole-like chicken and dumplings.

It’s worth motoring out to the neighboring town of Taylor, five miles away, for a tour and tasting at Wonderbird Spirits, North Mississippi’s first distiller, which opened in 2019. The award-winning gin is made from locally grown jasmine rice and botanicals like pine needles and red clover. Don’t leave town without visiting Taylor Grocery & Restaurant, aka the place for Mississippi-style catfish, served breaded and deep-fried, with the perfect amount of salt and crunch.

Back in Oxford, James Beard Award winner Chef John Currence is the culinary genius behind four critically acclaimed restaurants, including his flagship, City Grocery.

At nearby Snackbar, Currence has put Chef Vishwesh Bhatt, also a James Beard Award winner, in charge. Settle into a booth in the wood-paneled space and order BBQ broiled oysters and “Parsi-style” fried catfish, served with pistachio-raison pilaf and a side of meltingly soft saag.

Start your day with breakfast tacos at Sleepy Cactus before heading to Oxford’s most-visited tourist attraction, Rowan Oak. The Greek Revival-style estate is the former home of the South’s most famous scribe, William Faulkner, who set several novels—including masterworks The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying—in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, which is partly based on Oxford. The stately house still features many of the original furnishings, and the wooded grounds are studded with mature red cedars.

An hour away is the city of Clarksdale, credited as the birthplace of the blues. At the Delta Blues Museum, learn about the history of the genre and the lives of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and other musical greats who were born in the town. Stop for tamales and iced tea at Abe’s Bar-B-Q, a Clarksdale staple since 1924, then drive an hour south to Cleveland, where the hottest restaurant in town is Bar Fontaine, a restaurant and bar specializing in European-inspired small plates and craft cocktails. Sit on the rooftop patio and take in the views of downtown, with a glass of Old Soul bourbon from Mississippi’s Cathead Distillery in hand.

At Saint Leo, Californian-born Chef Emily Blount whips up wood-fire pizzas, handmade pastas and colorful seasonal salads in a bright brick-walled space with leather banquettes and an eye-catching bar. Brunch is an hourslong affair. Your order: skillet pancakes with a dollop of crème fraiche, a four-cheese bianca pizza sprinkled with chili flakes and rosemary and, if you still have room, spaghetti alla carbonara with slow-roasted pork jowl, pecorino, egg yolk and cracked black pepper.

Just steps away is Square Books, a two-story space that specializes in literary fiction, specifically by Southern greats like Faulkner and Alice Walker, and hosts more than 150 author events each year. The sweetest way to cap off a weekend in Oxford? A scoop at Sweet Magnolia Gelato, where the menu is constantly changing. The shop has created more than 300 flavors—and counting.

Chef Cole Ellis of Bar Fontaine

Photo credits: (left and center right) Jeffrey Grimes, (right and bottom right) Bar Fontaine

A TASTE OF HONEY

While it may have less cachet than wine, the beverage has had star turns in the epic poem Beowulf and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and more recently in Game of Thrones. And thanks to a growing number of discerning producers, like Meadiocrity, mead is regaining its cool factor. “Mead has all of the creativity of craft beer and finesse of wine without any of the judginess,” says Oberle, whose background is in traditional winemaking.

An age-old beverage has finally made its comeback—and sophisticated, utterly sippable iterations from innovative producers are setting the drinks world abuzz.

By Jen Murphy

On a sunny southern California day, Mark Oberle swirls a deep golden liquid in his glass, takes a sip, then waxes poetic about aromas of vanilla bean, crisp earthy honey flavors and a smooth vanilla finish. An enthusiastic group follows his lead, sniffing and swirling before taking sips and scribbling notes. But Oberle isn’t pouring Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc in some Napa wine cellar—he’s pouring a new release of Meadiocrity mead in a garden just off the highway in San Marcos.

The University of California’s lauded Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science introduced its first mead-making courses in 2014, and the quality of production has dramatically improved in the years since, says Amina Harris, director of the Institute’s Honey and Pollination Center. UC Davis has even devised a honey flavor wheel—inspired by its lauded wine aroma wheel— to help educate producers and consumers about mead’s nuances. “Folks in viticulture see the mead industry like Napa was in 1980 before Mondavi came along and said, ‘Hey, time for us to get it together and produce really great wine,’” says Harris.

As grapes are to wine, honey is to mead, and the best producers take great care in their sourcing. At Meadiocrity, only raw, unpasteurized honey sourced from local beekeepers and the meadery’s own hives will do. Valhalla, a producer out of Bozeman, exclusively sources one varietal of honey from select Montana apiaries. And while honey is the core ingredient, not all meads are sweet. Sap House Meadery in New Hampshire, for example, produces a mead that’s been barrel-aged in mescal casks to yield a smoky finish, while esteemed Michigan producer Schramm’s specializes in a style called melomel, which includes both fruit and honey in the fermentation process for a rich, cognac-like result.

Long associated with the land of dungeons and dragons and medieval times, the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage is making a resurgence across the United States. Also known as honey wine, mead is fermented from honey, water and yeast. Its origins have been traced to northern China, as far back as 7000 BCE, and it has long been consumed in countries like Ethiopia and Ireland.

Once relegated to tasting rooms, mead has finally begun springing up on restaurant menus. At Denver’s Wildflower, there’s a dedicated mead menu and Surrender, a bloodorange-infused, slightly effervescent mead from local producer Honnibrook, is on tap. “Colorado is known for its wildflowers, and it felt natural to showcase mead in our bar programs,” says general manager Oren Cohen.

“Just like wine, each style of mead tells a different story.”

FROM BEE TO BOTTLE

THESE GAME-CHANGING MEADERIES LIVE UP TO THE BUZZ. HONNIBROOK CRAFT MEADERY Castle Rock, Colorado

Run by former craft brewers, Honnibrook takes mead inspiration from beer styles, like low-proof session ales and fruity lambics. honnibrook.com MEADIOCRITY MEAD San Marcos, California

This SoCal meadery partners with local farmers to graze their bees on native California wildflowers and uses only raw, unpasteurized honey to intensify floral characteristics. meadiocritymead.com VALHALLA MEADERY Bozeman, Montana

A Scandinavian-inflected spot that exclusively sources wildflower, clover and alfalfa honey from Montana apiaries. valhallabozeman.com SAP HOUSE MEADERY Center Ossipee, New Hampshire

This experimental producer is known for unconventional barrel-aged and sparkling meads. saphousemeadery.com SCHRAMM’S MEAD Ferndale, Michigan

Founder Ken Schramm is one of the foremost experts in mead. His signature melomel styles feature his family’s own hand-harvested, estategrown fruit. schrammsmead.com

O n a t r i p t o C a n a d a, one writer finds that the best travel experiences aren’ t built solely on beautiful settings or stellar design, but on the indefinable­— magic created by warm hospitality and moments of delight.

By Tess Taylor

B

f Fu ay o

ndy

AT HOM We took the trip over five years ago, but it remains one of my favorites of all time: a winding two-week drive through Nova Scotia. It was August, and we’d woven from Yarmouth through Halifax and Lunenburg toward Cape Breton’s wild clifflined coast. On our way home we paused in Great Village, childhood home of poet Elizabeth Bishop, and noted the “narrow provinces / of fish and bread and tea” out of which she wove some of her most memorable poems. We admired the silted coppery cliffs around the Bay of Fundy, home to the world’s most extreme tides.

We also ended up in Advocate Harbour, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town on one of the Bay of Fundy’s inner harbors. We went there because my sister, a wanderer and inveterate foodie, had sent me a postcard the year before. “You must eat at the Wild Caraway,” she wrote, underlining it three times. “It Is The Best.” We’d been on the road for a week. We were ready to rest. We arrived with little agenda except to stay in the tiny inn, eat in the restaurant and explore the nearby Cape Chignecto coastal park, which has sea spires, miles of trails and log-strewn beaches.

Against this backdrop, in a town that attracts kayakers, fishermen, gem hunters and geologists, Wild Caraway is a small farmhouse turned inn and kitchen, run by husband and wife team Sarah Griebel and Andrew Aitken, who have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences. They keep a rambling garden, buy from local fishermen and forage up and down their rugged coast. “We want to engage the community in this place,” Griebel told me.

Griebel runs a tiny place with a very big heart. Downstairs is all cozy dining room; upstairs, two small suites await guests. From the first moment, we felt the place’s earthy, casual energy: homey, but unfussy; spartan, and also warm. Griebel put us quickly at ease. Noting our toddler, Bennett, wandering in the yard, Griebel showed us where, at the edge of the inn’s rambling garden, we might all want to idle a while and pick blueberries.

Helping us slow down to savor was a fitting opening for a restaurant where much is made with foods grown in the garden or foraged right on the coastline—where the scallop and lobster come from the fishermen just down the road, where the meals are inflected with local dulse, sandfire greens, seaside plantain or fiddleheads. Later that night, as we settled in for a glass of wine by the window, we ordered beet and apple borscht with seared scallops. It arrived with knobby house-made breadsticks and sprinkled with garden primrose, borage and fireweed. The day, the garden and the landscape had become our meal. Here was the bounty of one place, served in a white ceramic bowl. It felt utterly earthy and luxurious at once.

ME, FAR AWAY

Yet what is luxury? We could all wax rhapsodic about sheet thread count, but I think sometimes all we really want is to feel seen, to feel attended to. Aitken and Griebel treated us as if we were old friends, or friends to be. We were there three days, and I don’t remember doing much, exactly. We drank good coffee in the morning and drove down narrow farm lanes with sheets billowing on outdoor lines, admiring the quicksilver light. We watched peregrine falcons circle above the rickety white lighthouse at Cape d’Or, and took a beach hike with one eye to the extraordinary tide. We got caught in the rain and came home to get dry. Griebel laughed as we entered soaked and sent some chamomile tea up to our room. “Let me know how soon you want a cocktail,” she quipped, and sure enough, as soon as we were dry, one appeared. We bathed in a sense that, at the edges of our adventures, someone kind and canny was tending to us. Meanwhile, the meals were revelations: crusty bread, mouthwatering soups, some duck with blackberries we still talk about five years later. There was nothing to rush off to, so we ate slowly and sat a long time in the bay windows of the downstairs living room, watching the long summer dusk come on.

Sometimes delight arrives in the smallest touches: the moment when we asked if there might be cookies for dessert and, though none were on the menu, salted chocolate biscuits arrived, still warm from the oven. On the morning we left, we asked if we might order a lunch for the road. With a sort of easy hospitality that characterizes her, Griebel met us at checkout with ham sandwiches on fresh baked bread, also still warm. The mustard was so tart, the bread so soft. We felt restored and present in our happiness. I remember the bigness of the sky above the water as we drove off, eating those sandwiches, feeling alive to our gratitude, and to the day—its beauty, its shimmering light.

“I have such love for everything from my hometown, but I really adored Thompsons General Store,” says Terri Robison, a Geraldine, Montana, native and principal designer at LA-based Studio Unltd. “It was very utilitarian, as most things were back then. It burned down probably 10 years back, but I just want to recreate it.” Robison and her business partner, fellow Studio Unltd design principal Greg Bleier, are responsible for some of the trendiest restaurant interiors on the West Coast and beyond. Bavel and 189 by Dominique Ansel in Los Angeles, Callie in San Diego, New York City’s Dominique Ansel Bakery— these are the kind of spaces you wouldn’t immediately connect to the landscapes of central Montana. But spend some time talking with Robison and Geraldine, Montana, a town with a population in the low hundreds, quietly becomes a part of the story.

Terri Robison, principal designer at Studio Unltd in Los Angeles, shares the roots of her creative inspiration.

“Growing up in Montana, you can’t help but be inspired by nature,” she says. “I lived on the prairie side of the state, surrounded by flat landscapes. There is so much pattern in the changes in color between the seasons—that’s my color comfort zone.” The transitions in Robison’s work are subtle, recalling a prairie in motion, bringing your eye from a spectacular plant chandelier to a wall of hand-painted tiles. “My dad was a farmer and a carpenter and was always building something—I think that he played a big part in my fascination with detailing,” she says. “If you’re a farmer, you’re constantly solving problems. Those are the things that tend to drive me.”

By Erika Owen

Photo credits: (left image) Eater LA, (right image) Studio UNLTD

Robison has her fair share of problem solving, considering each project comes with a parade of contributors. She welcomes the extra layer of soul that comes with inviting more people into the design process. “We always love the projects where it’s the chef or owner and a small team that’s really excited about being a part of the process,” she says. “It’s an energy you can draw from the client that you just can’t get when it’s a more corporate company.”

Terri Robison at work

A prime example of this spirit can be found at the Rose Venice in LA, a neighborhood mainstay since it opened its doors in 1979. When the restaurant changed hands in 2015, locals were wary of the transition. But Robison and the Studio Unltd team dug into what community members wanted to see brought to the neighborhood. The project felt, in many ways, like a team effort, and the resulting space spoke to everyone. An impressive macramé chandelier hanging over communal dining areas is a testament to that collaboration. “I was macraméing these ropes to put behind the bar,” Robison says. “We got a bunch of people involved and it ended up being a beautiful hands-on project that added a unique layer to the space.” It’s small details like this that make a project stand out. “I wish we had more time for moments like that,” Robison says. “It takes a lot, but every once in a while we’ll decide to do it and stop the clock. To get our team involved in these little creative projects—it makes the job all that more special.”

189 by Dominique Ansel

On a grander scale, stopping the clock is far from what Robison is looking to do. For one, the studio is currently planning a project in Hawaii. But it’s work closer to home that brings the memories of Thompsons General Store back around again. A client, the former sommelier at LA’s République restaurant, is opening a new spot in Altadena. “It’s a very small, Italian spot— and he wants to set up a market inside. Maybe I can inject some of my general store dreams… I’m excited to see what we can do with that little space.”

On the picturesque coast of Oregon, a once-dilapidated Coast Guard facility has sprung back to life as a center for learning and culture—and a place to rediscover the culinary riches that await in the foreshore.

By Naomi Tomky

Photo credits: (left image and upper right image) Jean Wicker, (right image) Joshua Stills

the house at

t h e

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o f

On a sunny January day, a group of Girl Scouts walked through a gauntlet of shorebirds perched on fence posts along Oregon’s longest pier, which stretches out from the shore across the clam-rich tideflats of Tillamook Bay. In wooden turnouts dotting the sides, multigenerational family groups toss mesh pots baited with chicken over the railing in hopes of catching crab for dinner—the very skill that the scouts journeyed here to learn from volunteers in the boathouse at the end.

“Even before settlers were here, it’s been a place where people can harvest food,” says Kristen Penner, a commercial fisher and director on the GCHI’s board.

“Pretty much any clam that grows in the bay grows right along here.” These flats are the only in the area accessible by foot in low tides, which plays into one of the group’s other missions: increasing hands-on access to local seafood. “I’ve met people that get really excited to get out and go clamming or foraging, but then they get home and they’re so intimidated by the ingredients.”

When GCHI took over the boathouse, piles of debris sat on the floor and wildlife had turned the ceiling into its home over the years. But the all-volunteer group dove right in and made the decision to work little by little and use it as they could along the way. With bright whitewashed walls displaying old photos and newspaper archives, the stunningly beautiful space now shows the next generation the history of the area while teaching them the skills to care for the bay in the future.

The walkway’s 750-foot length served a purpose when designed in 1934: leading to Pier’s End, one of the last US Coast Guard life-saving stations commissioned. From the bungalow perched over the water, manned rescue boats could launch directly into the water. Metal rails still stretch down from the rear of the building, like a railroad into the briny depths. But the only boats inside are hand-built kayaks, and the only people watching the water are the scouts, sitting on nearby benches as they learn to check if crabs are male—legal to keep and eat— or female.

When faster boats obsoleted the station in the 1960s, it fell into disrepair. The Coast Guard decommissioned the building in 1980, giving it to the Port of Garibaldi, where it became—to use an apt metaphor—an albatross.

Then, in 2015, a group of locals created a nonprofit, the Garibaldi Cultural Heritage Initiative (GCHI), and worked to upgrade the building. They aimed to turn it into a museum of sorts, but with an eye toward experiences that capitalize on the location, like seafood foraging, preparation and cooking classes.

Photo credits: (left and right image) Modern Adventure, (top center) Mike Arseneault, (bottom center) Johanna Froese

After a pandemic pause, the GCHI recently resumed their in-person programs, starting with the crab class for the Girl Scouts in January, and this year the organization received a $30,000 grant from the Oregon Coast Visitors Association to upgrade the kitchen. The building, made to preserve lives in the sometimes-treacherous waters that flow below it, now enriches them as an interactive heritage site meant to keep the waters healthy and sustainable for generations to come. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach the children to catch crab, and it might just save the bay.

Orchards are unique in agriculture, beloved for their beauty and nostalgic appeal as much as for their bounty. As family farms are both celebrated and endangered, Montana communities are finding new ways to help these orchards endure.

By Deborah Reid

The

Giving

Trees

It’s coming on spring. Soon fruit trees will blossom, and people worldwide will go careering toward the moment—mad to leave the cold, dark winter. Flowering fruit trees will be the destination for country drives and park outings. Woolen picnic blankets will flick in a breeze and drift to the ground. Family and friends will settle to share food and conversation while pink and white petals whorl all around. The Japanese call this pleasure hanami: a confluence of being social and in nature.

In his book Taming Fruit, Bernd Brunner writes, “Perhaps it makes sense to think about an orchard as a kind of stage—one where a highly specific drama plays out between fruit trees and their caretakers...orchards invite us to enjoy the complex spectacle of fruit growing and ripening in the company of animals, people, and other plants.”

“I never get tired of cherries,” says Gary Johnson of the Orchard at Flathead Lake in northwestern Montana. “At the end of the season, I’m climbing the trees to find the fruit that was missed.” Johnson’s parents bought the property in the mid-1970s, and 30 years later, he returned home and began the transition to organic. The lake creates a temperate growing environment. The summer is cool and the nights warm, ideal conditions for tender fruit. The Flathead Valley produces three million pounds of cherries annually. It once produced three times that, but a devastating freeze in the late 1980s destroyed swaths of trees.

book Orchards. “At the moment, the fallen apples are being devoured by winter-visiting flocks of fieldfare and redwing.”

The weather is always a worry, but some of the most impactful threats capping orchard expansion are economic.

First, farmers pulled fruit trees to raise livestock and plant corn in hopes of better, more stable returns. The ubiquitous real estate developers followed, encroaching on prime agricultural land on the shores of places like Flathead Lake.

The surrounding community experiences the loss of access to local food sources.

“We worked with a couple of groups to start community orchards like Ruby Habitat Foundation in the Ruby Valley, where there are some of the most beautiful heritage orchards I’ve visited,” says Katrina Mendrey, orchard program manager at the Western Agricultural Research Center at Montana State University, “We also planted 10 apple trees outside the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka.”

Beyond a reliable food source, orchards come with other ancillary benefits. Carbon sequestering, for one: a fruit tree can be in the ground for up to 20 years in a modern orchard, and tilling is minimal. Then there’s the rich biodiversity nurtured among the fruit trees. “I love the apple orchard in my village,” says Claire Masset, author of the charming

It’s mid-February in Gary Johnson’s orchard, and in the next few weeks, he’ll prune the trees and then shift to mowing and weeding the 11 acres through to summer. Harvest happens in late July. “It’s quick. I can get a half dozen people in here and pick it in a few days,” he says. “The cherries are pitted and frozen into 30-pound buckets.” Harvesting and production amount to an intense couple of weeks.

In a valley where most fruit is exported to Taiwan, Johnson’s approach is unique. He sells to health food stores and local gift shops, spreading the cash flow across the calendar. His frozen fruit is made into jam, chutney, barbecue sauce and cherry topping for cheesecake or sundaes. Eventually, he’d like to tap more deeply into agritourism.

At pick-your-own apple orchards, families participate in the ancient harvest cycle. Children chase each other between rows of trees, spill heavy baskets of fruit on the ground and pitch a core as far as possible, just as their parents and grandparents did in generations before. Orchards are where bees get drunk on nectar in the spring, geese and sheep graze in the shade of a leafy canopy in high summer and barren branches reach to meet an azure winter sky.

They’re a place of natural abundance. A reminder that the season is always turning, and fruit is not the sole purpose.

Blast from the

past

Today’s top chefs are plating fine-dining on their childhood favorites, with delightful— and delicious—results.

By Chadner Navarro

Thoughtful surprises are the norm at the green o, be it in the form of a morning pastry delivered to your door or a suite among the treetops outfitted with an unbelievably luxurious bathroom. It’s no different at the Social Haus, where Executive Chef Brandon Cunningham is reimagining fine dining with a sense of playfulness and childlike wonder. The tasting menu changes daily, but he likes to set the tone for this culinary journey with the humble fish stick.

Cunningham knows that a meal that begins with tempurabattered strips of fried fish is an instant conversationstarter. “The quip I make as soon as a guest asks me why I’m serving them fish sticks is, ‘Hey, the bar is so low on these that it’s an easy win for us,’” he jokes. But there’s nothing lowbrow about these fish sticks: Cunningham’s version features a medley of whitefish salted for two weeks before it’s molded with steamed potatoes. Once fried, sticks are dusted with salt-and-vinegar powder and then plated alongside a fermented tartar sauce with a dill emulsion.

It’s an unconventional opener, but for Cunningham, the fish stick is emblematic of the Social Haus experience.

“It’s supposed to be fun,” he says. “I want every night to be experiential and fun.” So he and his team dug through the American culinary archives to find similar items that they can reconstruct into moments of fine-dining magic.

There are two-biter scallops, and venison corn dogs dipped into a buckwheat-cornmeal batter. The Social Haus team has made crab rangoon out of Dungeness crab mixed with crème fraîche and sauced with housemade sweet chili. Chicken mousseline has been fried to look like chicken nuggets. Most recently, Cunningham made chicharrones out of cod skin and then coated them with a dehydrated sauce that mimics Doritos. He plates it with an avocado emulsion and calls it chips and guac.

“It takes humility and guts to open up a meal like this, but thankfully guests love them,” Cunningham says. It helps that these dishes are instantly recognizable, allowing him to play with that nostalgia. “Everyone’s had fish sticks and chicken nuggets, but they most likely came out of a frozen box or from a fast-food restaurant,” he says. “Here, we can have a little bit of fun, show that we’re not stuffy and that we’ve got the technical skills to elevate these dishes successfully.”

He’s not the only one taking on this challenge. Chefs all over the United States have been similarly introspective and playful, looking to their pasts to create whimsical interpretations of food they enjoyed as children. At New York City’s year-old Hancock St., Chef Ryan Schmidtberger peppers his menu with things like McDonald’s-style breakfast hash browns. “They were always such a special treat growing up,” he says. To pay homage, he’s serving mini hash browns topped with uni and yellowfin tuna, as if Ronald collaborated with a sushi master.

He’s also tossing potato chips with vinegar and cheddar powder, which reminds him of tearing through sour cream and onion Pringles in his grandma’s basement. At Hancock St., guests might enjoy that with caviar service.

“I kept thinking about items that were really craveable American staples,” Schmidtberger says. “Things you’ll want to come back for twice a week.”

At Newport, Rhode Island’s Giusto restaurant, Chef Kevin O’Donnell honors a boyhood pastime of going to the Olneyville New York System for one of its chilitopped wieners with a clever take on pigs-in-a-blanket. He stuffs puff pastry with mortadella before slathering it with a homemade ’nduja chili sauce. It combines Italian flavors with a bit of New England history. “We hope that anyone from Rhode Island appreciates the fun take on an Olneyville NY System and gets a little joy in eating it,” O’Donnell says.

Top: Cunningham’s Corndog. Right: Cunningham’s Fish Stick

That’s the thing about these dishes. It’s about finding joy in them. “We want to inject some levity and variety to the fine-dining experience,” Cunningham adds. “But we’re still gonna serve good food, like the best damn fish sticks of your life.”

Chefs and home cooks alike are increasingly looking to the land for culinary inspiration, and a growing movement is marrying the once-disparate realms of sophisticated cooking and backto-nature hunting and fishing. Here, four gastronomically minded outdoorsmen who prize flavor above all are working to bring hunt-to-table cuisine to the masses.

By Adam Erace

ERIC MORRIS likes the old ways of doing things. The Alabama-born hunter and creator of the N.onT.ypical Outdoorsman YouTube series relishes hunting without the “gadgets and gizmos,” as he puts it, and filling up the freezer with game he harvests from the land surrounding his home, 40 or so minutes outside Atlanta. “I always say I was born too late. My time would have been around the 1700s or 1800s, where I could just be wild and free— aside from the racism and slavery.”

< e r i c

m o r r i s >

Being a Black outdoorsman is not what makes Morris “nontypical.” There’s a long tradition of hunting and gathering among Black Americans, a topic Morris is currently writing a book about. The nontypical aspect of his brand refers to how he hunts. “I have a simple approach because my belief is that hunting is not hard,” Morris explains. “It doesn’t take money or technology to be successful—learn to read the signs and recognize animal behavior.” Mentorship is the keystone of Morris’s mission, teaching a new generation of young hunters traditional, low-intervention methods that don’t require military-grade equipment. Give him a spear, a bow, a rifle, Morris will be back with dinner: fried rabbit, hickorysmoked venison, roasted wild turkey “that tastes more of roast beef than a Butterball. Wild game just tastes better.”

As much as the taste, hunting is a road to self-sufficiency.

“I think 2020 was a wake-up call for a lot of people. While they were rushing to the store, I haven’t been down the meat aisle in three-and-a-half years.”

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ISAAC TOUPS needs you to know, “the thing about Cajun food is that it’s communal.” While federal law prohibits him from serving customers at his New Orleans restaurant, Toups Meatery, any of the wild creatures he catches in the bayous and forests of Louisiana and Mississippi, the generous spirit of a post-hunt feast serves as his North Star. “When eight, ten of us sit down at mama and daddy’s house, we’re all sharing off each other’s plates,” he says. “My girls get giddy when my father is cooking because they know papa is gonna cook some wild meat, and it’s gonna be good. Game is something we can always come together around.”

In Rayne, Louisiana, where Toups was born and raised, hunting and fishing were part of everyday life. His father, a dentist who makes a mean dove stew, gave Toups his first gun, and seasons were marked by whether the family was at the deer camp or the fish camp. No matter the location, food was always central to the experience. It wasn’t till Toups left Cajun Country that he understood the distinctiveness of his ancestral foodways. “You just grow up eating wild duck gumbo thinking everybody eats it. It’s not until you get out you realize, well, not everybody goes hunting. You don’t come home with a pocket full of squirrels, and your daddy helps you clean them, and your mama cooks them? That doesn’t happen? Oh. Then what the hell do y’all do for fun?”

t r u o n g > < w a d e

WADE TRUONG has been hunting, fishing and crabbing in the Mid-Atlantic for 12 years, but the ducks still get to him. “The best time to hunt ducks is when the wind is blowing 20 miles per hour and it’s eight degrees out,” the native Virginian says. “You boat out at three in the morning, jump out and hope the water is as shallow as it’s supposed to be. The whole experience is like, ‘Why am I doing this?’” Truong, who runs the culinary and hunting website Elevated Wild with his wife and fellow hunter Rachel Owen, can answer his own question: It’s “an emotional investment.

You’re gonna sweat your ass off, or you’re cold, or you feel like you’re gonna die. That food tastes better.”

The integrity of wild game is the starting point for Truong, a trained chef who grew up in his parents’ Vietnamese restaurant, the first in Harrisonburg, a small city in the Shenandoah Valley. His professional culinary experience and Asian-American heritage give Elevated Wild’s recipes a distinct point of view: Alongside paper-thin squirrel ravioli and softshell crab BLTs, you’ll find lumpia filled with wild turkey and pho crowned with goose confit and shaved raw venison tenderloin. “When I got into hunting, the lack of diversity in game recipes was strange —a lot of crock pots and Italian dressing,” Truong says.

“The food wasn’t being treated as a premium ingredient that should be savored. I want to show people that you can do more with game than grind it into a burger.”

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BILL BRIGHT was three of four years into his carpentry apprenticeship in Cape May County, New Jersey, when he dropped out and joined a group of fishermen on a boat bound for Alaska. “My father and brothers were all carpenters, and I just couldn’t visualize doing that for the rest of my life,” he says. What he found out there in the perilous seas was a thrill that hasn’t abated, even after 42 years. Bright stays closer to home now, journeying out to the Continental Shelf to hunt for swordfish, mahi, big-eye and yellowfin tunas­­—much of which comes back to the family restaurant, Hooked Up Seafood, an awardwinning alfresco set-up on the docks.

“Fishing is an adrenaline rush,” Bright says. “Now I pass that on to my kids. One of the most rewarding things is to see my kids be excited about the same things I’m excited about.” Bright and his wife, Michelle, have four children, all of whom fish and hunt. Sam, the third oldest, got the rest of the family into elk hunting, reigniting a childhood hunting passion in his father. But Bright doesn’t make any distinction between a tenacious swordfish and a runaway elk. “I’m a harvester by nature, and I believe that I owe it to the animal to make sure I use as much as I can. I don’t know if it makes the animal feel any better, but it certainly makes me feel better that I can see the harvest through from beginning to end.”

4069 Backcountry Road Greenough, MT 59823 877-251-2841 thegreeno.com

C A R R O T

O D E

Now the carrots are new, or new to the surface.

They spent their dark months fingering ground. They fatten on snowmelt. Exhumed, they’re crisp gold.

At the sink I scour mountain drainage, topsoil & valley, then grate them into a salad with raisins.

The first ones were Afghan, weeds bred for taproot & savory seed. I scrub what seems a long time, imagining their feathery march across centuries, windblown & fodder for horses & kings. Gems fed on loam.

Carrots: I scrub mud that fed you.

I wash & peel: You earth me, too.

—tess taylor

anatomy of carrot by stella nall

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