Local Eats

The perfect burger starts before the fire, not on it. These are four things you need to know if you want to graduate from decent burger chef to Transcendental burger chef with the cast iron. Step 1 for Burgers on Cast Iron: Meat Preparation I'm guilty, you are. Don't try to deny it. You stuff all kinds of stuff into your burgers blue cheese, bread crumbs, eggs- you basically make individual meatloaf and put it on a bun. Stop that. Instead, let the meat be the main course build your patties with good quality hamburger meat (Jason recommends 85/15 burger) and don't handle them so much. Adding ingredients to the meat changes the way it cooks (and these extra additions are typically used to help retain moisture, which will no longer be a problem cooking on cast iron). Pro-tip: Watch the video below to learn the "plate trick" and make perfect... Read more

The Best Buttermilk Pancakes Obviously, I am always writing about food. So what's it take? What's it take to make the best coffee and the best buttermilk pancakes in the Northwestern US and plate it all rustic? It takes a little local knowledge and some great food products we stock at your local 40 namely, Wheat Montana Buttermilk Pancake mix, butter pecan syrup and one of our locally roasted coffees. The local knowledge is how to plate it all rustic. The clay jars you see pictured here are all made in Hinsdale, Montana at Klind Pottery. What makes these the best pancakes and coffee in the Northwest? Let us, ladies and gentleman, begin first with the mixture de pancake. Watch this video provided by Wheat Montana which will explain what sets this buttermilk mix ahead of your general pancake mixes.  You will see that this wheat is grown... Read more

When it comes to food safety, I take it to a whole ‘nother level. Never shall meats and vegetables touch the same surfaces during preparation, and after making chicken, the kitchen smells like a swimming pool with copious amount of the bleach I use in the clean up. So, when home fermentation started becoming popular many years ago, even with all of its nutritional benefits, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do have food soaking in brine on the counter for a week or more, possibly with white fuzz growing somewhere on the liquid, and actually eat it. Thankfully, speaking with Sandor Katz (a.k.a. Sandorkraut), author of Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, alleviated my fears. His decades of research and international experience convinced me that I wasn’t going to kill my family, and in fact, fermenting food will act... Read more

The lettuce and spinach are finally planted, but it’s still going to be weeks before they’re big enough to make a salad and, truthfully, I am ready for vegetables that haven’t traveled more than I have. To satisfy my taste for something fresh, I decided sprouts and microgreens are the perfect remedy for a quick, fresh treat any time of the year. Microgreens are fast growing and super nutritious. What is the difference between sprouts and greens? Sprouts and microgreens are the very early growth of seeds, whether those are Asian greens, alfalfa seeds, broccoli, or beans. The difference is how you grow them. Sprouts are a soilless method using a jar and some sort of screened lid to drain out the water. Microgreens are grown just like any new plant, but they are harvested as soon as the first true leaves emerge. Both pack a boatload o... Read more

Growing up here in the Northwestern US, we are privileged to have a very established hunting culture. Indeed, in the US in general, we are offered choice meats sourced directly from the land. We have some great wild game recipes up on our Pinterest board: check them out for inspiration. As a great example of the fare we have available to us here in Montana, and added to the fact that I write about food as much as I can, I brought in some elk tamales to work on Tuesday. When I told Jake, our photographer here at North 40 Outfitters, he would be shooting tamales in celebration of the wild game many of us here in the Northwest take for granted, I was astounded to learn he had never had a tamale. What is a Tamale? What is a tamale? The dictionary tells us a tamale is a Mexican dish of seasoned meat wrapped in cornmeal dough and steamed or ba... Read more

At 6:30 am we were out the door in Sandpoint, ID, and after a night of fishing, eating, and shenanigans with the awesome people that live in Noho, #idahome we were in need of... coffee and bacon.  I repeat; we were NOT looking for lettuce wrapped, spinach filled, egg white burritos; coffee and bacon. Only a few breakfast hot spots open up early enough for us in Sandpoint, one being Connie's, and a few others but this morning we were headed to the Hoot Owl. Not that it matters, but the Hoot Owl Cafe's background is a bit fuzzy. The building has been there since 1942 and was previously a drive-in... so I'll say a rough, 30-40 years. You won't find it online, but that's the info I gathered, plus I'd driven by a hundred times--and this morning, we entered "the owl." I'd have been really happy with coffee and bacon BUT good luck slimming you... Read more

Every night before bed, I go through my routine that helps me prepare for the morning. One of these includes making sure my coffee pot goes off by itself at 4:20 am. The smell of brewing coffee helps me mentally prepare to get out of bed, and the anticipation of a good cup of coffee makes thing a bit more enjoyable. Forget the alarm, I set my coffee pot, and if it doesn't go off, I'm not getting out of bed. Luckily, the good folks at Twisp River Suites equipped our rooms with delay set coffee makers AND freshly ground coffee from Blue Star Coffee Roasters. I was set to carry on photographing late into the night and mentally prepared to deal with the consequences in the morning. After meeting up with our group in the morning, I jumped in the far back seat to work on photos on our long car drive to Lewiston. Sam, however, had a different ... Read more

We only had a few minutes on the way back from visiting Coeur d'Alene and Sandpoint Idaho locations this week for breakfast. After an early morning watching the sun come up over Pend O'reille Lake and a coffee on the porch of the Edgewater by City Beach, we cruised east, back to Montana.  BUT we were hungry, and Yelp provided our answer at exit 15 near Coeur d'Alene, ID. Here's another local restaurant you guys should check out if you are in the area. I'm not into finding the quickest and easiest chain to stop and eat at; we've been after the local eats that have big props and respect from locals for a long time now. That's what we strive for in our retail business, and so I find it really interesting to find out more about the culture and immerse myself in it as much as possible in all our markets.  I like the people, the geography, b... Read more

In Sandpoint, Idaho, a diner on Cedar Street stands to contrast a world full of superfood filled smoothies and organic breakfast burritos- Bienvenidos a Connie's Cafe. We showed up in Sandpoint late the night before, after embarrassing Google Maps' estimated arrival time by flying up the road from our Mead, Washington store. We "closed it down" at the store with the management team, then headed downtown to Eichardt's Pub and Grill to immerse ourselves as much as we had time for in the local culture of Sandpoint a town we are lucky enough to do business in. Looking for more things to do in Sandpoint? Look no further. When we went to bed, it was to Eichardt's anthem, "No crap on tap," served up by our waiter. One of our great friends from Sandpoint, Calvin Fuller, recommended we meet early, 7 am for breakfast so we could get an early start... Read more

Who own's Morning Light Coffee in Montana? It's an incredible story that begins on the side of a mountain. Read on and find out. Morning Light Coffee began on the side of a mountain outside Helena, Montana in 1988. During a break from logging, Mike Myers asked his friend what he thought about the coffee business. This first conversation on a Thursday afternoon in April was followed by a straight drive through to a specialty coffee roasting convention in San Francisco that weekend. From conception to inception: six weeks and the grand opening held during Helena's Governor's Cup Marathon. There was never any doubt in Mr. Myers' mind that coffee was a good idea, "We were trying to educate people, you know? Raise the standards of coffee in the area." And that's just what Morning Light Coffee did. Jake and I walked into the local coffee shop... Read more

Let's face it- I'm a coffee addict, and, like many people up here in the Northwest, I've become spoiled with the proliferation of small, artisan roasters and coffee houses springing up everywhere. And I mean everywhere some towns up here have populations under 5,000 and you can find the best coffee in 100 miles in those tiny shops. Going out and discovering new coffees, and meeting the people that frequent those shops is one of my favorite things to do hence this blog. Below you will find a list of some of the best places I've had coffee (or had coffee from) in the Northwest.   But before you skim the list there is a bit of a selfish bent to this post, and it's this: I know this list is not exhaustive, and I KNOW there are some coffee shops out there that I need to visit. If you are a coffee shop owner, or you are a frequenter of an... Read more

What's better than American grown wheat straight from the field to your table? When that wheat becomes a cookie, of course. Now that our name is out there, (when we wrote this, we'd just changed our name... learn about that here) I've had some extra time in the evenings and have found myself anxious to bake now that fall is settling in. ...Cool weather + fresh baked goods = yes, please. As I was browsing Pinterest after dinner, I realized it would be the perfect night to bake something. My husband was out of town working, the cat was sleeping on the chair and I was still hungry. Given my track record with the bread machine, I knew that if I attempted to bake bread- it would be just that: an attempt. I remembered seeing a recipe on the back of the Wheat Montana flour bag so I decided to give it a shot and see if their "Family Farm F... Read more