Right now I am in New York with the incredibly knowledgeable and friendly staff at DeBragga and Spitler, one of New York’s finest food service distributors.  Yesterday we visited a number of city clubs and restaurants and sampled leg steaks and rack of lamb.

One of the great highlights of producing Lava Lake Lamb is sharing it with people for the first time. At Ma Peche, David Chang’s midtown restaurant, we stood in the kitchen with three business-like young chefs and watched their faces light up as they ate pieces of lamb steak fresh off the grill with their fingers. At the Four Seasons, Chef Pecko and head food buyer Daniel loved the lamb and ordered two legs for the night’s special list.

Today we head to more restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn, bringing our story of grass-fed goodness and conservation to even more chefs.

Last Saturday night, my wife Liz and I, along with Pedro Loyola, Lava Lake’s sheep foreman, attended a fantastic dinner at the Boise Basque Center sponsored by the Cenarrusa Foundation for Basque Culture and the Government of Bizkaia. The Cenarrusa Center is named after Pete and Freda Cenarrusa, who owned and operated Biskay Land & Livestock for many years until selling the operation to Lava Lake in 2000. We remain very close to Pete and Freda and they have been wonderful friends and mentors. Pete, at age 93, is an Idaho icon. The son of Basque immigrants (who met in a Shoshone, Idaho boardinghouse after coming from villages just 10 kilometers apart), Pete was not only a prominent sheep rancher, a WWII veteran, and an accomplished pilot but also served in elected office in the state of Idaho for 53 years, a record!

The meal was prepared by four Basque chefs, including two with Michelin stars, and the accompanying wines, all of which were Bizkaiko Txakolinas D.O. (Basque white wines) were selected and introduced by a Basque oenologist. Introductions and toasts were made in English, Spanish and Basque. Three courses (lobster bisque, mushroom risotto and red snapper) led up to the rolled and roasted shoulder of Lava Lake Lamb. It was all delicious. Many of the 100-some diners had traveled in the Basque country and had eaten at the chefs’ restaurants and the chefs and sommelier received a rousing thank you. We had the opportunity to pay a small tribute to Pete and Freda during the evening, others made moving toasts in honor of the Cenarrusas and Pete, in his comments, reminded the audience of the influence the Basque constitution had on John Adams and the U.S. Constitution.

Pete, Freda, Pedro, Liz and I walked together out of the Basque Center into a warm June evening and exchanged good-nights. As Liz and I walked through the tree-lined streets of Boise, we reflected on our good fortune to be part of such a diverse and rich community – bound together by the land, sheep ranching and each other.

One of the great challenges and rewards of running our sheep ranch is the fact that Lava Lake Lambs are raised entirely on pasture and native rangelands, and never confined to a feedlot. The challenge, especially during the spring and summer months, is to time the movement of our sheep bands so that we are following the spring green-up from the desert into the mountains and keeping our animals on the highest-quality forage. Given that our sheep travel over 100 air miles during this annual migration, this requires tremendous knowledge of the landscape, close communication and an ever-vigilant eye on the weather, soil and plants. The reward is raising beautiful grassfed lambs ready for market. We at Lava Lake have been proud to continue the tradition of producing market lambs “off the mountain” that was begun by our predecessors many decades ago and which is, in fact, part of a tradition followed by shepherds for centuries around the world.

In order to give our customers the assurance that our lambs are truly grassfed and finished, we decided to seek a third-party certification from the leader in the field, the American Grassfed Association. AGA’s auditor visited our ranch and conducted in-depth interviews with our staff to confirm that we comply with AGA’s rigorous criteria. We are honored to have received AGA’s certification and proud to be part of the growing movement to bring healthy grassfed meat to American consumers.

On Friday, Lava Lake Lamb was featured in a superb meal at the James Beard House in New York, prepared by Rick Sordahl, the chef at the Amangani Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Rick has been a long-time supporter of Lava Lake’s and we were thrilled to be featured along with wines from the Kingston Family. I was lucky enough to attend.

The James Beard House is arguably the spiritual home of the revolution in American gastronomy that began in the 1950s as Julia Child, James Beard, and others challenged Americans to cook and eat better. Today when we focus on understanding where our ingredients come from, building relationships with growers and celebrating the role of food in family and social life, we can, in part, thank Beard.

Chef Rick challenged himself and his outstanding crew to create an all-lamb meal, with the only course not centering on lamb being dessert. The hors d’ouevres were followed by a Lamb Tenderloin Carpaccio, a Braised Petite Lamb Shank, Crispy Lamb Sirloin Confit, and, finally, a Horseradish-Crusted Lamb Rack (see full menu here). The wines were excellent and it was a delight to meet the Kingstons in person. I shared a table with Sue and Steve Hauff of Prairie Harvest, one of our distributors, and Stuart Campbell of the Amangani Resort, along with Dennis Stiffler and David Bernestein, our partners at Mountain States Rosen. We were all amazed by the delicacy and flavors of each course.

Rick took lamb cookery to a new level that evening, demonstrating that lamb can be delicate and light (carpaccio), warm and nourishing (shanks), and plain old finger licking good (rack)! I couldn’t help but think of all the hard work we put into raising our lamb. Rick’s masterful performance honored that work and left me feeling humbled and thankful for the relationships that make it possible to bring our lamb to appreciative customers.

The meal also left me feeling pretty full. So, after rounds of thanks and good-byes with very appreciative diners, I stepped into the cool night and walked from the West Village back to my hotel near Central Park, the mountains of Idaho seeming closer to New York than before.

My wife Liz and I were recently in Driggs, Idaho and had the opportunity to go to the Forage Bistro and Lounge. It was a cold, damp winter night and we were going to participate in the Teton Ridge Classic ski race the next morning, a 28 kilometer race through the aspen stands and meadows of the Teton foothills.

What to eat? At the top of the menu was the Lava Lake Lamb stew, which was absolutely delicious. Tanya, the chef-owner, was there and we had a great conversation with her, thanked her for the outstanding meal, and headed to bed full and happy. The next morning we raced in challenging slippery snow, but, fueled by lamb, had a great time. Thanks Tanya!

Check out the Forage’s recipe for Lava Lake Lamb stew here.

For a number of years, I have been envisioning a Pioneer High Line – a high elevation traverse from Craters of the Moon to Trail Creek Summit across the Pioneer Mountains, using a mix of sheepherder and hunter trails, elk paths, jeep roads and cross-country travel. On August 20-21, 2010, I spent two days solo doing the first 55-57 miles, at the end of which my wife Liz picked me up in Federal Gulch. I then came back on September 11 with my buddies Andy, Brad and Hank and completed the last 17-18 miles through the high peaks.

I’ll post a few pictures here, but head over to my picasa album for the full story.

The start of the Pioneer High Line, a 75 mile traverse from the sagebrush and lava of Craters of the Moon along the Pioneer Mountain crest to Trail Creek Summit above Ketchum, Idaho.

Looking south down Little Cottonwood towards Craters from Little Cottonwood Peak. The Great Rift is in the background. A nod to Robert Limbert, whose 1919 traverse of the Great Rift inspired him to protect Craters of the Moon.

Classic Idaho high country.

Moon Rise

Dropping into Little Argosy, a trail-free opportunity.

The Peterson Ranch is visible in the background, 3400 vertical feet below.

Late summer monkeyflowers on Copper Creek.

The Little Wood high country, the wild heart of the Pioneers.

Andy Jones-Wilkins and Brad Mitchell, good-humored and super-strong partners, on the way up Paymaster at first light.

North Fork Hyndman Creek.

Hank Dart meets us at the top of Summit Creek. Chocolate milk and beer, and our ride home, are 4.5 downhill miles away. Until this point, we had three other trail users (all at the base of Hyndman Peak) and a Lava Lake sheepherder, in 70 miles of spectacular mountain country.

The High Line is everything I could have hoped – beautiful, wild, challenging.