Fine dining is not something often associated with mountain town living. However, all that is about to change with Pamela Sinclair's new cookbook, "A Taste of Wyoming: Favorite Recipes from the Cowboy State." Sinclair has scoured her home state of Wyoming and her own recipe box to deliver quintessential Western gourmet cooking in a beautiful, informative and easy-to-use cookbook. Sinclair frequented many of Wyoming's best-known lodges, hotels, restaurants and bed and breakfasts to compile recipes of regional flavor and tradition in a kitchen-friendly cookbook.
"It's a culinary journey around the state," Sinclair said. "It's a collage about Wyoming, which includes information about the Wyoming lifestyle and the state's past."
"A Taste of Wyoming" not only contains delectable recipes, it is accompanied by the mouth-watering food photography of Sun Valley's Paulette Phlipot. Phlipot is an award-winning photographer known for her food imagery, yet she also sprinkles the cookbook with several beautiful Wyoming scenic shots, giving a reader a feel for Wyoming living.
"Living and working in Grand Teton National Park is what initially inspired me to begin taking photos," Phlipot said. "I became a self-taught photographer and from there wanted to pursue photography as a profession. Ironically, pursuing this passion and attending photography school required that I move from Wyoming. Wyoming is still a very special place to me, hence why I was so excited to be asked to photograph this book."
Sinclair includes more than the best of Wyoming's most coveted restaurants. She accompanied recipes with state history, vintage images, Wyoming traditions and a regional source list for products and ingredients. Chefs from around Wyoming share their passion for the culinary arts with dishes such as "Wrangler's Brisket" from the Flying A Ranch in Pinedale and "Bison Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Sauce" from the Alpenrose restaurant at the Alpenrose Lodge in Jackson.
"I love to cook, but I didn't want recipes that were two pages long and complicated," Sinclair said. "I was looking for a cookbook specific to Wyoming. It really has taken on a life of its own and so much of the spirit and soul infused in the book is from all the people who contributed to it, from the chefs who prepared the dishes to my passion for the state and the people who live here."
A foreword by University of Wyoming Associate Professor and fiction writer Alison Hagy expresses the feel of the land and the people of Wyoming, which is cowboy inspired and free spirited.
"Pamela Sinclair, however, has discovered a knotty little Western secret," Hagy wrote. "She has toured our kitchens and our stubborn gardens and our memories. She has listened to the way our stomachs growl before we head off on a brisk hike or after we've spent a twilight hour shoveling snow. She knows our hearts are half-hitched to our dinner plates. We make do. And when we have the chance, we fill our bellies as if we were Parisians."
"A Taste of Wyoming" will be available at Iconoclast Books, Ketchum Kitchens and farcountrypress.com.
“A Taste of Wyoming: Favorite Recipes from the Cowboy State” by Pamela Sinclair. $24.95. 126pp.
Photo by Paulette Phlipot
