Pioneer Publisher

Back in the ‘60s, Gibbs wanted to make books but he didn’t want to live in New York City. When they first set up shop in the barn in Layton, they only had access to the upper level since the main floor was still housing cows and chickens….

I first met Gibbs Smith outside the auditorium of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming in 1993. I introduced myself and handed him my first book, Old Masters of the West. He looked at the black-and-white cover image I’d taken of cowboy poet Wally McCrae then flipped through the photo documentary essays on old-school master craftspeople I’d interviewed around the Rocky Mountain West: a boot maker, a leather worker, a cowboy hat maker, a woodworker, a horsehair braider, a spur maker, a native beadworker. I’d even a found a stagecoach builder in the Four Corners area of Colorado. Gibbs handed me his card and thus started my 30-year, twelve-books-and-counting relationship with Gibbs Smith, Publisher.

This week I paid a visit to the vintage red barn and assorted outbuildings that house the company. The suburbs of Salt Lake City and Ogden have grown up around the old farm, but the historic buildings remain: a Victorian farmhouse, a couple of very old log cabins, and a long, low red barn, circa 1916. The first thing you see when you arrive is a pasture with sheep who come running if they think you have food. A black and white cat serves as greeter on the porch. The door to the editorial staff’s offices is festooned with stickers and surrounded by a door frame with wildlife tracks. Quirky placards bear messages like “No where in particular” and the name Chateau Fiasco. All this belies the seriousness with which those inside take their calling: to make beautiful, interesting, informative books. (They really are making the world a better place.)

Back in the ‘60s, Gibbs wanted to make books but he didn’t want to live in New York City. With the encouragement of Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., in 1969 he went west and founded a publishing company, first in Santa Barbara then ultimately back home to Utah with his wife, Catherine. (When they first set up shop in the barn in Layton, they only had access to the upper level since the main floor was still housing cows and chickens.)

Gibbs was a visionary who liked to drive around the West discovering places and people. He’d attend a lecture somewhere or read an article in a local paper then approach the speaker or author and ask if they wanted to write a book. He stumbled across the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada early on and was the first to publish the words of those range-riding philosophers. He once came for dinner at my home and, after a meal highlighting my husband’s honey, asked if we wanted to collaborate on ‘a honey cookbook with beekeeping lore’, including recipes, how to’s and vintage photos. The ideas seemed to come to him fully formed.

A talented amateur painter, Gibbs made a study of the best independent bookstores around the country and painted his top picks, which ultimately became Books & Mortar; A Celebration of the Local Bookstore. “The book business is a calling more than a business,” he told an interviewer from Publisher’s Weekly in 2014, a few years before his death. I realize how lucky I am to have worked with the same editors and staff for three decades, and to publish with people who remain passionate and optimistic about books, despite the vagaries and challenges of the book industry. Gibbs may be gone but his legacy endures, in the countless titles published, and in a dedicated team that still create books in a red barn in Utah.

Cowboys Do Eat Quiche

Once every five years or so I get the urge to make quiche, and making quiche always takes me back to when I worked at Hidden Valley Ranch outside Cody, Wyoming (then a dude ranch, now a private ranch with a new name). My job was with the horses, but on the cook's day off, if I wasn't on a pack trip or hauling supplies 12 miles into an elk hunting camp in the Washakie Wilderness, I would cook.

Quiche is incredibly easy (especially if you buy the crust, which you can pre-bake for 10 minutes, or not). Just pile whatever fillings you want into the crust then mix some eggs and cream (3 or 4 eggs and a cup or so of cream, or cream mixed with milk or half-and-half; you can also replace part of the cream with ricotta), and add salt, pepper, nutmeg. Pour the custard over the fillings and bake at 375 for 45 minutes or so, til it’s not jiggly in the middle.

Quiche is a great way to feed a crowd because it's easy to make multiples in almost no additional time. But because this was in the ‘80s, a few years after the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" became a bestseller, I always wondered if I'd get pushback when I served it. After all, the guys on our ranch staff had snuff in the back pockets of their Wranglers, and on their days off they shot and skinned rattlesnakes to make into belts.

But they ate it and they seemed to enjoy it. We even served salad with it. We just avoided using the word 'quiche' ‘til after they'd eaten it.

#quiche #summerbaking #ranchmemories #splatterware #enamelware #hiddenvalley #cody #cowgirldays #ranchkitchen #ranchcooking #duderanch #feedacrowd #heartymeals #americanrustic #newwest #realmendonteatquiche

Shou Sugi Ban

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Whether you call it Shou Sugi Ban or Yakisugo, fire-treated wood is making an appearance in rustic structures and furniture throughout the country.

Shou Sugi Ban seems to be turning up everywhere lately. Ever since I wrote about a table that appears on the cover of Rustic Modern, in the lakeside home of Montana Architect Larry Pearson, I’ve been noticing it — most recently in a Chairish blog just yesterday.

According to William Beleck, who dug into the research on behalf of Nakamoto Forestry, the practice has been mistakenly called Shou Sugi Ban in Europe and the U.S. — rather than the more correct Yakisugo — due to a linguistic fine point, the mistake resulting from differences between the Chinese and Japanese languages. Yet even Japanese firms are still promoting the wood as Shou Sugi Ban, so the jury seems to be out.

Whatever the correct term, it’s a method of wood preservation whose byproduct is beauty and serenity, as seen in many an ancient Japanese temple. In a recent story I did for Big Sky Journal, I loved everything about the home and guest house on the banks of the Wood River in Idaho. But I especially loved the builder's backstory:

"Years ago, Idaho-based builder Mat Hall read about the ancient Japanese wood-preserving technique called Shou Sugi Ban. The treatment involves charring wood to promote resistance to fire, degradation, and pests, and it results in a beautiful dark tone with unusual texture and depth. At the time, he was intrigued enough to post a photo on Facebook with the caption: “Any takers?” It never occurred to him that years later, he would be asked to construct an entire home and guesthouse using the process."

For this project, Hall created his own fire-charring setup on site, flaming wood by hand in all weathers and temperatures. After building the guest house, though, he decided there had to be a better way. For the main house he sourced the exterior wood from a well regarded purveyor specializing in the technique.

The architecture is by Janet Jarvis of The Jarvis Group, the interiors by the late Toni Breck, a talented designer who was a close friend and neighbor of the homeowners. Photography by Heidi Long. Nomenclature to be determined!

#learnbydoing #shousugiban #woodconstruction #boardformedconcrete #mountainhome #skistyle #woodriver #sunvalley #idaho #greatroom #woodtimbers #twigchandelier #concretefireplace #cabinvibes #retreat #cozy #westerndesign #cabinstyle

California Sunshine

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When I first lived in California, during grad school, it took me weeks to internalize the fact that when I needed a lemon I could simply walk outside.

Winter in California lasts about two months and consists of day upon day of sunshine and blue skies punctuated by rain storms rolling off the Pacific. These might lash the windows, flood some low-lying streets and down branches for a day or two before the glorious weather makes its reappearance. But even the short(er), dark(er) days of a California winter bring their own sunshine. In winter, the citrus trees go crazy; even small trees yield fruit by the basketful.

When I first lived in California, during grad school, it took me weeks to internalize the fact that when I needed a lemon I could simply walk outside. Our Berkeley rental, recently renovated but haunted — literally haunted, according to the home’s longtime plumber, a psychic who had a side gig assisting the police on especially tricky cases; (ultimately my roommates and I and our houseguests became believers, but that’s another story) — had a sole lemon tree in the backyard. The first time I was whipping up some guacamole against a dinner party deadline involving friends from Tahoe and found myself wishing for a lemon was a revelation. At first I upbraided myself for forgetting them at the store. Then I realized I didn’t need to go to the store. I tripped down the steps to the garden, then to the tree. I reached up, choosing one of the yellower orbs amidst sharp green leaves against a backdrop of blue sky. I grasped it in my hand and gently twisted.

When you cut into a lemon, its essence is released into the air. The citrusy tang meets your face in one exuberant, aromatherapeutic spritz of acidity and freshness — an instant mood lift. Citrus juice can elevate almost any dish, almost any cuisine, adding that high note to dishes that need a touch of the divine. And when you have too many lemons, limes and oranges to keep up with them by chugging juice or cranking out batches of lemon bars (both of which can be frozen), it’s time for marmalade or lemon/lime curd (both of which make great gifts and last for ages in the fridge). 

I’m far from my garden right now. It’s winter and I could do with the instant mood elevator. But I know when I return the trees will be waiting, dotted with color, promising light, no matter the weather. At this point I guess I have internalized the wonder of being able to walk outside and pick a lemon any time of the year. But I won’t ever take it for granted that even in a rainstorm, California sunshine is just a few steps away.

Writing on the Road

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I still prefer to write at home, and while on the road find nonfiction easier to do than fiction. But having a borrowed desk in a quiet room with a view over the treetops certainly helps. 

When I was running Breteche Creek Ranch, a nonprofit guest ranch in Wyoming, I got incredibly lucky. I was able to talk acclaimed writers Pam Houston and Ron Carlson into coming to the ranch three summers in a row to teach a writing workshop.

Pam was an outdoorswoman, former whitewater rafting guide and all-around Colorado ranch gal whose 1992 book Cowboys Are My Weakness had captured the collective imagination. That first summer of our guest-ranch program, it seems like every guest who stepped off the plane was holding a copy of Pam's book. Today she's the award-winning author of short stories, novels and essays, and a speaker, teacher, and worldwide traveler living in the Colorado Rockies.

Ron Carlson is considered a master of the short story, his work having appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Harper's et al. He's also a novelist and poet, much decorated with awards and fellowships, and heads up the MFA in Writing program at U.C. Irvine. I'd lucked out in having Ron as an English teacher for two years in high school and I still consider him the best, certainly most inspiring, teacher I ever had. He entered the classroom every single day as though he couldn't wait to get there; he was incredibly funny, yet delivered any necessary criticism with unfailing kindness.

One thing that stuck with me from the writing workshops was Pam describing how she had trained herself to write anywhere; she would channel any stray bits of free time into her writing. She could write fiction in airport lounges while jet lagged between international flights on a travel-writing assignment. I am not quite there yet (I procrastinate a lot, and not just in airports), but I am working on it.

Today I'm writing about an ultra modern house in sunny LA while listening to the winter rain pour down outside an historic home in New England. Clearly that's one of the gifts of writing, and reading — to inhabit two realities at once.