FREE NIGHT/FREE DAY

Stay 3 nights/ski 2 days and get a 4th bonus night and free Biggest Skiing in America all-mountain lift ticket. January 3-February 6.

Includes full hot breakfast!

Here is the Thanksgiving menu:

To start:
T-4 House Salad- Mixed Greens, cinnamon roasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, carrot curls, cucumber, Montana Flathead cherry vinaigrette

Mains and sides:
Farm Fresh Montana Hutterite Turkey
Classic Stuffing
Whipped Montana Russets with Butter Poached Garlic
Sage Pan Gravy
Candied Yams with Brown Sugar and Pecans
House-made Cranberry Orange Relish
Green Beans with Caramelized Pearl Onions
Fresh Baked Rolls

Dessert Choices at the table
Pumpkin cheese cake with ginger whipped cream
Or
Russian cream with raspberry in champagne glasses
Or
Flourless Chocolate Cake with port and blackberry coulis
$24.95 per person

From Thanksgiving through Saturday Nov. 26, bring in two or more canned food items into Buck’s T-4 and receive $5.00 off your bill.

We started a new tradition last year at Buck’s to support the Gallatin Valley Food Bank. Help us to collect as many cans as possible and honor this holiday season.

Buck’s Thanksgiving Weekend Hours

Thanksgiving, Thursday Nov. 24, 5-8pm special Thanksgiving menu and limited off menu selections
Friday Nov. 25, Bar opens at 5pm, Restaurant 5:30-9pm
Saturday Nov. 26, Bar opens at 5pm, Restaurant 5:30-9pm

Stay at Buck’s and Ski Big Sky; Pay for One Night/Day and Get the Second Night and Day FREE.

Includes full hot breakfast!

Saturday's Snow Day

It’s official. Winter is here. Those of us wanting to put it off just a bit longer, enjoying the golden fall colors with the snow dusted peaks, well you better say sayanara. Snow is on the ground and it’s sticking. The forecast following yesterday’s snow day, three more days of predicted snow. For skiers and boarders this is the best November news yet.

Yep, it’s true I was in the camp of let’s wait a little longer, Fall is pretty nice here. However, when I woke up this morning and it was blue skies, frosted trees it sure looked like paradise outside. I remembered the great things about winter, cross country skiing in the meadow, boarding on the peak, excuse to drink alcoholic hot chocolate, Christmas and that the slopes open in only 18 days. We need the snow. We want the snow. Maybe I should do a snow dance.

Take a look of some of the first images of winter 2011-12. Enjoy and see you on the slopes in Big Sky soon.

Tori

Firstly, let’s look at flavor. There needs to be depth, so that sweetness or saltiness doesn’t just fall flat on my palette. I’m looking for complexity but just the right amount so that all the tastes meld together, keeping it rounded. In my own cooking, I fail most often at achieving this when trying to make a vegetarian soup from scratch that lacks cream or milk.

Secondly, everything on that plate needs to have a place and be equally perfect. So often a nice piece of fish or meat is served with an okay vegetable or a par side dish. Veg and sides have been tossed by the wayside, and Mr. Meat or Fish steals the whole show. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t need some fancy asparagus or crazy broccoli side, but let’s face it how often does the veg left to it’s own accord arrive overcooked or less than fresh?

Recently, I was in Fresno, California visiting family and we dined at Max’s. This little Bistro has become a favorite amongst my family. It’s well decorated, the service is pretty reliable and their menu is always inspiring. I had the fortune of having what I call a perfect entree there. I knew it from the first bite, when I opted to taste the side first as opposed to the nice salmon filet. I bit into a little square of eggplant and my palette about yelled in delight. I’d never tasted such buttery, wonderful eggplant in my life. I tried the rest of what was a herb roasted vegetable hash and even the cauliflower was divine (c’mon you have to admit how amazing that is?). Finally, the tines of my fork hit the salmon and it was confirmed that I was eating the perfect entree.

The last requirement to be the perfect dish is size. In America, so often we value size over quality, not just in food but in so many aspects of our culture. After a hard days ski or a long day exploring the park, there is nothing better than a heaping plate of Buck’s meatloaf with mash and gravy or a NY Strip Oscar style, but sometimes less is more. My perfect dish is exactly enough to satisfy; you’re left with a little feeling of I could really enjoy the taste of another bite or two. You are by no means hungry still, it’s just that like anything good in life, you wish it didn’t have to come to an end.

In my book, Buck’s T-4 has created my vision of the perfect dish for this winter’s new menu. I tried it yesterday and my palette squealed with joy. Two perfect dishes in one month, no way! Airline Pheasant Breast stuffed with wild rice and house made pheasant sausage, served with a roasted corn cake and a rich pan jus. Perfection!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the perfect entree or what you look for in a good dinner, from one foodie to another.

Tori

Drive to Lewis and Clark Caverns

Where we last left off, we had just finished up exploring Missouri Headwaters State Park with vistas of the headwaters and four surrounding mountain ranges. Next stop on the itinerary Lewis and Clark Caverns.

The drive to the caverns is beautiful. We traveled along in early Summer when everything was an exquisite green, the mountains were still snow capped and the wildflowers just began to bloom. I imagine that it would be just as pretty in September when all the fields take on a golden color.

Now the first fact I will point out to you is that Lewis and Clark did not discover these caverns. They never even set foot in them, but they did pass awfully close on their expedition. I guess that’s reason enough to name them so.

To explore the caverns you will take a two hour guided tour. You travel two miles through twisted, sometimes tight, dark dank corridors to see stalagmites, columns, stalactites and helicitites, Your guide will tell you in sing song voice at the beginning of the tour, “Let’s go spelunking.” Just what is spelunking? According to Wikipedia, it is the really cool term for describing exploration of wild caves.  And the caverns are definitely wild.

The best part to me were the nicknames coined by your guides for all the different formations. In the Cathedral Room, a grand cave in the cavern, there was Snow White with her seven dwarfs. There as a young couple in love that you later saw as an elderly couple in love. My favorite is cave food. They had popcorn, grapes and the all time best bacon. I guess this is standard fare in all the caverns through out the country, the formations are renamed for what they most look like. Sometimes they were spot on.

I don’t think that their are specific age restrictions for the caverns, but I’d highly recommend ages 7 and up. For younger children it is a long hike in a very dark and cold environment. Everyone needs to bring a a sweater or lightweight jacket and for young children the whole experience might be both scary and a little bit boring after a while.

Next stop, Virginia City!

The Details

Distance from Buck’s T-4 Lodge: Approx. 85 miles, 1 hour and 40 mins drive time
Distance from Missouri Headwaters State Park: Aprox. 24 miles and 30 mins drive time
Lewis and Clark Caverns Website
Cave Tours: 5/1 to 9/30 every Summer
Admission for Cave Tour: $15.00 for adults
Camping: Yes
Fishing: Yes, on the Jefferson, permits required
Food and Drink: Yes, a small cafe with basic fare

Mike and Andrea Scholz

Hungry yet?

The dinner is available from 6:00-9:00, Monday, September 19 through Thursday, September 22. Call for reservations at 995-4111 and be sure to let us know you want the Personal Wine Dinner. Please note, Buck’s will be closed from October 1 through Thanksgiving.

1^st course

A Celebration of Autumn

Field Day Farms roasted yellow beets, Timeless Seeds organic petite crimson lentil timbale, Point Reyes blue cheese vinaigrette, La Quercia speck Americano crisp.

Riesling Kabinett “Graacher Himmelreich”, Joh. Jos. Prüm, Mosel, 2007

2^nd course

Lamb Short Ribs with Sesame Noodles and Baby Bok Choy

Certified organic, grass fed from Willow Spring Ranch, Belgrade, MT. Braised with Blue Water Farms apples, Montana chokecherry wine, soy, ginger.

Or

Tuna Brochette

Skewered yellowfin tuna, ancho-cranberry mayonnaise, potato empanada, cucumber sauce.

Merlot “Palisades”, Soos Creek, Columbia Valley, 2008

3^rd course

Fresh Peach Cake

Cinnamon sugar crust, caramel lace cookie, bourbon cream

Moscato D’Asti, Elvio Tintero, Piedmont, 2010

The Wines

As the weather cools and the nights grow shorter, Chuck and Chris were working on something that would complement the flavors of Fall while utilizing some of the outstanding organic local ingredients we have at our disposal. For the hearty beets with assertive blue cheese and salty speck (the northern Italian, Eastern European, German answer to Prosciutto), I immediately thought, Riesling.

For lots of us, “riesling” conjurs images of Kool-Aid sweet, syrupy stuff that is somewhere between slightly to mostly unlike wine. The real animal brings notes of mineral, slate, stone fruit and even a little “petrol” (really?) where the slight residual sugar is a backdrop rather than a command performance. Prum is one of the foundations in the Mosel, and their Kabinett presents a nice palette for the stunning autumn produce we found.

For the warm sweet-salty flavors of soy, combined with the richness of lamb and tuna, I immediately turned to the “velvet fist” rustic elegance of Merlot. Soos Creek from Washington has been making the Palisades Merlot for only a couple of vintages, and I was immediately sold. Long-maligned as lightweight, watery or “overly femenine” (whatever that means), Merlot is finally seeing a return to its rightful place in the red wine Pantheon. Bright cherry combines with tobacco, cedar and cherry pie filling to weave within both the lamb and the rich tuna brochette.

For the peach cake, Moscato fits the bill nicely. The slight effervescence with aromas of honeysuckle, flowers and, well, peaches made this seem the natural choice. One of the offerings of the infamous Kermit Lynch, Tintero Moscato brings a palate-cleansing freshness to the peach cake and is a wonderful way to end the dinner.

We thank you for being our guests. I hope you can find a chance to come in next week and enjoy Chuck and Chris’ handiwork.

David O’Connor (DOC)