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Roasting As Art, Music to Hook Trout By, & 3-D TV
Roasting As Art
In 2009, about a decade after being introduced to the craft of coffee roasting in Costa Rica, Tetonia resident Matt Dement acquired a high-end roaster from Diedrich Manufacturing of Ponderay, Idaho (in the Sandpoint area) and set off on a solo journey to become the valley’s purveyor of locally roasted beans. Enter Teton Coffee Company.
Matt, who also has experience as a chef and artist, now imports beans from Costa Rica and various other places in the world, such as Ethiopia, Sumatra, and Colombia, all of them 100 percent organic. He says the best cup of coffee possible is brewed or dripped from beans that are freshly ground, which liberates that bean’s unique oils—and taste and aroma—on the spot. He also says coffee made from “single-origin” beans is the best way to become acquainted with the flavors of a certain country or region, while blends of beans can make for an extremely balanced cup of coffee.
Teton Coffee Company’s Grizzly and Black Diamond blends and other products can be found at a growing number of valley enterprises, including Broulim’s in Driggs and the Victor Valley Grocery.
Music to Hook Trout By
Fishing Music II is the follow-up CD to (you guessed it) Fishing Music I, released by Ben Winship and company in 2003. And though it’s already been around for a few months, only now is the time right to stick the disc into the CD player—the player in your pickup truck, that is, the truck you’re steering down to the river.
Produced by Winship and David Thompson on the Snake River Records label, the album was recorded primarily at Winship’s Henhouse Studio in Victor. It showcases a terrific group of spirited and talented acoustic musicians, including Margo Valiente, Jeff Newsom, Leon Hunt, Rob Ickes, Mollie O’Brien, John Lowell, and many others.
Fishing Music II features sixteen tracks, including “The Winding Stream,” a beautifully haunting Carter Family classic with the alt-bluegrass band Crooked Still’s Aoife O’Donovan on high lead vocal, and lower, though still high-lonesome, harmonies by Tim O’Brien.
Then there’s Winship’s “Waiting on the Evening Rise,” which I can’t help but think Ben might’ve composed down along our own Teton River:
Sound of the river calls my name, that’s where my secret lies;
Most any day you’ll find me here, waiting on the evening rise.
The tunes on the CD I find most evocative are a pair of instrumentals, “Fishin’ in the Wind” (featuring master guitarist Mike Dowling and Winship on mandolin) and “Opening Day.” While listening to the latter, I get that Celtic feel in my bones; and, in my mind, a picture of Jorma Kaukonen and Dobro-meister Jerry Douglas jamming with the Chieftains down on the banks of the Beaverhead, or maybe along those of River Ballybunion.
You can purchase Fishing Music II at Big Hole Music in Driggs, or find out more at www.fishingmusic.com
– Michael McCoy
3-D TV
(Teton Valley, That Is)
Want to know why we say “bison” instead of “buffalo,” how Yellowstone got its name, or the original range of the grizzly bear before the West was settled? You’ll find the answers to these, along with a lot more information, in Wild 4 Nature 3-D—Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, by Dondi and Joseph Tondro-Smith. The couple, who live in the Tetonia area, have combined their shared passion for wildlife photography and the magic found in nature to create this original multi-media book. Their innovative approach combines three-dimensional photographs with poems that highlight the essence of the wilderness of Teton Valley and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
Dondi and Joseph blend their love for nature with the goal of educating and inspiring others to know more about the important habitats and ecosystems of the region. An educational section in the back of the book describes each image in detail and elaborates on some of the more interesting facts about the national parks and their wild inhabitants.
With the assistance of a pair of 3-D glasses (included with each book), animals like bald eagle, grizzly bear, cutthroat trout, and moose pop off the page and seem to come to life. The book leaves the reader with a message of conservation and a deepened awareness for the layered artistry of the natural world and our unique western landscape. It’s available at Dark Horse Books in Driggs.
