At Mesa's Edge: Cooking and Ranching in Colorado's North Fork Valley

Although Eugenia Bone was perfectly happy with her life as a New York City food writer she knew that her husband a transplanted westerner was filled with a discontent he couldn’t explain. So when he returned from a fishing trip in the Rockies one day and announced that he wanted to buy a forty-five-acre ranch in Crawford Colorado (population 404) she reluctantly said yes. She then loaded imported pasta artichokes in oil and cured Italian salami into her duffle bag and headed west with her two young children.At Mesa’s Edge is a witty often moving story of ranch restoration and of struggles with defiant skunks barbed wire marauding cows and loneliness. Eugenia learns to garden in the drought to fly-fish and to forage all the while discovering the bounty of the region. She fries zucchini flowers in batter and dips them in cilantro-flavored mayonnaise grills flavorful T-bones from the local ranchers’ grass-fed beef pan-fries trout fills crepes with wild mushrooms and makes cherry pies with thick sugary crusts. Gradually she begins to adjust to the rhythms of the land.Partly a memoir partly a cookbook with more than one hundred appealing recipes At Mesa’s Edge is a transporting tale of rejuvenation a celebration of everything local and a reminder that the best food is to be found in our own backyards.