Fine Dining at Circle Z Ranch
Mauny Kaseburg, a food and wine consultant based in Seattle, offers these thoughts about her first visit to the Circle Z. She is the Culinary Producer for the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen. She is an avid food nut, but no Annie Oakley on horseback, yet.
"The two main attractions at the Circle Z Ranch are the horses and the food. Not that we don't appreciate the afternoon swim in the heated pool or that occasional tennis match. But after a day of roaming the Arizona landscape on horseback, it's the expectation of the table that draws us in.
When sitting around one of the colorful Circle Z dining tables at breakfast, lunch or dinner, the talk tends to be about the recent ride or the horses in the Circle Z herd. On the other hand, while out on a ride, you're likely to hear discussions about the warm, fresh cinnamon coffee cake at breakfast or the "Mexican Friday" lunch menu, created by the Circle Z's local celebrity chef Pancho Cordova, with it's slow cooked pork carnitas, vibrant salsas and hot-off-the-grill corn tortillas.
The camaraderie of the trail deepens at the dinner table as we share a bottle of Sonoma Valley Cabernet with our Circle Z-cut filet mignon. The last of the winter kale, harvested from the raised-bed kitchen garden below the Ranch House, with it's healthy texture and hint of garlic, soothed my guilty conscience for indulging in the whipped cream frosted chocolate birthday cake that was presented for another guest, hiding out from Chicago's winter storms.
I like to think I was burning off all those calories on the next day's ride... although I must say, by the middle of the day I began to wonder what the Circle Z chefs would come up with next. My middle- aged city-slicker body took comfort in contemplation of the creekside chuck wagon barbecue that lay just a few miles ahead. What a meal that was! Did Annie Oakley eat like this ?
Sample Menus at Circle Z Ranch
Luncheon:
Black bean soup, hummus vegetable wraps, baked green beans and broccoli with parmesan cheese, cheese biscuits, tossed salad, chocolate chip cookies
Vegetable soup, spaghetti and meat sauce, tossed green salad, bananas,oranges, strawberries and kiwi fruit tossed in a honey-yogurt dressing, oatmeal-raisin cookies
Dinner:
Roast prime rib of beef with rosemary au jus, ratatouille, roasted garlic red potatoes, tossed green salad, red bell pepper bread with blue cheese butter, cherry cobbler with vanilla ice cream
Grilled salmon with basil-caper cream sauce, steamed asparagus with hollandaise sauce, tomato cous-cous, tossed green salad, dill dinner rolls, flourless chocolate cake with creme anglaise
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