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Backwoods Holds Über Sale and Feast this Saturday in Honor of Bruce Weber Page 3
Connie Love Talks About The Importance of W.A.I.T. Page 6
Guitar Virtuoso Steve Vai’s Comes Close to Home
DON’T MISS
Fall Car Care Section AND A BIG GIVEAWAY! pgs 11-18
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S e p t e m b e r 2 6 , 2 0 1 2 • Vo l . 5 • N o . 3 9 • w w w.T h e We e k l y S u n . c o m
Night Bocce Tournament BY KAREN BOSSICK
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hey say that Egyptians were playing bocce 5,000 years ago in Egypt. But, according to Danny Walton, it’s Ketchum that can boast of hosting the only night bocce all-terrain tournament on record. Walton and his Mountain Niceness Productions staged the inaugural tournament two years ago. And he will stage the second Night Bocce World Championships at 6 p.m. Friday at Atkinson Park in Ketchum. “We had 150 people show up last time—it’s just so much fun,” said Walton, who has a long history of organizing telemark ski races and Marley in the Mountain reggae concerts. Bocce involves trying to throw a wooden ball at target balls. “It’s something you can do with a beer in your hand,” said aficionado Tod Hakes. That said, those who make it into the Sweet 16 at Atkinson Park will have to play on hills and through obstacles. “You need to bring your full game!” Walton said. Entry is $20 per person, with registration starting at 5:30 p.m. at Atkinsons’ Park. The registration fee includes beer and a bocce set. There also will be live music, a DJ, barbecue, swag and prizes. Bocce players who register ahead of time online at http://idahosociallearningcenter.org/ boccesignup/ will be entered into a raffle to win a stand-up paddleboard. Tickets are also available for $5 each or five for $20 at the event. Kids are welcome—they’ll have their own brackets and lower entry fees. And a junior world champion will be crowned, right alongside a world champion. Proceeds from the tournament will go to the scholarship fund for the Idaho Social Learning Center, which opened this month in Ketchum. The local Social Learning Center was founded by Jaime Rivetts who has a Master of Science in Special Education with an emphasis in autism and has worked at Michelle Garcia Winner’s Center for Social Thinking in San Jose, Calif., and the Lee Pesky Learning Center in Ketchum. Social learning can be useful for those who struggle with social relationships, those with autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder. It can also be useful for those who are gifted and talented or “twice exceptional,” said Rivetts, executive director of the Idaho Social Learning Center. In one case, Rivetts says, she worked with a client dressed in black Goth dress who insisted she didn’t need friends. It turned out the client wanted to make friends but didn’t know how. The two worked on how to make an impression via actions and talk. “My client looked at how she came across and realized she wasn’t going to attract any peers that way,” Rivetts said. “Eventually, the dress, hair and makeup began to change as she began revealing a friendlier, warmer person underneath.” For more information, go to idahosociallearningcenter.org tws
Dutch Oven Adds Bam! STORY & PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
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teve Lentz was fed up with eating SPAM, canned chicken and Swiss steak boiled in tomato paste after seven years of working for various river rafters. So, when he started his own rafting company nearly 40 years ago in 1975, he joined hands with a Ketchum chef to develop gourmet recipes that could be prepared in 45 minutes or less. The next summer he and the chef, who hailed from one of Ketchum’s upscale restaurants, laid out spreads featuring filet with green peppercorn in cognac sauce, duck l’orange, chicken with lemon capers, beef Wellington and duck confit with ginger sauce that turned heads in the river-rafting world. “We absolutely floored people with the meals we served,” said Lentz, who lives in Ketchum when he’s not guiding people with Far and Away Adventures. “Up until then, river guides had a backpacker’s mentality. But I couldn’t stand eating that stuff. Living in Ketchum, I had an understanding of what people were raving about and we tried to play to those tastes in the dishes we tested.” Lentz and his crew—his wife Annie, daughter Tia and friend Ron Geuin—gave the curious a taste of what they can do right outside Carol’s Dollar Mountain Lodge Sunday morning. It was part of the third annual Sun Valley Harvest Festival’s annual River Guide Cooking Demonstration. Scooter Carling of Idaho River Journeys cooked up a Dutch-oven artichoke breakfast strata and sour cream coffeecake, while Brennan Rego prepared Spanish paella in cast-iron skillets. Lentz and his crew served a Dutch-oven baked French toast with praline topping, along with barbecued shrimp drizzled with chipotle butter, Kurobuta pork tenderloin topped with brandy sauce, Dutchoven cornbread pudding and roasted fingerling potatoes seasoned with rosemary sprigs and cooked in a Dutch oven. Lentz, who grew up in Central California, became enamored with whitewater rafting when his father took him on a rafting trip in Idaho in 1969. As soon as he came of age, he showed up on the doorstep of the guide who had taken them, looking for a job. “I’ve put 45,000 miles on my boat and I’ve traveled somewhere between one-and-a-half and two times around the Equator. And even after 38 years,
I’m still in love with it,” he said. “When I get out there, I feel like I’m walking into my living room. The furniture may get rearranged now and then but it’s still the same.” Early on. Lentz realized that it roughing it wasn’t going to attract people to whitewater rafting. And so he embraced the concept of glamping—glamorous camping. He worked with The North Face to develop a Cordura bag with a plastic liner that kept people’s personal items dry in the days before dry bags. He replaced the plastic triangular pup tents with a rope running through them with four-season tents. And he provided a soft mattress for his clients instead of the thin foam they had been sleeping on. Today, his crew sets up tents with elevated beds, carpets and nightstands before guests arrive at their destination. They prepare and serve organic meals on pre-heated stoneware atop linen-draped tables lit by candlelight. And they offer special trips, such as Wellness Weeks led by local fitness educator Margie Caldwell Cooper that include yoga, massage and bodywork sessions. And it’s paid off. Lentz’s Far and Away Adventures has scored mentions in the London Times, the Los Angeles Times, Condé Naste, the Boston Globe, Montreal Gazette and other publications. The Travel Channel included them in a piece on glamping last summer. They think they have The Food Network and at least one of the bestknown celebrity chefs in the nation on board for this coming summer. And they have plenty of repeat business from clients who wouldn’t think of going elsewhere. Sun Valley residents Roger and Joan Dermody, for instance, have gone rafting with them three times— taking themselves and 10 other family members on the river for their 50th wedding anniversary
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CLOC K W I S E F ROM LEFT: Far and Away Adventures offers its menu on an oar. Mozzarella bites and cherry tomatoes served in basil boats serve as tasty appetizers. River runner Brennan Rego prepares Spanish paella in cast-iron skillets.