Meet The Restaurateurs Fighting To Save The Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument
Standing between peach and cherry trees on her 6.5-acre Utah farm, Blake Spalding points to the Kaiparowits Plateau. The looming bluff is dotted with thousand-year-old pinyon pine and juniper trees.
"That is one of the areas they're hoping to mine," she tells a group of visiting chefs from Salt Lake City. "It's full of dinosaur fossils and more than 650 documented species of wild bees."
Nearly 20 years ago, Spalding and her business partner, Jen Castle, founded in Boulder, Utah, on the edge of the then-newly designated about 250 miles south of Salt Lake City. The remote and sustainable restaurant has become a destination for culinary travelers seeking a taste of its terroir-driven fare. It's an amalgam of Mormon pioneer, Western range cowboy and traditional Southwest flavors,
