Soft opening a taste test ahead of planned November launch
By Rachel Hergett EBS COLUMNIST
Owner Kyle Anderson greets me as I enter the Big Sky Global Market, a small building next to the Country Market in the Big Sky Meadow Village. It’s Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the first day of the first soft opening—meant to test how a small specialty store will fare in the Big Sky market and assess the needs of the customers. Ingredients are grouped by type, rather than region. There’s a potato chip section, one for curries, one for pastas and one for sweets. I’m a bit overwhelmed at the selection and feel I could spend hours reading labels.
Then something happens, and I start listening. The items on the shelves are no longer individual ingredients, but larger stories representing the people who love them. Customers exclaim when they find a nostalgic treat on the shelves and share recipes using ingredients seemingly unique to Montana palates.
“One of the things that is most meaningful to people is cuisine,” Kyle tells me.
The Anderson family has been coming to Big Sky since the ’80s and Kyle has seen the community take on more international flavor, with workers, community members and visitors hailing from all over the world. For Kyle, this almost makes it seem more like home. His father was a Russian linguist, and the Anderson house seemed to be a revolving door of exchange students, foreign visitors and refugees.
“Our house was a bit of a UN,” Kyle said.
Growing up with a global ethos eventually led Kyle on his own explorations around the world. Before going into business, Kyle was an academic, researching cultural interactions across continents while living in Italy for three years.
However, this sort of exposure does not mean he developed an early appreciation for international cuisine. Kyle admits that prior to living in Italy, his own tastes were limited. He wasn’t a fan of tomatoes, olives or mushrooms—and very well could have starved in Italy if he hadn’t expanded his palate. Now he laughs, trying to picture Italian food without those three ingredients, and recounts a pair of dishes he would have once avoided that are now seared into his brain—a grilled squash raviolo in a butter cream sauce and pesto gnocchi. Kyle started watching how the Italians cooked, and cooking for himself. He spent long hours savoring meals at Italian tables, and by the time he moved on, had taken on a different attitude around food.
Kyle’s food universe grew as he expanded his reach. He talks of years as a professor of Chinese, living in Shanghai and Beijing, of leading international programs in Strasbourg on the border of France and Germany, and of time spent in Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia.
“It was a fun kind of life as a professor, and it exposed me to the world,” he said.
The store holds a vast selection of offerings, though currently tending toward European flavors. I’m swayed by the tastings near the entry—bits of bread to sample with olive oil and vinegar, and cut up rolls and pastries. When I spot the Clementine-infused olive oil, it immediately goes into my basket. I pick up some fancy Serrano ham, a Spanish sandwich staple I have written about before. Then a bottle of blackcurrant syrup finds its way into my purchase pile. It’s a product of France, but one that very much reminds me of living in England, where cider and blackcurrant was my typical pub order.
Kyle would like The Big Sky Global Market to work with existing businesses, not in competition with them. There are other places to get basic groceries, like the Country Market next door—a grocery store owned by his mother, Lynne Anderson. The Big Sky Global Market will lean toward high-end ingredients that a person is unlikely to encounter elsewhere in the area. He’s also considering adding the dry goods and appliances necessary for different dishes—like sushi-rolling or fondue-dipping kits. And while European flavors seem to dominate, Kyle has started a list of suggestions from customers for what they would like to see in the future, and is already considering a Latin market in one small room and the aforementioned sushi-adjacent offerings.
We will have to see what it becomes. Another soft opening is set for the third weekend of October. The Big Sky Global Market will open daily sometime around Thanksgiving and the start of the season in November.
As I wander the aisles, I listen in as an Italian native and Big Sky local named Giovanni chats with other customers about pasta and sauce. San Marzano tomatoes are renowned for their flavor, even in Italy, he says, gesturing toward the cans on the shelf. Next is an explanation of pasta shapes and how they grasp sauces. Giovanni doesn’t work in the store, but the openness he showed in sharing his knowledge seems to be an early theme.
I linger in the store, chatting with Kyle and various visitors. Sure, it’s the very first day of business, but I am already seeing something beautiful here. Here, we are given a chance to recount our travels, to share where we encountered these items and how we use them. People are connecting over the food. Somehow, a market that attempts to cultivate a vast global perspective has already created a sense of community.
Rachel Hergett is a foodie and cook from Montana. She is arts editor emeritus at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and has written for publications such as Food Network Magazine and Montana Quarterly. Rachel is also the host of the Magic Monday Show on KGLT-FM and teaches at Montana State University.
