By Rachel Hergett EBS COLUMNIST
Editor’s note: Big Sky PBR is produced by Outlaw Partners, publisher of Explore Big Sky.
Long before she makes her way to the kitchen, chef Emily Hahn is keen to know the ingredients that will go into her food.
“When I cook for you, it’s going to have a whole lotta love and a whole lotta local,” she said.
Chef Em, as Hahn is known, is recognizable as an alum of reality television show “Top Chef” and is now the chef/owner of Bozeman-based Mountain Provisions. Each meal she cooks is rooted in place and showcases ingredients from local producers while taking inspiration from global flavors. Chef Em prefers to chef on farms where she also has her hands in the dirt growing vegetables for the plate and was a commercial shrimper for four years, earning a captain’s license.
Chef Em came to Montana in the summer of 2022 to work with a chef she had met at a fly-fishing lodge in Patagonia. When the company downsized and the job ended, she went into “survival mode.” For Em, that meant finding a way to stay and cook in Montana. It meant branching out on her own.
By the end of the year, she had started Mountain Provisions and added Josie Goode-Smith to the team, though the true direction of the company was unclear.
“We kind of hit the pavement and just like frickin’ started going and let it organically become whatever it should be,” Hahn said.
The pair signed up for a booth at the Bozeman Winter Farmers Market, developing a following for their breakfast sandwiches—usually featuring Chef Em’s white cheddar pimento cheese. Private events trickled in, with more following a food festival at Bodhi Farms.
Around southwest Montana, Chef Em can be found making frequent trips to the farms and ranches that supply her food, spending hours driving to pick up ingredients. She isn’t one to tick the boxes on an order form and wait for a food delivery. She wants to know the field that grows the beets and the bees that make the honey.
“It’s important to me to pick it up and go and meet the farmers and shake hands and be connected,” she said.
When we catch up at the beginning of July, Em has just wrapped up a trip to city offices, sorting out permitting issues for a new commercial kitchen on Bozeman’s north side. She needs the space, but is run a bit ragged in the process.
“We’re finally making some headway, which is wonderful—and totally bad timing,” she said.
This summer, Chef Em is in the midst of a series of farm dinners, teaming with local producers to create spectacular meals on the land that helped bring them to life. And, the Big Sky PBR is upon us.
On July 18 and 19, Chef Em will lead the brigade to serve food to the VIP guests of the Big Sky PBR, available to all Golden Buckle ticket holders and those in sky boxes. But she didn’t call on just any help. With support of event producer Outlaw Partners and portable grill manufacturer Camp Chef, Em has made the event a working reunion of most her friends and fellow competitors from Season 14 of “Top Chef”: Silvia Barban, Shirley Chung, Jamie Lynch, Annie Pettry, Sheldon Simeon, BJ Smith, Jim Smith, Gerald Sombright, Sam Talbot, Katsuji Tanabe and Casey Thompson.
Almost a decade after filming season 14 in spring of 2016, the “Top Chef” contestants are like a family—with a WhatsApp group that sees daily chatter.
We chat about them for a bit. Yes, Sheldon is exactly the gem of a human you see on the show. Katsuji, known for his kosher Mexican cuisine, may need to come with a warning label for explicit language, Em said with a laugh, describing him as a good human with interesting culinary ideas. He plans to make bison and beef tacos with a “spicy AF” salsa.
“Top Chef” seasons usually revolve around the cuisine of a specific location in the U.S., and contestants are often tasked with challenges related to regional ingredients and dishes. The show often jets the final chefs off to international locales, but the bulk of challenges take place around that season’s home base. Em’s season was filmed in Charleston, South Carolina, an area she knew well. Though originally from Virginia, she spent 17 years “opening restaurants and running kitchens across the Lowcountry,” according to a bio for the Charleston Wine + Food festival.
Chef Em said she went on “Top Chef” to challenge herself: She would be cooking in front of cameras, with people and ingredients she had never met before. Even participating, she said, amounted to a “culinary gold medal.” The show very much portrayed her every struggle, leaning into the reality aspect when emotions were raw. She was eliminated in Episode 9. When I ask how she is different as a chef now, Em says she is braver and much more confident in her own cuisine and has placed much more focus on the idea of community through food.
For the upcoming PBR, Chef Em offered the other chefs a selection of local ingredients to highlight in their dishes. Proteins include a whole bison from North Bridger Bison, smoked tri-tip from Wickens Ranch, lambs and pigs, as well as Alaskan seafood caught by the Montana fisherpeople at Peelers Wild Alaska Seafood. Many, she said, have not cooked with bison.
On night one, Em will serve a Chance Farm carrot as a corn dog, breaded in Highland Harmony Farm purple barley flour and cornmeal, then topped with a hot honey and whipped goat cheese from Amaltheia Organic Dairy. She’s excited to see Brooklyn Italian chef Silvia work with local farro and the offering from “dumpling queen” Shirley. Each chef was tasked with leaning into the idea of a rodeo and the event’s inherent relationship with the land and its ingredients.
“Everyone out here is very connected to food and agriculture, and what an amazing way to tie it all together,” Chef Em said.
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.
