About Kennedy Ranch

My family has been ranching in Elko County, Nevada since the US Civil War, first in Clover Valley and, since the 1930's, in Lamoille.

Our place was about as old school as it comes, and we were a traditional cow-calf business - raising calves for sale into the commodity marketplace, eventually to end up in restaurants and grocery stores, a long ways downstream from us. The kids grew up working alongside our parents and our neighbors, and learned early the taste of dust, the smell of horse sweat, the bawling of a cow herd mothering up.

When Dad died in 2005, and it became clear that I was going to be the Kennedy bringing the ranch into the future, it was obvious that we were going to have to change our business model or sell out. If we pay commodity prices for the stuff we need, and sell for the commodity price dictated by the marketplace, the people on either side of that equation were going to make the money and we were going to go broke.

So we opted out, became a pasture-based direct-to-customer operation, and Kennedy Ranch Home Grown Meats was born.

It was a lot of work, and a hell of a ride. We met incredible people who loved the things we were doing and the meats we produced. We built the soil, built a farmer's market, were one of the founders of the farm-to-fork movement in our area. Working with local producers and restaurateurs, we created a wildly successful farm-to-fork dinner series, and we introduced guests to the ranching lifestyle with a very popular AirBnB. We met people from around the country struggling with the same challenges we faced, and kept building the genetics in our herd into something one respected chef told us was "the best beef west of the Mississippi." Another, legendary chef said ours was the best chicken he had ever tasted. Ever.

I have no kids and it's time to pass the torch, and the tradition will carry on in new ways. Until then, I'm posting up some of my favorite recipes, some shared by our customers and others cobbled together by me... if for no other reason than I'll always have access to recipes that I know work, wherever I go in the world. I hope you enjoy them too.